Examine the relation between words and action in the stagecraft of Tennessee Williams

University Degree Linguistics, Classics and related subjects

‘I think of writing as something more organic that words, something closer to being and action’

Examine the relation between words and action in the stagecraft of Tennessee Williams.

In ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’, Tennessee Williams uses the direct genre of drama to ‘snare the truth of human experience’. Although his main themes are sexual repression, communication breakdowns, and scandal, this essay will explain how he explores the more organic themes of defiance towards society’s conventions, human relationships, and the uroboros cycle of life. He deliberately designs characters that are not entirely definable, in order to reflect reality accurately, and uses theatrical devices such as speech, movement and set, to realise the ‘how’ rather than the ‘why’ of human behaviour. Williams constructs a powerful relationship between words and actions; they conflict and collaborate to portray the thoughts and emotions of the characters, and create an atmosphere of awkward ambivalence, which offers the audience an insight into the work.

Williams begins to establish an underlying sense of mystery in characters, which is reflected and enhanced by unanswered questions evoked by the play. For example, Brick is referred to as Big Mama’s only child, which infers that she may not consider Gooper as family, and there is the possibility is that he is illegitimate, but this concept is not alluded to within the play. One could argue that this insinuation relates to when Brick blames ‘mendacity’ for his alcoholism, as the subject of secrets and lies reoccurs throughout the play as a cause of destructive tension within the family – Big Daddy’s condition, Skipper’s secret -, but more obviously Williams is capturing the reality by retaining some revelations from the audience. One of the most prominently undefined characters in the play is Brick, who is described in the First Act by the following comprehensive stage direction where Brick is:

[…hanging on the towel rack because one ankle is broken, plastered and bound. He is still firm as a boy. Liquor hasn’t started to tear him down outside. He has the additional charm of that cool air of detachment that people have who have given up the struggle. But now and then, when disturbed something flashes behind it.]

The audience have the initial impression of a strong athletic man with an amiable disposition, but the detrimental effect of his alcoholism is beginning to penetrate his appearance. The physically weakening effect of his drunken antics causes him to rely on furniture or a crutch, and Williams makes the obvious parallel that he is employing liquor as an emotional stabiliser. Yet, although many explanations are offered, such as Maggie’s betrayal of him, his lost youth, and Skipper’s confession and his death, there is no definitive reason for his drinking. Brick’s attainment of ‘detachment’ and the hostile connotations of the word ‘flashes’ invite conflict, which is particularly relevant in relation to his sexual orientation. Brick relationship with Maggie could be interpreted as turbulent, but the vast majority of his gestures and speech with her lack the passion to be accurately perceived in this way. However, although the stage directions state that he replies to her elongated speeches with ‘indifference’, and his movements throughout her speeches are leisurely, the fact that he speaks at all suggests some remnants of feeling, yet one could attribute his behaviour to Williams’ wish to realise Brick’s attitude towards her verbally. Jean Gould describes Brick as having ‘formidable passivity’, and in some respects, one can interpret Brick’s disinterest in Maggie and the rest of the world as a weapon, but alternative explanation is that his pain, built on confusion, lies and betrayal, has rendered him emotionally redundant. The result of the onstage dynamic between the characters is an atmosphere of discomfort and dejection. The change in Brick’s behaviour occurs when Maggie attempts to explain her betrayal of sleeping with Skipper; his actions and speech become animated and threatening, as he is enraged by Maggie’s dispersions on the nature of his relationship with Skipper. Although, he protests that he cannot be homosexual as he married Maggie, he later reveals that she coerced him into wedlock, and in contrast, describes the gentle gestures that he and Skipper shared, for example, they would talk and then reach across the space between the beds to shake hands. Yet, even when his actions and words are threatening Maggie, his passion is not for her, his voice is calm, for example in the following excerpt:

Brick: [turns to face her, half lifting his crutch] Maggie, you want me to hit you

with this crutch? Don’t you know I could kill you with this crutch?

(Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, I, 24-26)

This is a preview of the whole essay

Brick: [turns to face her, half lifting his crutch] Maggie, you want me to hit you

with this crutch? Don’t you know I could kill you with this crutch?

(Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, I, 24-26)

These actions are one of the first to indicate the hope that he is becoming part of the onstage action, but his use of rhetorical questions devised to prevent Maggie continuing, suggest that he is detaching again. The tone implied is cold and condescending, caused by the monosyllabic menace of his words, however when he realises his threat he does not speak – as if Maggie is too insignificant to reason further – while he ‘thrusts at her with his crutch’ before throwing it across the bed at her. The bed had previously contained Big Daddy’s business partners and the former owners of the house, who were a gay, and who had died in the bed that sits intrusively between Maggie and Brick as a looming reminder. One could argue that Brick’s radically altered behaviour, initiated by Skipper’s memory, masks his true sexual orientation or that due to the enforced stereotype of society at that time, coupled with his family’s expectations of him, that he may not be conscious of his sexuality. Williams constructs this confusion, through conflicting actions and words, as a possible explanation for the tension within this relationship and others within the work, but also to intensify the ambiguity – as even the playwright may not have made a concrete conclusion –, while exploring the pressure of social conventions.

The characters in ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ rebel against their traditional roles within society and within a family. Williams communicates a virtue in the characters’ inability to be categorised, one example is Big Mama’s remark to Maggie in the First Act:

Big Mama: Something’s not right! You’re childless and my son drinks!

[Someone has called her downstairs and she has rushed to the door on the line above. She turns at the door and points at the bed]

When a marriage is on the rocks, the rocks are there, right there!

(Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, I, 1-4)

Big Mama’s words are strongly exclaimed accusations are undermined by her flustered and ‘rushed’ movement. Williams uses the repetition of ‘right there’, and the excited pointing to solidify her conviction, but the image ‘on the rocks’ with its connotations of his alcoholism and its multifaceted explanations, is ironical as it reflects Big Daddy’s words when he tells Brick not to ‘throw rocks’ by jumping to conclusions. Williams uses the relationship between the fertile Mae, who is expecting her sixth child, and Gooper, who does not drink, as a direct parallel, as there is no tenderness in their words and gestures towards one another or their children, whom they use as a tool in their unscrupulous scheme to obtain Big Daddy’s fortune. The audience finds such morally reprehensible characters unsympathetic and side with the more honest, if problematic couple, which shows the success of Williams’ attempt to capture true experience and attribute it with virtue. Another intriguing example is way in which the subverted representation of the children amplifies the turbulent family relations. Bearing children is deemed the definitive answer to marital problems, yet Williams uses Maggie to create a disdainful portrait of them, while Mae abuses their presence, and their shouts and screams, coupled with the violence inflicted by and upon them, intersperse the action and create a sense of destruction. In the First Act, they strive to obtain an archery set, and when Maggie is desperately confirming her vitality, Dixie intrusively ‘bursts into the room…. firing a cap pistol’ at her. While in the third act, Big Mama trails off as she exclaims that ‘the responsibilities of fatherhood will - ’, provoking the concept that although parenthood is a responsibility within society, it only underlines the anxieties in one’s character and relationships. The child/parent dynamic is also scrutinised between other family members. Gooper is not considered ‘family’, and although Brick is marked as a golden child, and despite both parents protest that they feel genuine emotions for him, when the opportunity for physical contact arises, they show hesitation, awkwardness, and ‘shyness’, making a mockery of the parental descriptions attributed to them as names.

Williams develops the impression of claustrophobic isolation in the frustrated characters through the implementation of technical devices such as setting and props. The production is set in a substantial and exquisitely furnished bed – sitting – room in a large plantation house which, through rare appliances like the television and stereo system, introduces the audience to the sense of affluence, while the room’s lack of definition exposes it to the inescapable aspect of tension and ambiguity. Williams uses the fixtures in an innovative and representational manner, for example, the bar allows Brick to realise his alcoholism onstage, but is also indicative of his character and of his relationship with Maggie, as he leans on the bar rather than her or the bed. The room is Maggie and Brick’s bedroom and, despite the inferred vastness of the estate, it is also the background for all the onstage action, therefore poignant pieces of furniture remain as a looming reminder, imparting a sense of pressure and inevitability. Williams compares the atmosphere to a detaining ‘aviary’ and a ‘birdcage’, which one can relate to the localised physical space, the suffocating situations that they create for themselves – like Big Daddy’s greed and Brick’s alcoholism – , and the imprisoning structure of their words and gestures.

Each act begins with this stage direction, ‘there is no lapse in time’, which is realised by the continual change of lighting to indicate the passing of a solitary day, yet the audience is left with the notion that the emotions and circumstances of this day are perpetually looped. There is no evidence of a pending, conclusive climax; we know that the difficulties within the characters and relationships will not be resolved through their repetitive speech and gestures that display Williams’ triumph of capturing the ‘human experience’. For example, there are parallels made between the marriage of Big Mama and Big Daddy, and Brick and Maggie. The men are attributed with an air of detachment that prevents them from truly loving another, and the women continue to love the man that rejects them, and especially their humour. It is therefore sadly comical that Maggie intends to remedy all the tension by making ‘a lie come true’ through carrying Brick’s child. It is reminiscent of the way that Skipper attempted to make a truth become a lie, it is also tarnished with mourning, as it is the bed where the gay couple died, and the evidence of future grandparents’ relationship indicates that it will inevitably fail. This aspect of inevitability is relevant to other certainties in the play. For example, the audience are aware that Mae and Gooper are plotting something concerning Big Daddy’s death, initially through Maggie’s implication, and then by her recreation of their hushed signals at the dinner table, which are later repeated before they inform Big Mama of his true health issues and produce plans to take over the estate. The couples’ behaviour, the repetition of ‘cancer’ and its conflicting definition, the ‘spastic colon’, collaborate with the troubled expressions and Big Daddy’s visual physical pain, insinuate his pending death.

It has been established that a close relationship exists between Williams’ use of words and actions for his effective and evocative stagecraft. He uses theatrical devices such as setting, to construct an isolated representational stage that expresses and influences the attitudes and emotions of the characters, while providing an insight into events and aid this sense of inevitability. He couples the devises with speech and movement that cooperate and conflict to reveal the characters’ attitudes and intentions, in order to explore relationships, social conventions, the cycle like nature of life, and produce a realistic depiction of ‘human experience’.

Word Count: 2030

Bibliography

Jean Gould, Modern American Playwrights, (The Cornwall Press, Inc., 1966)

Lennard, John and Luckhurst, Mary, The Drama Handbook: A Guide to Reading

Plays, (Oxford University Press, 2002)

Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and other plays, (Penguin Books, 2001)

Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and other plays, (Penguin Books, 2001) pp. 75

Jean Gould, Modern American Playwrights, (The Cornwall Press, Inc., 1966) pp. 246