How Tennessee Williams fought to stage his finest work

To James "Jay" Laughlin [founder of New Directions Publishing Corporation - TW's "literary conscience"]

April 9, 1947

Dear Jay:

I was afraid you had decided that I was "Derriere garde" and crossed me off your list. The heat and dampness are descending on New Orleans and it is like a Turkish bath only not as socially inspiring. So I am wondering whether to go East or West. From the looks of things generally, one would do well to get clear out of the country and stay out for at least the opening stages of "The American Century". I have a feeling that if we survive the next ten years, there will be a great purgation, and this country will once more have the cleanest air on earth, but right now there seems to be an unspeakable foulness. All the people at the controls are opportunists or gangsters.

I have done a lot of work, finished two long plays. One of them, laid in New Orleans, A Streetcar Called [sic] Desire, turned out quite well. It is a strong play, closer to Battle of Angels than any of my other work, but is not what critics call "pleasant". In fact, it is pretty unpleasant. But Audrey is enthusiastic about it and we already have a producer "in the bag". A lady named Irene Selznick... Her chief apparent advantage is that she seems to have millions. Audrey says that she also has good taste. Of course I am skeptical... I recognize the danger of working with a Female Moneybags from Hollywood but Audrey claims the woman is "safe" and will give an "all-out" production, which is what the play requires to put it over. Unfortunately we have fallen out with Dowling and the main problem is to find a really strong but fastidious director. (And a good female star)...

Ever, Tennessee

To Audrey Wood [TW's agent]

August 29, 1947.

Dear Audrey:

... I can't tell you what a relief it is that we have found such a God-sent Stanley in the person of Brando. It had not occurred to me before what an excellent value would come through casting a very young actor in this part. It humanizes the character of Stanley in that it becomes the brutality or callousness of youth rather than a vicious older man. I don't want to focus guilt or blame particularly on any one character but to have it a tragedy of misunderstandings and insensitivity to others. A new value came out of Brando's reading which was by far the best reading I have ever heard. He seemed to have already created a dimensional character, of the sort that the war has produced among young veterans. This is a value beyond any that Garfield could have contributed, and in addition to his gifts as an actor he has great physical appeal and sensuality, at least as much as Burt Lancaster. When Brando is signed I think we will have a really remarkable 4-star cast, as exciting as any that could possibly be assembled and worth all the trouble that we have gone through. Having him instead of a Hollywood star will create a highly favorable impression as it will remove the Hollywood stigma that seemed to be attached to the production.

We had a full house this week, Joanna, Margo [Jones, Broadway director] and Marlon in addition to Pancho and I. Things were so badly arranged that Margo and Brando had to sleep in the same room. I believe they behaved themselves - the fools!... Also the plumbing went bad so we had to go out in the bushes. I had a violent quarrel with the plumber over the phone so he would not come out. Also the electric wiring broke down and "plunged us into everlasting darkness". All this at once! Oh, and the kitchen was flooded! Marlon arrived in the middle of this domestic cataclysm and set everything straight. That, however, is not what determined me to give him the part.

With love, Tennessee

To Amado "Pancho" Rodriguez y Gonzalez [TW's lover]

[November 1947]

Dear Pancho:

I expect I'll see you in New York early this week, and I sincerely hope that I'll find you in a pleasant and reasonable state of mind. I myself am so tired that it is impossible for me right now to cope with unreasonable moods. In my life there has been so much real tragedy, things that I cannot speak about and hardly dare to remember, from the time of my childhood and all the way through the years in between that I lack patience with people who are spoiled and think that they are entitled to go through life without effort and without sacrifice and without disappointment. Life is hard. But more than that, it calls for understanding, one person understanding another person, and for some measure of sacrifice, too. Very few people learn until late in life how much courage it takes to live, but if you learn it in the beginning, it will be easier for you. Excuse me for preaching. I am not a good preacher and perhaps I have no right to. But I feel concerned for you, worried over your lack of purpose. You have so much more than I have in so many ways. Your youth, your health and energy, your many social graces which I do not have. Life can hold a great deal for you, it can be very rich and abundant if you are willing to make some effort and to stop thinking and acting altogether selfishly.

In this world the key to happiness is through giving, more than getting. For instance when you see that someone needs peace more than anything else, needs quietness and a sense of security, you cannot expect to involve that person in continual turmoil and tension and anxiety and still have him cherishing your companionship all the time. No, for his own protection if he wishes to go on living and working, he must withdraw sometime from these exhausting conditions. One does not suffer alone. It is nearly always two who suffer, but sometimes one places all the blame on the other.

Of all the people I have known you have the greatest and warmest heart but you also unfortunately have a devil in you that is constantly working against you, filling you with insane suspicions and jealousies and ideas that are so preposterous that one does not know how to answer them. It is a terrifying thing. You must face it and make a determined effort to master it now before it becomes too well-established. Try to understand all those whom you get these foolish prejudices against. If you know them you'll see how wrong you are and laugh at yourself. Most of all - get busy at something. Then you will regain your self-confidence and independence and you will take a man's place in the world.

You know that my affection for you and my loyalty to you as a friend remains unalterable and that while I am alive you will have my true friendship always with you.

Ever, Tennessee.

To Edwina Dakin Williams

[late November 1947]

Dear Mother:

I am glad you and Dakin have decided to come up for the opening. Forewarned is forearmed so you will be prepared for a rugged evening in the theatre. Most of the ladies seem to enjoy the play a great deal and one of the Boston Cabots, a lady of* * great refinement, wrote me that she was " inexpressibly delighted" by the street-car ride I gave her in Boston.

I shall not listen to any moral homilies and dissertations so please leave them at home, but do bring a Spanish shawl with you, one of those that Grandfather purchased in Italy. We have been trying to get one for the play and have had no luck as they are no longer fashionable. I will see that Madame Selznick gives you several times the purchase price for it. I love to spend her money. I have been staying in luxurious suites at the best hotels on the road, as it is all out of her fifteen million dollars and I think she needs every possible assistance in reducing that all but intolerable burden.

With love, Tom

To "Jay" Laughlin

December 4, 1947]

Streetcar opened last night to tumultuous approval. Never witnessed such an exciting evening... Packed house, of the usual first-night decorations - Cecil B'ton, Valentina, D. Parker, the Selznicks, and so on - and with a slow warm-up for first act, and comments like "Well, of course, it isn't a play," the second act sent the audience zowing to mad heights, and the final one left them - and me - wilted, gasping, weak, befoozled, drained (see reviews for more words) and then an uproar of applause which went on and on. Almost no one rose from a seat till many curtains went up on whole cast, the 4 principles, then [Jessica] Tandy, who was greeted by a great howl of "Bravo!" from truly all over the house. Then repeat of the whole curtain schedule to Tandy again and finally...

10 Wms crept on stage, after calls of Author! and took bows with Tandy. All was great, great, GREAT! As you can see by the reviews enclosed. Will send from evening papers tomorrow. 20th-Century Fox has already called for a copy. I want to go to play again! Bielenson is printing it this minute and shd be bound and ready next week. E says that [there] are many many orders already, and with the success, we think we shd bind all 5,000. What do you?...

T. Williams

To Gore Vidal

ca. April 25, 1948]

Bright eyes!

This is glorious news about the play. Glorious plays are not usually written in such a short time, but Saroyan did it so why not you.

I am glad you did not have carnal associations in Cairo, not only because it would have interfered with the glorious work but because I kept thinking, If Gore is not careful he will catch one of those things from the dirty Egyptians...

The sky is serenely blue, the light is golden. It is the sort of Roman day that we will remember all of these days being when we are back in the States.

I close now with an affectionate and mildly libidinous kiss on your soft under lip which I never kissed.

Ever fondly, Tennessee

To Irene Mayer Selznick [theatre producer, Streetcar]

Mid-February 1949]

Dear Irene:

... I had a hard time composing the cable about the English production. You are very, very persuasive about Mr. Olivier and Mme. his wife. You have evidently given the matter a great deal of consideration, and I am glad to see that you have included in your consideration that Mme. Olivier has not yet given us a ghost of an idea of her latent dramatic powers. But I believe, as you do, that Mr. Olivier is a smart cookie who would not want Vivien to lay anything bigger than ostrich egg on the London stage even in a play by an American author... I still think an American company would be far better. However if the production is put off until 1950, the chances are that interest in the play would be considerably depleted and also that I might not be able to see it or want to if I could... The prestige of an Olivier production would certainly be enormous and every bit as intriguing to me as to anyone else. If only we could be devastatingly frank with Sir Laurence, and say, Honey, we want you but could do without her! ...

I place it, like Pilate, in your hands, but please remember what a beating I took last summer in the London press and see that everything possible is done to protect us and the play, as distinct from Sir Laurence and his lady! And have it stated in the contract that no mention is to be made in the press of my figure being "short & squatty".

Love - 10.

To Joseph Ignatius Breen [administrator of Hollywood's production code]

October 29, 1950

Dear Mr. Breen:

Mr. Kazan has just informed me that objections have been raised about the "rape scene" in Streetcar and I think perhaps it might be helpful for me to clarify the meaning and importance of this scene... Streetcar is an extremely and peculiarly moral play, in the deepest and truest sense of the term. This fact is so well known that a misunderstanding of it now at this late date would arouse widespread attention and indignation.

The rape of Blanche by Stanley is a pivotal, integral truth in the play, without which the play loses its meaning, which is the ravishment of the tender, the sensitive, the delicate by the savage and brutal forces in modern society. It is a poetic plea for comprehension... I know what taste is and what vulgarity is. I have drawn a very sharp and clear line between the two in all of the plays that I have had presented. I have never made an appeal to anything "low" or "cheap" in my plays and I would rather die than do so. Elia Kazan has directed Streetcar both on the stage and the screen, with inspired understanding of its finest values and an absolute regard for taste and propriety... I am really amazed that any question should arise about censorship. Please remember that even in notoriously strict Boston, where the play tried out before Broadway, there was no attack on it by any responsible organ of public opinion, and on the screen the spiritual values of the play have been accentuated much more than they could be on the stage.

The poetically beautiful and touching performance of a great visiting artist, Vivien Leigh, has dominated the picture and given it a stature which surpasses that of the play. A Streetcar Named Desire is one of the truly great American films and one of the very few really moral films that have come out of Hollywood. To mutilate it, now, by forcing, or attempting to force, disastrous alterations in the essential truth of it would serve no good end that I can imagine...

We will use every legitimate means that any of us has at his or her disposal to protect the things in this film which we think cannot be sacrificed, since we feel that it contains some very important truths about the world we live in.

Sincerely,

To Elia "Gadg" Kazan [director, Streetcar]

April 3, 1957.

Dear Gadg:

... I have been living for years with an always partially and sometimes completely "blocked" talent, which was only quite free in Streetcar and for the very special reason that I thought I was dying, and that thought eclipsed the anxiety which had always blocked my talent. Of course I was ten years younger, then, too. We know what youth is, don't we? However I came back with Cat and it could happen again. I still hope that it will...

I think we know each other, despite the huge differences in our natures, so well that we can't hurt each other. Maybe the correspondences in our natures are bigger than the differences, after all...

Here is my program: have a complete change this summer, go to Japan and Hong Kong and so forth. In the Fall, take up residence again in New Orleans, and start analysis there if I still feel I need it and there is a good analyst there. Try to kick the liquor habit or cut down on it. I'm not an alcoholic, I almost never get drunk, but I do drink too much and my working hours in the morning are affected by resulting hang-overs and depression. Cultivate a cooler, more objective attitude toward my work, and recapture some of my earlier warmth and openness in relation to people, which began to go when I began to be famous.

Love, Tenn.

Extracted from The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams Volume II published by Oberon Books at £25.00. Edited by Albert J Devlin, co-edited by Nancy M Tischler. © 2004 by The University of The South. www.oberonbooks.com

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