A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur

PLAYS

Baby Doll & Tiger Tail

Camino Real

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Clothes for a Summer Hotel

Dragon Country

The Glass Menagerie

A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur

Not About Nightingales

The Notebook of Trigorin

The Red Devil Battery Sign

Small Craft Warnings

Something Cloudy, Something Clear

Spring Storm

Stopped Rocking and Other Screen Plays

A Streetcar Named Desire

Sweet Bird of Youth

THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME I

Battle of Angels, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie

THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME II

The Eccentricities of a Nightingale, Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo, Camino Real

THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME III

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, Suddenly Last Summer

THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME IV

Sweet Bird of Youth, Period of Adjustment, The Night of the Iguana

THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME V

The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, Kingdom of Earth (The Seven Descents of Myrtle), Small Craft Warnings, The
Two-Character
Play

THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME VI

27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Short Plays

THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME VII

In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel and Other Plays

THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME VIII

Vieux Carré, A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, Clothes for a Summer Hotel, The Red Devil Battery Sign

27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays

The
Two-Character
Play

Vieux Carré

POETRY

Androgyne, Mon Amour

In the Winter of Cities

PROSE

Collected Stories
Hard Candy and Other Stories
One Arm and Other Stories
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
Where I Live: Selected Essays

By Tennessee Williams

Scene One

Scene Two

A Lovely Sunday
for Creve Coeur

The New York premiere of
A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur
took place at the Hudson Guild Theatre on January 10, 1979. It was directed by Keith Hack; set design by John Conklin; lighting design by Craig Miller; costume design by Linda Fisher; producing director, Craig Anderson. The cast in order of appearance was as follows:

DOROTHEA:
WHY DIDN’T YOU GET THAT PHONE?

BODEY
[
rising and going to the kitchenette at the right
]: Where, where, what, what phone?

DOROTHEA:
Is there more than one phone here? Are there several other phones I haven’t discovered as yet?

BODEY:
—Dotty
, I think these
setting-up
exercises get you overexcited, emotional, I mean.

DOROTHEA
[
continuing
]: That phone was ringing and I told you when I woke up that I was expecting a phone call from Ralph Ellis who told me he had something very important to tell me and would phone me today before noon.

BODEY:
Sure, he had something to tell you but he didn’t.

DOROTHEA:
Bodey, you are not hearing, or comprehending, what I’m saying at all. Your face is a dead giveaway. I said Ralph
Ellis—you’ve
heard me speak of Ralph?

BODEY:
Oh, yes, Ralph, you speak continuously of him, that name Ralph Ellis is one I got fixed in my head so I could never forget it.

DOROTHEA:
Oh, you mean I’m not permitted to mention the name Ralph Ellis to you?

BODEY
[
preparing fried chicken in the kitchenette
]: Dotty, when two girls are sharing a small apartment, naturally each of the girls should feel perfectly free to speak of whatever concerns her. I don’t think it’s possible for two girls sharing a small apartment
not
to speak of whatever concerns her
whenever—whatever
—concerns
her, but, Dotty, I know that I’m not your older sister. However, if I was, I would have a suspicion that you have got a crush on this Ralph Ellis, and as an older sister, I’d feel obliged to advise you to, well, look before you
leap in that direction. I mean just don’t put all your eggs in one basket till you are one hundred percent convinced that the basket is the right one, that’s all I mean. . . . Well, this is a lovely Sunday for a picnic at Creve Coeur. . . . Didn’t you notice out at Creve Coeur last Sunday how Buddy’s slimmed down round the middle?

DOROTHEA:
No, I didn’t.

BODEY:
Huh?

DOROTHEA:
Notice.

BODEY:
Well, it was noticeable, Dotty.

DOROTHEA:
Bodey, why should I be interested in whatever
fractional—fluctuations—occur
in your twin brother’s
waistline—as
if it was the Wall Street market and I was a heavy investor?

BODEY:
You mean you don’t care if Buddy shapes up or not?

DOROTHEA:
Shapes up for what?

BODEY:
Nacherly for you, Dotty.

DOROTHEA:
Does he regard me as an athletic event, the high jump or pole vault? Please, please, Bodey, convince him his shape does not concern me at all.

BODEY:
Buddy don’t discuss his work with me often, but lately he said his boss at
Anheuser-Busch
has got an eye on him.

DOROTHEA:
How could his boss ignore such a sizeable
object?—Bodey
, what are you up to in that cute little kitchenette?

BODEY:
Honey, I stopped by
Piggly-Wiggly’s
yesterday noon
when I got off the streetcar on the way home from the office, and I picked up three beautiful fryers, you know, nice and plump fryers.

DOROTHEA:
I’d better remain out here till Ralph calls back, so I can catch it myself. [
She lies on the purple carpet and begins another series of formalized exercises
.]

BODEY:
The fryers are sizzling so loud I didn’t catch that, Dotty. You know, now that the office lets out at noon Saturday, it’s easier to lay in supplies for Sunday. I think that Roosevelt did something for the country when he got us half Saturdays off because it used to be that by the time I got off the streetcar from International Shoe,
Piggly-Wiggly’s
on the corner would be closed, but now it’s still wide open. So I went in
Piggly-Wiggly’s
, I went to the meat department and I said to the nice old man, Mr. Butts, the butcher, “Mr. Butts, have you got any real nice
fryers?”—“You
bet your life!” he said, “I must of been expectin’ you to drop in. Feel these nice plump fryers.” Mr. Butts always lets me feel his meat. The feel of a piece of meat is the way to test it, but there’s very few modern butchers will allow you to feel it. It’s the German in me. I got to feel the meat to know it’s good. A piece of meat can look good over the counter but to know for sure I always want to feel it. Mr. Butts, being German, he understands that, always says to me, “Feel it, go on, feel it.” So I felt the fryers. “Don’t they feel good and fresh?” I said, “Yes, Mr. Butts, but will they keep till tomorrow?” “Haven’t you got any ice in your icebox?” he asked me. I said to him, “I hope so, but ice goes fast in hot weather. I told the girl that shares my apartment with me to put up the card for a
twenty-five
pound lump of ice but sometimes she forgets to.” Well, thank goodness, this time you didn’t forget to. You always got so much on your mind in the morning, civics
and—other
things at the high school.
—What
are you laughin’ at, Dotty? [
She turns around to glance at Dorothea who is covering her mouth to stifle breathless sounds of laughter
.]

DOROTHEA:
Honestly, Bodey, I think you missed your calling. You should be in Congress to deliver a filibuster. I never knew it was possible to talk at such length about ice and a butcher.

BODEY:
Well, Dotty, you know we agreed when you moved in here with me that I would take care of the shopping. We’ve kept good books on expenses. Haven’t we kept good books? We’ve never had any argument over expense or disagreements between us over what I should shop for.
—OW!

DOROTHEA:
Now what?

BODEY:
The skillet spit at me. Some hot grease flew in my face. I’ll put bakin’ soda on it.

DOROTHEA:
So you are really and truly frying chickens in this terrible heat?

BODEY:
And boiling eggs, I’m going to make deviled eggs, too. Dotty, what is it? You sound hysterical, Dotty!

DOROTHEA
[
half strangled with laughter
]: Which came first, fried chicken or deviled
eggs?—I
swear to goodness, you do the funniest things. Honestly, Bodey, you are a source of continual astonishment and amusement to me. Now, Bodey, please suspend this culinary frenzy until the phone rings again so you can hear it this time before it stops ringing for me.

BODEY:
Dotty, I was right here and that phone was not ringin’. I give you my word that phone was not makin’ a sound. It was quiet as a mouse.

DOROTHEA:
Why, it was ringing its head off!

BODEY:
Dotty, about some things everyone is mistaken, and this is something you are mistaken about. I think your exercises give you a ringing noise in your head. I think they’re too
strenuous for you, ’specially on Sunday, a day of rest, recreation . . .

DOROTHEA:
We are both entitled to separate opinions, Bodey, but I assure you I do not suffer from ringing in my head. That phone was RINGING. And why you did not hear it is simply because you don’t have your hearing aid on!

BODEY:
I honestly ain’t that deaf. I swear I ain’t that deaf, Dotty. The ear specialist says I just got this little calcification, this calcium in
my—eardrums
. But I do hear a telephone ring, a sharp, loud sound like that, I hear it, I hear it clearly.

DOROTHEA:
Well, let’s hope Ralph won’t imagine I’m out and will call back in a while. But do put your hearing aid in. I don’t share your confidence in your hearing a phone ring or a dynamite blast without it, and anyway, Bodey, you must adjust to it, you must get used to it, and after a while, when you’re accustomed to it, you won’t feel complete without it.

BODEY:
—Yes
,
well— This
is the best Sunday yet for a picnic at Creve Coeur . . .

DOROTHEA:
That we’ll talk about later. Just put your hearing aid in before I continue with my exercises. Put it in right now so I can see you.

BODEY:
You still ain’t finished with those exercises?

DOROTHEA:
I’ve done one hundred bends and I did my floor exercises. I just have these bust development exercises and my swivels
and—BODEY!
PUT YOUR HEARING AID IN!

BODEY:
I hear you, honey, I will. I’ll put it on right now.

DOROTHEA:
It can’t be that difficult to insert it. Why, from your expression, you could be performing major surgery on yourself! . . . without anesthesia . . .

BODEY:
I’m
just—not
used to it yet. [
She covers the defective ear with an artificial chrysanthemum
.]

DOROTHEA
[
in the doorway
]: You keep reminding yourself of it by covering it up with those enormous artificial flowers. Now if you feel you have to do that, why don’t you pick out a flower that’s suitable to the season? Chrysanthemums are for autumn and this is June.

BODEY:
Yes. June. How about this poppy?

DOROTHEA:
Well, frankly, dear, that big poppy is tacky.

BODEY:
—The
tiger lily?

DOROTHEA
[
despairing
]: Yes, the tiger lily! Of course, Bodey, the truth of the matter is that your idea of concealing your hearing aid with a big artificial flower is ever so slightly fantastic.

BODEY:
—Everybody
is sensitive about something . . .

DOROTHEA:
But complexes, obsessions must not be cultivated. Well. Back to my exercises. Be sure not to miss the phone.
Ralph is going to call me any minute now. [
She starts to close the bedroom door
.]

BODEY:
Dotty?

DOROTHEA:
Yes?

BODEY:
Dotty, I’m gonna ask Buddy to go to Creve Coeur with us again today for the picnic. That’s okay with you, huh?

DOROTHEA
[
pausing in the doorway
]: Bodey, Buddy is your brother and I fully understand your attachment to him. He’s got many fine things about him. A really solid character and all that. But, Bodey, I think it’s unfair to Buddy for you to go on attempting to bring us together
because—well
, everyone has a type she is attracted to and in the case of Buddy, no matter how
much—I
appreciate his sterling qualities and all, he simply
isn’t—
[
She has gone into the bedroom and started swiveling her hips
.]