Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (108 page)

253

“There were tears and protestations”: Ibid.

254

“Now to ‘Camino’ ”: Eli Wallach to Elia Kazan, Feb. 12, 1952, WUCA.

254

“an extension of the free and plastic turn”: Williams to Audrey Wood, June 10, 1952, HRC.

254

“The Blue Guitar” or “The Guitar of Picasso”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Feb. 27, 1946, HRC.

254

“To me the appeal of this work”: LOA1, p. 743.

254

“spiritual purgation of that abyss”:

, p. 108.

254

“In the middle of the journey”: LOA1, p. 741.

254

“This play is possible”: Williams to Elia Kazan, July 29, 1952,

, p. 443.

254

“galloping into totalitarianism”: Williams to Oliver Evans, Oct. 7, 1953, ibid., p. 500.

255

“the old pure music”: LOA1, p. 797.

255

“If you people”: Williams to Elia Kazan, July 29, 1952,

, p. 442.

255

“the all-but-complete suppression”:

, p. 202.

255

“The spring of humanity”: LOA1, p. 751.

256

“It is they”: Kazan script for

, WUCA.

256

“The people are nearly all archetypes”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Nov. 11, 1949, WUCA.

256

“I was its unfortunate hero”:

, pp. 495–97.

257

“Turn again, turn again”:

, “Carrousel Tune,” p. 60.

257

punning pronunciation of the title: Camino

al: the royal way; Camino Real: grim reality.

257

“traceable to the spirit”: Williams to Brooks Atkinson, Apr. 3, 1953,

, p. 469.

257

“In the direction of this thing”: Kazan script for

, WUCA.

257

“I say that symbols”: LOA1, p. 745.

257

“Conventions of dreams”: Elia Kazan, “Notes on Camino Real,” WUCA.

257

“literally got down on its knees”: Williams to Brooks Atkinson, Apr. 3, 1953,

, p. 469.

257

“The essential stylistic problem”: Kazan script for

, WUCA.

258

“This play is moving to me”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Nov. 17, 1952, HRC.

258

“My suit is pale yellow”: LOA1, p. 772.

258

“I say, if the play IS about these people”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Nov. 17, 1952, HRC. In the August 10, 1952, issue of the

, in his essay “Many Writers, Few Plays,” Arthur Miller called attention to the lack of daring in the arts community. “Is the knuckle-headedness of McCarthyism behind it all?” Miller asked about the weird cultural entropy. He went on, “Guardedness, suspicion, aloof circumspection, these are the strongest traits I see around me, and what did they ever have to do with the creative act. . . . Is it quixotic to say that a time comes for an artist—and for all those who want and love theatre—when the world must be left behind. When, like some Pilgrim, he must consult only his own heart and cleave to the truth it utters?”

258

“To the hard of hearing”: Flannery O’Connor, “The Fiction Writer & His Country,” in

, ed. Sally and Robert Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969), p. 34.

258

“Are you afraid”: LOA1, p. 767.

258

“to put [it] away”:

, p. 165.

258

“The script is only about 1/10”: Williams to Elia Kazan, Apr. 12, 1954, WUCA.

259

“I was prepared for anything”: Williams to Audrey Wood, June 22, 1952,

, p. 433.

259

“I am

”: Williams to Elia Kazan, July 29, 1952, ibid., p. 443.

259

“The Terrible Turk”: Williams to Audrey Wood, June 22, 1952, ibid., p. 433.

259

“slippery customer”: Williams to Audrey Wood, Sept. 28, 1951, ibid., p. 403.

259

“The important thing is to keep Gadg”: Williams to Audrey Wood, June 22, 1952, ibid., p. 434.

259

“very likely my last”: Williams to Elia Kazan, July 29, 1952, ibid., p. 443.

259

“We’re fighting here for fun”: Elia Kazan to Williams, undated, ca. Aug. 1952, WUCA.

260

“essentially a plastic poem”: Williams to Cheryl Crawford, Feb. 10, 1952,

, p. 419.

260

“felt like an ungrateful dog”: Jo Mielziner to Williams, Aug. 26, 1952, HRC.

260

“hot light”: Williams to Elia Kazan, July 14, 1952,

, p. 438.

260

“This play ends with a sort”: Ibid.

260

“I think it is remarkable”: Williams to Elia Kazan, July 29, 1952, ibid., p. 442.

261

“a retrenchment”:

, July 29, 1952, p. 555.

261

“Yesterday eve we read over the work”: Ibid., Aug. 20, 1952, p. 557.

261

“I hate writing that is a parade”: LOA1, p. 745.

261

“a chowder of archetypes”: Ethan Mordden,

(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007), p. 286.

261

“It’s an almost super-human job”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Feb. 11, 1953,

, p. 71.

261

“I am very, very disturbed”: Williams to Elia Kazan, undated, 1952, LLC.

261

As Williams suspected: Williams to Elia Kazan, Oct. 1952,

, p. 457.

261

“the self-appointed scourge of Bohemia”: Williams to Paul Bowles, Jan. 1953, ibid., p. 460.

261

“About Tennessee”: Elia Kazan to Molly Day Thacher, undated, WUCA.

262

“When you’re sold, you just sell”: Molly Day Thacher to Elia Kazan, Sept. 24, 1952, WUCA.

262

“Molly, to all extents and purposes”: JLI with Nick Kazan, 2010, JLC.

262

“talisman of success”:

, p. 54.

263

“I think you can help him”: Molly Day Thacher to Elia Kazan, Aug. 22, 1952, WUCA.

263

“Never before with you”: Molly Day Thacher to Williams, Dec. 9, 1952, WUCA.

263

“She is my bete-noir!”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Dec. 19, 1952,

, p. 69.

263

“Catch-as-Catch-Can Kazan”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Feb. 11, 1953, ibid., p. 71.

263

“Molly is a pain”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Dec. 19, 1953, ibid., p. 69.

263

“to be accepted as their hero”:

, p. 498.

263

“I have fallen off remarkably”:

, Aug. 16, 1952, p. 557.

263

“It’s awful how quickly”: Williams to Carson McCullers, Aug. 1952,

, p. 444.

264

“This play moves me”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Nov. 17, 1952, HRC.

264

“God bless all con men”: LOA1, p. 839.

265

preamble: Tennessee Williams, “Invocation to Possible Angels by Author,” LLC.

265

“Where are we”: Ibid. “Just reading it does very little good as most of its values are so plastic, pictorial and dynamic, that just listening to it or reading it is almost useless unless the listener or reader has a trained theatrical mind,” Williams wrote to Maria Britneva. (Dec. 3, 1952,

, p. 67.)

265

“I screamed at her”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Dec. 19, 1952,

, p. 69.

265

“This play is at least twenty minutes”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Dec. 10, 1952, WUCA.

265

“Why stick to a conventional length?”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Dec. 10, 1952, LLC.

265

“You also exercise”: Molly Day Thacher to Williams, Dec. 9, 1952, WUCA.

266

“I’m not going to make”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Dec. 10, 1952, HRC.

266

“from A to infinity”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Dec. 2, 1952, LLC.

266

“I sat down one morning”: Ibid.

266

“Just do that”: Elia Kazan to Williams, Dec. 10, 1952, WUCA.

266

“like ladies running barefooted”: Williams to Maria Britneva, Apr. 22, 1953,

, p. 75.

266

tinkling of glass pendants on the Japanese lantern: Ibid.

266

“perennial work-in-progress”: Williams to Konrad Hopkins, Jan. 16, 1953, LLC.

267

“so beat!”: Ibid.

267

“Kazan is still dissatisfied”: Ibid.

267

“My dream-self betrays”: Ibid.

267

“All of us in the cast”: Eli Wallach,

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005), pp. 151, 153.

267

“His air is one of unusual power”: Seymour Milbert, “Stage Manager’s Rehearsal Account,” BRTC.

268

“Motto: No matter what you do”: Kazan rehearsal script for

, WUCA.

268

“This is a profound, emotionally charged play”: Milbert, “Stage Manager’s Rehearsal Account,” BRTC.

268

“Fantastic events are played simply”: Ibid.

268

“Death is too real”: Ibid.

268

“adjusted, make a living”: Kazan rehearsal script for

, WUCA.

268

“behave absurdly”: Ibid.

269

“Audience are his friends”: Kazan, “Notes on Camino Real,” WUCA.

269

“He is the eternal spiritual wanderer”: Ibid.

269

“He is full of wonder”: Kazan rehearsal script for

, WUCA.

269

“utterly unaware of his own tragedy”: Ibid.

269

“The violets in the mountains”: LOA1, p. 842.

269

“like mad”: Milbert, “Stage Manager’s Rehearsal Account,” BRTC.

270

“During these sessions”: Ibid.

270

“All day—Williams and Kazan”: Ibid.

271

“Kilroy represents freedom to you”: Ibid.

271

“You, Kilroy, you’re really jazzed now”: Ibid.

271

“You’re alone and you’re scared”: Ibid.; Wallach,

, p. 151.

271

“Profoundly depressing”:

, Feb. 10, 1953, p. 563.

271

“I wanted a production”:

, p. 497.

272

“It made the fantasies”: Ibid.

272

“The rehearsals are shaping up”:

, Feb. 20, 1953, p. 563.

272

“at least half of which were dancers”: Williams to James Laughlin, Jan. 5, 1953,

, p. 472.

272

“pro-and-confusion”: Walter Winchell, “The Broadway Lights,”

, Mar

22, 1953.

272

“Some actually hiss it”: Williams to Konrad Hopkins, Feb. 28, 1953, LLC.

272

“I’m not sure ‘Camino Real’ ”: Elia Kazan, “Playwright’s ‘Letter to the World,’ ”

, Mar. 15, 1953.

273

“militant incomprehension”: Williams to James Laughlin, Apr. 5, 1953,

, p. 472.

273

“The worst play yet written”: Walter Kerr, “Camino Real,”

, Mar. 20, 1953.

273

“an enigmatic bore”: Richard Watts Jr., “An Enigma by Tennessee Williams,”

, Mar. 20, 1953.

273

“overall bushwah”: John Chapman, “Symbols Clash in ‘Camino Real,’ ”

, Mar. 20, 1953.

273

“Camino Unreal”: Eric Bentley,

(New York: Hill & Wang, 2000), p. 74.

273

“ ‘Camino Real’ is a serious failure”: Louis Kronenberger, ed.,

(New York: Dodd, Mead, 1953).

273

“You’re heading toward the cerebral”: Walter Kerr to Williams, Apr. 13, 1953, as quoted in Donald Spoto,

(Boston: Little, Brown, 1985), p. 188.

273