The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays (31 page)

Moose Lodge
contains the same characters, some of the plot, and even some of the dialogue of
House
, but has none of the darker
elements—the
ghosts, the battle for money, the collapsing house, and Bella’s
death—that
warrant the full-length play’s subtitle,
A Gothic Comedy
.

Thomas Keith

Bibliographic Sources

Catherine Arnott,
Tennessee Williams on File
(London and New York: Methuen, 1985).

Chicago Public Library, Goodman Theatre Archive.

The Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University, New York.

George Crandell,
Tennessee Williams: An Illustrated Bibliography
(Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995).

Drewey Wayne Gunn,
Tennessee Williams: A Bibliography
, second edition (Metuchen, NJ & London: 1991).

Harry Ransom Humanities and Research Center at the University of Texas, Austin.

The Historic New Orleans Collection.

Lyle Leverich,
Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1995).

New Directions Publishing Archives, New York.

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.

Washington University Library, St. Louis.

By Tennessee Williams:

American Blues
:
Five Short Plays
(New York: Dramatists Plays Service, 1948).

Collected Stories
, (New York: New Directions, 1985).

Dragon Country
, (New York: New Directions, 1970).

A House Not Meant to Stand
, edited, with an introduction and notes, by Thomas Keith (New York: New Directions, 2008).

Mister Paradise and Other One-Act Plays
, edited, with an introduction and notes, by Nicholas Moschovakis and David Roessel (New York: New Directions, 2005).

New Selected Essays: Where I Live
, edited, with an afterword and notes, by John Bak (New York: New Directions, 2009).

Notebooks
, edited, with an introduction and notes, by Margaret Bradham Thornton (New Haven: Yale UP, 2006).

The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams, Volume I (1920–1945)
, edited, with an introduction and notes, by Albert J. Devlin and Nancy M. Tischler, (New York: New Directions, 2000).

The Traveling Companion and Other Plays
, edited, with an introduction and notes, by Annette Saddik (New York: New Directions, 2008).

27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays
, (New York: New Directions, 1953).

This volume would not have been possible without the support of the various Williams archives. I am grateful to Richard Workman, Associate Librarian, and the staff at the Harry Ransom Humanities and Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, particularly Francisca Folch who, along with Richard, tracked down hard-to-find material and endeavored to answer my endless questions. My heartfelt thanks are due to Michael T. Ryan, Director of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and Jennifer B. Lee, Curator of the Performing Arts Collection, at Columbia University who went out of their way to offer much needed assistance. Mark Cave, Curator of Manuscripts/Oral Historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection, has long been helpful with any and all requests, and I owe him a debt of gratitude. I am also thankful to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, The Goodman Theater Archive at the Chicago Public Library, Washington University Library, and the Manuscripts Division at the UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections.

I want to express my appreciation to Linda B. Lankewicz and Donna L. Pierce at the University of the South, the proprietors of the copyrights of Tennessee Williams, who authorized this publication. And always my warm thanks go to the literary agent Georges Borchardt and the theatrical and literary agent Tom Erhardt for their continuing support of Tennessee Williams publications.

New Directions is grateful to Helen Graves, as am I, for her eagle eye and her suggestions on a variety of finer and broader points when proofreading not only Tennessee Williams but dozens of other New Directions authors over the years.

At the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival I want to thank Paul J. Willis, Janet Daley Duval, Arin Black, Laura Lane
Miller, and Ellen Johnson for their many years of support, and Aimée Hayes and Marieke Gaboury of Southern Rep Theatre for the care they have taken producing premiere productions of three of the plays in this volume.

At the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival I am grateful to David Kaplan, Jef Hall-Flavin, and Patrick Falco, and would like to acknowledge their dedication to producing Tennessee Williams, particularly those one-acts and late plays New Directions has been publishing that deserve serious commitment and energy.

To Nicholas Moschovakis, a literary scholar with specialties including Shakespeare and Williams, I am much obliged. Nick is especially knowledgeable about the one-act plays, and for this project he has freely shared his expertise and excellent advice. My thanks also go to Williams scholars Annette Saddik, Allean Hale, John Bak, and David Roessel, whose answers to questions large and small have contributed to this volume.

Special thanks are due to the following people who have helped in a variety of ways: William Jay Smith, Gregory Mosher, Henry I. Schvey, Ozzie Rodriguez, Jeremy Lawrence, Jim Azzara, John DiLeo, Tim McCarthy, Jon Hansen, David White, Karen Nickeson, Terrence McNally, Kate Johnson, Jane Paradise, Davis Robinson, John Uecker, Ed Martin, and, most of all, the staff of New Directions Publishing for their friendship, good will, and access to whatever I needed to get the job done.

Copyright © 1941, 1948, 1967, 2006, 2007, 2011 The University of the South

Copyright © 2011 New Directions Publishing Corporation

Foreword © 2011 by Terrence McNally

Notes on the text copyright © 2011 by Thomas Keith

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the Publisher. CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that all the plays in
The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays
, being fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, the British Commonwealth including the Dominion of Canada, all countries of the Berne Convention, and of all other countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations, are subject to royalty. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, video or sound recording, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as CD-ROM, CD-I, information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is laid on the question of readings, permission for which must be secured from the agent for The University of the South, Casarotto Ramsay & Associates Limited, Waverly House, 7-12 Noel Street, London W1F 8GQ, England.

The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays
is published by special arrangement with The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.

Publication history for the various plays can be found beginning on page 271.

First published as New Directions Paperbook 1182 in 2011

eISBN 978-0-8112-2571-7

New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin

by New Directions Publishing Corporation

80 Eighth Avenue, NY 10011