Read The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays Online
Authors: Tennessee Williams
The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays (11 page)
A LYRICAL FANTASY
This play is respectfully dedicated to the talent and charm of Miss Helen Hayes
—Key
West, February, 1941
The Case of the Crushed Petunias
was performed at Karamu House in the Karamu Theatre, Cleveland, Ohio, opening on February 26, 1957. It was directed by Reuben Silver; the costumes were designed by Shirley White; the set design was by Helen Coonley; the lighting design was by William T. Brown; and the stage manager was Twila McAlonan. The cast was as follows:
| DOROTHY SIMPLE | Susan B. Heinrich |
| POLICE OFFICER | Philip De Oreo |
| YOUNG MAN | Dennis M. Tate |
| MRS. DULL | Dorothy Washington |
Scene
:
The action of the play takes place in the Simple Notion Shop, owned and operated by Miss Dorothy Simple
,
a New England maiden of twenty-six, who is physically very attractive but has barricaded her house and her heart behind a double row of petunias
.
The town is Primanproper, Massachusetts, which lies within the cultural orbit of Boston
.
The play starts in the early morning
. Miss Simple,
very agitated for some reason, has just opened her little shop. She stands in the open door in a flood of spring sunlight, but her face expresses grief and indignation. She is calling to a
police officer
on the corner
.
DOROTHY
:
Officer?—Officer
!
OFFICER
[
strolling up to her
]: Yes, Miss Simple?
DOROTHY
: I wish to report a case of deliberate and malicious sabotage!
OFFICER
: Sabotage of what, Miss Simple?
DOROTHY
: Of my petunias!
OFFICER
: Well, well, well. Now what do you mean by that?
DOROTHY
: Exactly what I said. You can see for yourself. Last night this house was surrounded by a beautiful double row of pink and lavender petunias. Look at them now! When I got up this morning I discovered them in this condition. Every single little petunia deliberately and maliciously crushed under foot!
OFFICER
: My goodness! Well, well, well!
DOROTHY
: “Well, well, well” is not going to catch the culprit!
OFFICER
: What do you want me to do, Miss Simple?
DOROTHY
: I want you to apprehend a petuniacidal maniac with a size eleven D foot.
OFFICER
: Eleven D?
DOROTHY
: Yes. That is the size of the footprints that crushed my petunias. I just now had them measured by a shoe clerk.
OFFICER
: That’s a pretty large foot, Miss Simple, but lots of men have got large feet.
DOROTHY
: Not in Primanproper, Massachusetts. Mr. Knowzit, the shoe clerk, assured me that there isn’t a man in town who wears a shoe that size. Of course you realize the danger of allowing this maniac to remain at large. Any man who would crush a sweet petunia is equally capable in my opinion of striking a helpless woman or kicking an innocent child!
OFFICER
: I’ll do my best, Miss Simple. See yuh later.
DOROTHY
[
curtly
]: Yes. Goodbye. [
Slams door. She returns behind her notion counter and drums restively with her pale pink-polished nails. The canary cheeps timidly. Then tries an arpeggio. Dorothy
,
to canary
.] Oh, hush up! [
Then contritely
.] Excuse me, please. My nerves are all to pieces!
[She blows her nose. The doorbell tinkles as a customer enters. He is a young man, shockingly large and aggressive looking in the flower-papered cubicle of the shop.]
Gracious, please be careful. You’re bumping your head against my chandelier.
YOUNG MAN
[
good-humoredly
]: Sorry, Miss Simple. I guess I’d better sit down. [
The delicate little chair collapses beneath him
.]
DOROTHY
: Heaven have mercy upon us! You seem to have a genius for destruction! You’ve broken that little antique chair to smithereens!
YOUNG MAN
: Sorry, Miss Simple.
DOROTHY
: I appreciate your sorrow, but that won’t mend my chair.
—Is
there anything I can show you in the way of notions?
YOUNG MAN
: I’d like to see that pair of wine-colored socks you have in the window.
DOROTHY
: What size socks do you wear?
YOUNG MAN
: I keep forgetting. But my shoes are eleven D.
DOROTHY
[
sharply
]: What size did you say? Eleven? Eleven D?
YOUNG MAN
: That’s right, Miss Simple. Eleven D.
DOROTHY
: Oh. Your shoes are rather muddy, aren’t they?
YOUNG MAN
: That’s right, Miss Simple, I believe they are.
DOROTHY
: Quite muddy. It looks like you might have stepped in a freshly watered flower bed last night.
YOUNG MAN
: Come to think of it, that’s what I did.
DOROTHY
: I don’t suppose you’ve heard about that horrible case of petunia crushing which occurred last night?
YOUNG MAN
: As a matter of fact, I have heard something about it.
DOROTHY
: From the policeman on the corner?
YOUNG MAN
: No, ma’am. Not from him.
DOROTHY
: Who from, then? He’s the only man who knows about it
except—except—except—the
man who
did
it! [
Pause. The canary cheeps inquiringly
.]
You—you—
you
—are
the man who
did
it!
YOUNG MAN
: Yes, Miss Simple. I am the man who did it.
DOROTHY
: Don’t try to get away!
YOUNG MAN
: I won’t, Miss Simple.
DOROTHY
: Stand right where you are till the officer comes!
YOUNG MAN
: You’re going to call the officer?
DOROTHY
: Yes, I am, I certainly am.
—In
a minute. First I’d like to ask you
why
you
did
it? Why did you crush my petunias?
YOUNG MAN
: Okay. I’ll tell you why. First, because you’d barricaded your
house—and
also your
heart—behind
that silly little double row of petunias!
DOROTHY
: Barricaded? My
house—my
heart—behind
them? That’s absurd. I don’t know what you mean.
YOUNG MAN
: I know. They’re apparently such delicate, fragile creatures, these petunias, but they have a terrible resistance.
DOROTHY
: Resistance to what, may I ask?
YOUNG MAN
: Anything big or important that happens to come by your house. Nothing big or important can ever get by a double row of petunias! That is the reason why you are living alone with your canary and beginning to dislike it.
DOROTHY
: Dislike my canary? I love it!
YOUNG MAN
: Secretly, Miss Simple, you wish the birdseed would choke it! You dislike it nearly as much as you secretly disliked your petunias.
DOROTHY
: Why should I, why should you, why should anybody dislike petunias!
YOUNG MAN
: Our animosity and its resultant action is best explained by a poem I once composed on the subject of
petunias—and
similar flora. Would you like to hear it?
DOROTHY
: I suppose I should, if it’s relevant to the case.
YOUNG MAN
: Extremely relevant. It goes like this:
[
Light music is heard
.]
How grimly do petunias look
on things not listed in the book
For these dear creatures never move
outside the academic groove.
They mark with sharp and moral eye
phenomena that pass them by
And classify as good or evil
mammoth whale or tiny weevil.
They note with consummate disdain
all that is masculine or plain
They blush down to their tender roots
when men pass by in working boots
All honest language shocks them so
they cringe to hear a rooster crow
Of course they say that good clean fun’s
permissible for
every
one
But find that even Blindman’s Bluff
is noisy and extremely rough
AND—
[
In a stage whisper
.]
—Not
quite innocent enough!
What do you think of it?
DOROTHY
: Unfair! Completely unfair!
YOUNG MAN
[
laughing
]: To organized petunias?
DOROTHY
: Yes, and besides, I don’t think anyone has the right to impose his opinions in the form of footprints on other people’s petunias!
YOUNG MAN
[
removing small package from pocket
]: I’m prepared to make complete restitution.
DOROTHY
: What with?
YOUNG MAN
: With these.
DOROTHY
: What are they?
YOUNG MAN
: Seeds.
DOROTHY
: Seeds of what? Sedition?
YOUNG MAN
: No. Wild roses.
DOROTHY
: Wild? I couldn’t use them!
YOUNG MAN
: Why not, Miss Simple?
DOROTHY
: Flowers are like human beings. They can’t be allowed to grow wild. They have to
be—
YOUNG MAN
: Regimented? Ahhh. I see. You’re a horticultural fascist!
DOROTHY
[
with an indignant gasp
]: I ought to call the policeman about those petunias!
YOUNG MAN
: Why don’t you, then?
DOROTHY
: Only because you made an honest confession.
YOUNG MAN
: That’s not why, Miss Simple.
DOROTHY
: No?
YOUNG MAN
: The actual reason is that you are fascinated.
DOROTHY
:
AM
I? Indeed!
YOUNG MAN
: Indeed you are, Miss Simple. In spite of your late unlamented petunias, you’re charmed, you’re
intrigued—you’re
frightened!
DOROTHY
: You’re very conceited!
YOUNG MAN
: Now, if you please, I’d like to ask you a question.
DOROTHY
: You may. But I may not answer.
YOUNG MAN
: You will if you can. But you probably won’t be able. The question is this: What do you make of it all?
DOROTHY
: I don’t
understand—All
what?
YOUNG MAN
: The world? The universe? And your position in it? This miraculous accident of being alive! [
Soft music in the background
.] Has it ever occurred to you how much the living are outnumbered by the dead? Their numerical superiority, Miss Simple, is so tremendous that you couldn’t possibly find a ratio with figures vast enough
above
the line, and small enough
below
to represent it.
DOROTHY
: You sound like you were trying to sell me something.
YOUNG MAN
: I am, I am, just wait!
DOROTHY
: I’m not in the market
for—
YOUNG MAN
: Please! One minute of your infinitely valuable time!
DOROTHY
: All right. One minute.
YOUNG MAN
:
Look!
DOROTHY
: At what?
YOUNG MAN
: Those little particles of dust in the shaft of April sunlight through that window.
DOROTHY
: What about them?
YOUNG MAN
: Just think. You might have been one of those instead of what you are. You might have been any one of those infinitesimal particles of dust. Or any one of millions and billions and trillions of other particles of mute, unconscious matter. Never capable of asking any questions. Never capable of giving any answers. Never capable of doing, thinking, feeling anything at all! But instead, dear lady, by the rarest and most improbable of accidents, you happened to be what you are. Miss Dorothy Simple from Boston! Beautiful. Human. Alive. Capable of thought and feeling and action. Now here comes the vital part of my question. What are you going to
do
about it, Miss Simple?
DOROTHY
[
who is somewhat moved, in spite of her crushed petunias
]: Well,
goodness—gracious—sakes
alive! I thought you came in here to buy some socks?
YOUNG MAN
: Yes, but I’ve got to sell
you
something first.
DOROTHY
: Sell me what?
YOUNG MAN
: A wonderful bill of goods.
DOROTHY
: I’ll have to see it before I sign the order.
YOUNG MAN
: That’s impossible. I can’t display my samples in this shoppe.
DOROTHY
: Why not?
YOUNG MAN
: They’re much too precious. You have to make an appointment.
DOROTHY
[
retreating
]: Sorry. But I do all my business in here.
YOUNG MAN
: Too bad for you.
—In
fact, too bad for us both. Maybe you’ll change your mind?
DOROTHY
: I don’t think so.
YOUNG MAN
: Anyway, here’s my card.
DOROTHY
[
reading it, bewildered
]:
—LIFE—INCORPORATED
. [
Looks up slowly
.]
YOUNG MAN
: Yes. I represent that line.
DOROTHY
: I see. You’re a magazine salesman?
YOUNG MAN
: No. It isn’t printed matter.
DOROTHY
: But it’s matter, though?
YOUNG MAN
: Oh, yes, and it’s matter of tremendous importance, too. But it’s neglected by people. Because of their ignorance they’ve been buying cheap substitute products. And lately a rival concern has sprung up outside the country. This firm is known as DEATH, UNLIMITED. Their product comes in a package labelled WAR. They’re crowding us out with new aggressive methods of promotion. And one of their biggest sales points is EXCITEMENT. Why does it work so well? Because you little people surround your houses and also your hearts with rows of tiresome, trivial little things like petunias! If we could substitute wild roses there wouldn’t be wars! No, there’d be excitement enough in the world
without
having wars! That’s why we’ve started this petunia-crushing campaign, Miss Simple. Life, Incorporated, has come to the realization that we have to use the same aggressive methods of promotion used by DEATH, UNLIMITED over there! We’ve got to show people that the malignantly trivial little petunias of the world can be eliminated more cleanly, permanently and completely by LIFE, INCORPORATED than by DEATH, UNLIMITED! Now what do you say, Miss Simple? Won’t you try our product?