I was aware of the risk in alternating comic and tragic scenes, aware that it confuses the same audience who can respond readily to a single situation with both laughter and tears. This is mostly true in the theatre; a reader of novels is more emotionally flexible because he has the time to reflect before he is pushed on to the next action.
Writing a play can be among the most satisfying experiences of an author’s life. If he is lucky, the production, with the constellation of artists involved, can heighten and give the fullest dimension to the script and the audience serves to intensify the experience and to make the author feel yes, that’s it. That’s just what I had in mind—and more. The author is rarely so lucky. There are pressures of the theatre—the deadlines, the last-minute decisions and changes that are nerve-breaking for a writer. For the theatre is a most pragmatical art, and if a scene does not work it has to be altered.
I have learned this in my work in the theatre: the author must work alone until the intentions of his play are fulfilled—until the play is as finished as the author can make it. Once a play is in rehearsal, a playwright must write under unaccustomed pressure, and alas, what he had in mind is often compromised. This may be due to the actors, the producer, the director—the whole prism of the theatrical production.
And so begins a transmutation that sometimes to the author’s dismay ends in the play being almost unrecognizable to the creator.
That is why of the five or six evolutions this play went through I prefer to publish the one which follows. It is the last one I wrote before the production was set in motion and is most nearly the truth of what I want to say in The Square Root of Wonderful.
Many novelists have been attracted to the theatre—Fitzgerald, Wolfe, James and Joyce. Perhaps this is because of the loneliness of a writer’s life—the unaccustomed joy of participating creatively with others is marvelous to a writer. It is rare that a writer is equally skilled as a novelist and a playwright. I don’t want to open this can of beans, but I would say simply that the writer is compelled to write, and the form is determined by some veiled inward need that perhaps the writer himself does not fully understand.
I want to thank Jo Mielziner, Arnold Saint-Subber, Robert Lanz, Joseph Mankiewicz and George Keathley for their very able and talented contributions to The Square Root of Wonderful.
CARSON MCCULLERS
CAST OF CHARACTERS
PARIS LOVEJOY
Son of Mollie and Phillip Lovejoy
MOLLIE LOVEJOY
a beautiful young woman
JOHN TUCKER
an architect
LOREENA LOVEJOY
Phillip Lovejoy’s sister
MOTHER LOVEJOY
Phillip Lovejoy’s mother
PHILLIP LOVEJOY
the husband of Mollie
HATTIE BROWN
a friend of Paris
TIME: The present
ACT I:
A May midnight
ACT II:
The next afternoon
ACT III:
Scene 1: Just before dawn of the following day
Scene 2: A week later
ACT ONE
Time: A May midnight.
Scene: Living room of a comfortable house twenty miles from New York. A small apple farm. The room is comfortable, unpretentious, homey. There is a door upstage center leading to the outside with window seats on either side. When the door is open we see a branch of apple blossoms from the grandfather clock at the foot of the stairway. The stairway, stage left, leads to a shallow landing and two bedrooms upstairs.
Stage left we see a small pantry leading to a kitchen. A door downstage right leads to a small sewing room. There is a sofa and a few pieces of furniture, homey, with a faint air of elegance, but homey.
At Rise: At curtain rise the stage is dark except for a crack of light under the door of the kitchen. We hear gurgle nightmare sounds. MOLLIE enters from kitchen, followed a little later by JOHN. When MOLLIE turns on light we see PARIS asleep on the sofa.
MOLLIE: You are having a nightmare. Wake up, darling.
PARIS: Where am I?
MOLLIE: Safe in your mother’s arms.
PARIS: Oh! It was awful.
JOHN: What was it, Paris?
PARIS: I dreamed a burglar was in the house. A dark man in a kind of burglar’s cap—at first I didn’t see his face.
MOLLIE: It was just a nightmare. There’s not any burglar here.
PARIS: And the moonlight. When I saw the burglar’s face. It was so strange—so awful.
MOLLIE: I was afraid that lamb curry was too rich.
PARIS: The door opened like a hinged window. You know how queer dream windows are. And I was trying to scream, to warn you. And when I saw the burglar’s face it was—
MOLLIE: All this rich food.
PARIS: The burglar was my father—in a burglar’s cap.
MOLLIE: Silly-billy! You see how silly the whole thing is. There’s no burglar in the house and it’s past two o’clock.
PARIS: Why are you up so late?
MOLLIE: We were drinking tea in the kitchen and talking.
PARIS: What were you talking about? Not that I’m nosey or anything like that.
MOLLIE: We were talking about San Francisco and mousetraps. John set the trap for that mouse.
PARIS: Why were you talking about San Francisco?
MOLLIE: John is leaving us soon. He has a job there. I will be desolate without him.
JOHN: Will you, Mollie?
MOLLIE: Yes. Quite lost, in fact.
(JOHN gently puts his arms around MOLLIE.)
PARIS: Why, John?
JOHN: Why what?
PARIS: Why do you put your arms around my mother? Why do you look at her that way?
JOHN: What way?
PARIS: When you look at her, your eyes are zany.
MOLLIE: Don’t be fractious, Lambie. It unhinges me.
JOHN: Go to sleep, Paris. Your mother is tired, unhinged.
MOLLIE: Yes, when I looked in the mirror today I had nine gray hairs.
PARIS: Why do you keep your arms around my mother? Why do you look at her in that zany way?
JOHN: Because I love your mother.
PARIS: You can’t love my mother. She’s my mother. She married my father not only once but twice.
JOHN: But now she’s divorced.
PARIS: That makes no difference. You’ve only known her for ten days.
JOHN: The Russian Revolution took place in just ten days, and love can happen in an hour, even sometimes at first sight.
PARIS: I used to like you O.K. I used to like you swell. But now I don’t know. When you first came, I was glad to have another man in the house. But now I wonder what my father would think.
MOLLIE: Your father’s been away more than a year, Lambie and now we’re divorced.
PARIS: But he telephoned you.
JOHN: Did he, Mollie?
MOLLIE: Only when he was under the influence. You know what I mean?
JOHN: I know.
PARIS: You always said Daddy was coming back.
MOLLIE: I always thought so, but now I’m afraid so.
PARIS: I’m going to tell my father what John said.
JOHN: If I ever see him, I’ll tell him myself.
PARIS: My father is the greatest writer in the world. Phillip Lovejoy, author of The Chinaberry Tree and The Prison of Air, look him up in Who’s Who.
MOLLIE: It’s true, your father’s a genius.
PARIS: My father’s a man nobody can fool around with.
MOLLIE: Don’t shout so, Lambie, you’ll wake up Mother Lovejoy and Sister, and they’re exhausted after their trip.
PARIS: Let them wake up. I’ll tell Granny what John said too.
JOHN: Tell her.
PARIS: To me love is a big fake. You can’t eat it.
MOLLIE: Don’t be cynical, Paris.
PARIS: I’m not cynical, I’m starved.
MOLLIE: Nightmares. Stuffing yourself all
day. Starved indeed.
PARIS: Anyway, I can’t sleep on this scroungy sofa.
MOLLIE: With Mother Lovejoy and Sister here, we just have to make do.
PARIS: Why did Granny and Auntie Sister come?
MOLLIE: They’ve come to visit us and see your father’s play.
PARIS: His play opened and closed a month ago.
MOLLIE: Don’t talk about it, Lambie. It’s a sore subject.
PARIS: I’ll finish the night in the library. That sofa’s bigger, I think.
MOLLIE: Nighty-night, Lambie.
JOHN: Sleep tight.
PARIS: To me love is goofy. Good night, you all.
(PARIS exits with bedcovers.)
JOHN: What do you say, Mollie?
MOLLIE: I honestly don’t know what to say. You never told me you loved me before.
JOHN: Did I need to?
MOLLIE: No, there’s a certain light in your eye and your voice. But to tell it the first time in front of Paris. When did it start?
JOHN: The April afternoon ten days ago when we first met. The afternoon my life was altered. Why did you pick me up?
MOLLIE: The day was so lovely. You had on a leather jacket and you were carrying a monkey wrench. I think anybody carrying a monkey wrench on a lonely road is so handsome.
JOHN: My car had broken down.
MOLLIE: You looked so lonely on that lonesome road. I just wanted to chat a while, so I stopped the car and asked if I could give you a lift.
JOHN: It was such a lovely afternoon.
MOLLIE: I took you home, without thinking or asking.
JOHN: Why did you?
MOLLIE: It was the day that Paris was away on the Independency Hike, and I felt lonesome and unprotected.
JOHN: You told me it was the first time you had spent a night away from your child.
MOLLIE: That’s right. I had wanted to go along as a sort of Scout mother. But Paris was furious at the very suggestion.
JOHN: These Scout hikes are very independent. They don’t even use matches. They whittle sticks.
MOLLIE: A mother feels so uncared for and unprotected—the first night her child is away.
JOHN: So because you felt unprotected, you pick up a total stranger and take him home. Mollie, do you know what could have happened?
MOLLIE: You didn’t feel like a total stranger.
JOHN: I might have stolen the Lovejoy silver. I might have been a madman who played creepy music on the zither in the middle of the night. I might have been a sex maniac—I might have ravished you—violated you—and strangled you with a—whatever they use. You say you felt scared and unprotected—and yet you pick up the first man you see on the road and bring him home with you.
MOLLIE: I was missing my husband and my child, and the closest thing to being cared for is to care for someone else.
JOHN: It was friendly of you to offer to give me a lift. But why did you take me home with you?
MOLLIE: Maybe it was just instinct.
JOHN: Instinct?
MOLLIE: I was worried about money and suddenly it occurred to me to take in a boarder.
JOHN: It occurred to you then and there.
MOLLIE: As soon as I saw you up close.
JOHN: Why did you pick me up?
MOLLIE: I liked your looks. Simple—just instinct.
JOHN: You gave me supper.
MOLLIE: Just vegetable soup—the second day, which is the best day—and cornsticks. You ate three helpings.
JOHN: It was an evening of rising appetites. You showed me the room and gave me a toothbrush and a pair of pajamas. Whose toothbrush was it?
MOLLIE: Mine. I washed it thoroughly with soda.
JOHN: And the pajamas?
MOLLIE: Phillip’s—
JOHN: It began to rain—you said it had set in for the night—and your words, your voice, were somehow extraordinary.
MOLLIE: Everything was perfectly ordinary. I showed you the room and mentioned the price with board. You said you’d take it.
JOHN: I was looking at you—not the room. Room and board in Rockland County is the last thing in the world I needed. I have a perfectly good apartment in New York, two blocks from the office.
MOLLIE: An apartment in town? Why didn’t you tell me?
JOHN: You didn’t ask me. You just showed me the room and there was some misunderstanding. I had anticipated something else.
MOLLIE: What did you anticipate?
JOHN: Mollie, when a woman picks up a stranger and takes him to her room—the man naturally anticipates.
MOLLIE: You mean you thought it was something to do with—sex?
JOHN: I waited in the bed—I called two or three times.
MOLLIE: I was in the kitchen, going over grocery tickets and figuring with a pencil and paper. I didn’t want to gyp you.
JOHN: After a long time it began to dawn on me that the room business was no new gimmick—no come-on—I waited and waited—have you ever waited like that—expecting someone who never came?
MOLLIE: I have. But that is love. How could you imagine I would think about sex with a man I had just met? How could you think that of me? Mollie Henderson? Mollie Henderson Lovejoy?
JOHN: Is that the way you usually pick your boarders?
MOLLIE: I never had a boarder before. But when I saw you walking down that lonesome road, it seemed somehow inevitable.
JOHN: I left the house in a fury, found and fixed my car and said to myself: John Tucker, you’re a sucker. I was never going back, of course.
MOLLIE: You mean you meant never to come back?
JOHN: No, ma’am.
MOLLIE: Oh, John! Then we would never have known each other. Besides, you had paid for the room.
JOHN: All morning I was furious. Then, that afternoon, God help me, I was remembering you, Mollie. I remembered your face, your voice, and the way somehow it was all extraordinary. I had forgotten about being a sucker and then, much to my surprise, I began to drive all the way back to Rockland County. And then this crazy time began.
MOLLIE: Why do you say it’s crazy? It’s perfectly ordinary.
JOHN: It wasn’t ordinary. Something magical happened.
MOLLIE: Magical?
JOHN: I suddenly felt the color of the earth and sky.
MOLLIE: When I first saw you, you looked lost and puzzled.
JOHN: There was no back or front to my life.
MOLLIE: But you’re an architect.
JOHN: No back or front or depth. No design or meaning.
MOLLIE: Oh John!
JOHN: No color, pulse or form. But finally I met and loved you. You knew I loved you.
MOLLIE: Although you never said it until tonight. I knew the way you looked at me. I knew that you wanted to hold my hand. I knew that you even wanted to kiss me.
JOHN: But you were so evasive— Always wanted to talk about something intellectual. And Paris was always coming in the room.
MOLLIE: After Phillip I wanted something so otherwise.
JOHN: What?
MOLLIE: I wanted someone who didn’t want me for my body.
JOHN: Yes—
MOLLIE: I wanted somebody who would love me for my mind—my soul.
JOHN: I love you for your body.
MOLLIE: You too!
JOHN: And for your wisdom of heart and for your soul. I love you, baby, period.
(He tries to kiss her.)
MOLLIE: I can’t kiss you, John. For the first time in my life I have to think and be practical.
JOHN: A kiss won’t prevent—being practical.
MOLLIE: To other people a kiss is light and sweet. To me a kiss is sweet as syrup. But it’s not light. In fact it leads straight to the dark. To sin, in fact.
JOHN: How so?
MOLLIE: When I first saw Phillip—when I was fifteen, that afternoon of the Peach Festival, he kissed me. My first kiss. And—I don’t want to shock you, John.
JOHN: You’re not shocking me.
MOLLIE: We kissed and kissed again. br />
JOHN: Yes?
MOLLIE: And then we—it may sound crude and vulgar—but we slept together.
JOHN: I see.
MOLLIE: That same afternoon. In the woods near Society City. In a briar patch, in fact.
JOHN: Was it comfortable?
MOLLIE: We moved from the briar patch later on. Doesn’t that shock you?
JOHN: No, but don’t dwell on it so much.
MOLLIE: I cried and cried. I knew it would have killed my father if he had known. I cried and wept and bawled. At first Phillip didn’t want to marry me.
JOHN: Not marry my fifteen-year-old peach queen?
MOLLIE: No. Next morning he just sat in the kitchen drinking whiskey and looking cross.
JOHN: But then you got married.
MOLLIE: At two o’clock the next afternoon. So you see how a kiss that is warm and sweet can lead to sin and sorrow.
JOHN: Tell me, Mollie. Are you still in love with Phillip?
MOLLIE: I don’t want to be.
JOHN: But are you?
MOLLIE: A thing like this once happened to me in my childhood. There was an old woman who used to work in the Delight Drugstore, at home in Society City. And she put a spell on me.
JOHN: A spell?
MOLLIE: Yes. I knew that if she looked into my eyes, I would have to do whatever she willed me to do. Wasn’t that awful?
JOHN: What did the old woman will you to do?
MOLLIE: Once my daddy told me not to go into the Delight Drugstore and not to eat ice cream. And I chanced to see the old lady and she looked into my eyes. And against my will I was drawn into the Delight Drugstore and I ate ice cream. Against my daddy’s wishes and against my will.
JOHN: But maybe you wanted to eat ice cream.
MOLLIE: No. It was against my will. The first time with Phillip it was not against my will.
JOHN: And the second time, Mollie?
MOLLIE: I was under his spell. Love is very much like witches and ghosts, and childhood. When it speaks to you, you have to answer, and you have to go wherever it tells you to go.
JOHN: Do you still believe in witches and spells?
MOLLIE: I’m grown now, but sometimes—
JOHN: When I was a child, I went to a Chautauqua and there was a man who hypnotized people. Old ladies rode bicycles on the stage. A gentleman in spats, very dignified, stood on his head. Everybody laughed. The whole tent rocked with laughter, but I remember as a child, I was so horrified I was sick.