Chris Ghaffari (left) plays Jack Kiefaber, a forerunner of Stanley Kowalski, in Interior: Panic, an early draft of A Streetcar Named Desire; Lauren Guglielmello is Jack’s wife, named Grace in this version, part of two one-acts presented as Outraged Hearts.
In a letter to Jay Laughlin, founder of the publishing house New Directions, in late 1945, Tennessee Williams wrote about his process: “All of my good things, the few of them, have emerged through this sort of tortured going over and over—Battle [of Angels], [The Glass] Menagerie, the few good stories. ... But always when I look back on the incredible messiness of original trials I am amazed that it comes out as clean as it does.” The bill of two one-acts under the umbrella title Outraged Hearts—early versions of The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, revived by the Fire Weeds theater company—confirms the messiness Williams alludes to. As ambitious as Fire Weeds’ project is, it yields little beyond the confirmation of Williams’s own words.
Jacob Storms (left) is the gentleman caller Jim, and Jaclyn Bethany is Laura in The Pretty Trap.
The first play on the bill is The Pretty Trap, a more comedic version of The Glass Menagerie. The characters bear the same names as in the final version of Menagerie, although Williams’s note reads: “This play is derived from a longer work in progress, The Gentleman Caller. It corresponds to the last act of that play, roughly, but has a lighter treatment and a different ending.”
In the one-act, Williams hasn’t yet worked out the scenes showing the struggles of Amanda (played with the called-for “vivacity” by Megan Metrikin), notably the telephone calls to sell magazines, but she refers to them in a moment of exasperation with the painfully shy Laura:
I’ll call no more old women up to buy the Home Beautiful! I’ll work in no more bargain basements either. I’ll be just as neurotic as you, young lady, stay and keep my nose in books all the time and let the world pass by!
This Amanda, nonetheless, has all the qualities of the final one: She’s calculating and coquettish, telling Laura: “All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be. … I had no pangs of conscience when it seemed like one would have the trap sprung on him.”
Ghaffari as Tom embraces his sister Laura (Bethany) in The Pretty Trap. Photographs by Joey D’Amore.
The Glass Menagerie’s delicate memory speech from Tom that opens the play has not yet arrived, and the character, played by a rugged, masculine Chris Ghaffari—he doubles as the Stanley Kowalski analog in Interior: Panic—is a surprisingly refreshing take from the effete, dreamy Toms in most productions.
Tom brings work colleague Jim Delaney (renamed O’Connor in the final version) home from work early in this draft. Laura (Jaclyn Bethany, who also directs the pieces) still has her shyness and anxieties—and a glass unicorn—but Jim (Jacob Storms) is easygoing and self-confident. One doesn’t necessarily expect that he’s going to be a disappointment as a suitor, and, in this upbeat version, he isn’t.
The second play, Interior: Panic, is a less recognizable version of what became Streetcar. Comprised of late-play highlights, it skips over the mention of the streetcar, the loss of Belle Rêve, and the explanation of the Napoleonic code. Rather, it opens with a frowsy Blanche already settled in at her sister’s home. Stella (Lauren Guglielmello) is not yet Stella; she’s Grace Kiefaber. And Stanley Kowalski is Jack Kiefaber (Ghaffari).
Needing to urinate while Blanche is soaking in the tub with the door to the bathroom locked, Jack yells at her: “I’m not gonna bathe. I wanna make peepee!” (The line is softened in the final version to a reference about strain on his kidneys.) The Blanche who comes out (Bethany again) yells at him like a harridan. The character of Mitch, Blanche’s suitor, is named George, but he doesn’t appear; there are no poker games to introduce him, and their whole courtship has been passed over; the play is at the stage where Mitch hasn’t called her after learning about her past. Blanche is persuaded that Stanley has told George her secret. She smokes; she’s twitchy. And she’s more overtly the nymphomaniac.
The scenes here feel early and disorganized, and the pacing is variable. Zoe Griffith provides phantasmagorical effects with some lurid red lighting, signaling that this Blanche is more insane than usual—Bethany speaks haltingly and at times too breathily to be understood. The sound is often muddy, and unfortunately, when Bethany intensifies the volume of her dialogue near the end, many of Blanche’s lines are unintelligible.
One suspects that Williams would never have allowed either of these versions to be produced. These early drafts are for Williams completists, really. One can applaud Fire Weeds for producing them, but one comes away without much satisfaction—only admiration that Williams could turn such the messiness of such crude versions into the masterpieces they became.
The Fire Weeds’ production of Outraged Hearts runs through May 30 at Houghton Hall (22 E. 30th St.). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. For tickets and more information, visit thefireweeds.org.
