The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays Read Free Page A

people are starving, they take optimism and stuff it into their stomachs. Like water, like grass! It gives the illusion of having had a big dinner. [
Lifts her head stubbornly
.] I’m not discouraged. I never will be discouraged. Driving home in the rain, I thought to myself—
    MOTHER : That tomorrow you’d be laid up!
    GLORIA : No!
    MOTHER : What
did
you think?
    GLORIA : That tomorrow I’d be— [
She suddenly smiles
.] Cast for a marvelous part in a Broadway production! You see, I’m an artist, Mother! I want to cry out, don’t stifle the passion in me!
    MOTHER : What kind of expression is that?
    GLORIA : A cry from the soul! [
She turns to the window abruptly and pulls it open. Pause
.] The weather-bird says—the rain will continue forever.
    MOTHER : Put down that window.
    GLORIA : No.
    MOTHER : You’re exposing your chest.
    GLORIA : To think I was born in this place, Blue Mountain, Mississippi. How do they get the mountain? It’s as flat as a board! But Christ in Chicago, they certainly picked the right color!
    MOTHER [
throws her cape over Gloria’s shoulders
]: There’s actually one other light still burning. Upstairs at the Bassetts’. Mrs. Bassett is dying.
    GLORIA : I might have known it. —Death is the only thing they’d leave the lights on for, in this fabulous city. There was only one boy here that I ever liked and that was Red Allison, Mother.
    MOTHER : Fell off the back of a freight car and lost both his legs. [
Pause
.]
    GLORIA : Better than what I lost.
    MOTHER : Yes? What did you lose?
    GLORIA : Wings on my dancing shoes.
    MOTHER : You’re talking absurdly, Bessie.
    GLORIA : I lost ’em not all at once, but gradually. They melted away in the sun like that Greek boy’s who wanted to fly so badly. Or maybe it was the rains they melted in. I don’t remember.
    MOTHER : You’re running a temperature.
    GLORIA : Red and I had a club composed of two members, him an’ me. We invented the rebel yell. Yes, and a constitution! The first rule in it was never to stop moving forward. Poor Red! He’s broken the rule.
    MOTHER : I wouldn’t be joking about it, a thing like that. A wild, irresponsible boy, but the end that he came to was tragic!
    GLORIA : We used to swim jaybird together at Sikeston’s Creek.
    MOTHER : Did you indeed!
    GLORIA : Oh, nothing was wrong about it, we were just kids. I went to Cheyenne when I heard. He was already dead. I got there ten minutes too late, they’d pulled the sheet over his head. It’s wasn’t quite long enough, though. His hair stuck out, as loud as the Fourth of July! It was sort of—impertinent looking! Congratulations, I said, you don’t need legs any longer.
    MOTHER : Who did you say that to?
    GLORIA : Nobody. Myself. [
Gets up tiredly
.] I practiced my dance routine this morning at the Elk’s Social Hall. My wind’s kind of bad but otherwise I’m okay.
    MOTHER : You can’t expect a complete return to health, Bessie.
    GLORIA : Can’t I?
    MOTHER : No, you’ve had hemorrhage, Bessie. The tissues can heal but . . .
    GLORIA [
wildly
]: STOP IT! [
In her cry there is all the tortured passion for life that a human heart can contain
.] Stop it, Mother! [
Pause
.] There’s only one lie contained in this advertisement. At liberty—that’s the lie! —I am not at liberty, Mother, I’m caught in a trap!
    MOTHER [
closing her eyes
]: So am I.
    GLORIA : Oh, but I’m not discouraged! —No , it’s just that I haven’t had such good luck to brag about lately . . . [
She turns and exits the door, left. The mother stiffly waiting. After a moment, a burst of hysterical sobbing is heard through the door. The mother leans over slowly and turns down the lamp
.]
    MOTHER : Yes—And neither have I.
    CURTAIN OR BLACKOUT

THE MAGIC TOWER
     

The Magic Tower
premiered on March 23, 2011 at the Southern Rep Theatre, New Orleans, as part of the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival’s centennial tribute to Williams. It was directed by Aimée Hayes; the