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TOM: "Hello--Goodbye!" and no address.

Tom?

Yes mother

We can’t say grace until you come to the table

Tom: Coming mother

Honey don’t push your food with your fingers if you need to push your food with something the thing to use is a crust of bread. Animals have secretions in their stomach which enable them to digest food without mastication, but human beings need to chew their food before they swallow it down. Eat food leisurely son really enjoy it. A well cooked meal has many delicate flavors that have to be held in the mouth for appreciation. So chew your food and give your salivary glands a chance to function!

TOM: It's disgusting--all this discussion of animals' secretion--salivary glands--mastication!

Temperament like a Metropolitan star! You're not excused from this table.

TOM: I'm getting a cigarette.

You smoke too much.

LAURA: Mother, I'll bring in the coffee.

No, no, no, no. You sit down. I'm going to be the servant today and you're going to be the lady.

LAURA: I'm already up.

Resume your seat. Resume your seat. You keep yourself fresh and pretty for the gentlemen callers.

LAURA: I'm not expecting any gentlemen callers.

Well, the nice thing about them is they come when they're least expected. Why, I remember one Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain when your mother was a girl..

LAURA: She loves to tell it.

I remember one Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain when your mother was a girl, she received--seventeen--gentlemen callers! Why, sometimes there weren't chairs enough to accommodate them all and we had to send the servant over to the parish house to fetch the folding chairs.

TOM: How did you entertain all those gentlemen callers?

I happened to understand the art of conversation!

TOM: I bet you could talk!

Well, I could. All the girls in my day could, I tell you.

TOM: Yes?

They knew how to entertain their gentlemen callers. It wasn't enough for a girl to be possessed of a pretty face and a graceful figure--although I wasn't slightest in either respect. She also needed to have a nimble wit and a tongue to meet all occasions.

TOM: What did you talk about?

Why, we'd talk about things of importance going on in the world! Never anything common or coarse or vulgar. My callers were gentlemen--all! Some of the most prominent men on the Mississippi Delta--planters and sons of planters! There was young Champ Laughlin. He later became Vice President of the Delta Planter's Bank. And Hadley Stevenson; he was drowned in Moon Lake.--My goodness, he certainly left his widow well provided for--a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in government bonds. And the Cutrere Brothers--Wesley and Bates. Bates was one of my own bright particular beaus! But he got in a quarrel with that wild Wainwright boy and they shot it out on the floor of Moon Lake Casino. Bates was shot through the stomach. He died in the ambulance on his way to Memphis. He certainly left his widow provided for, too--eight or ten thousand acres, no less. He never loved that woman; she just caught him on the rebound. My picture was found on him the night he died. Oh and that boy, that boy that every girl in the Delta was setting her cap for! That beautiful brilliant young Fitzhugh boy from Greene County!

TOM: What did he leave his widow?

He never married! What's the matter with you--you talk as though all my old admirers had turned up their toes to the daisies!

TOM: Isn't this the first you've mentioned that still survives?

He made an awful lot of money. He went North to Wall Street and made a fortune. He had the Midas touch--everything that boy touched just turned to gold! And I could have been Mrs. J. Duncan Fitzhugh--mind you! But--what did I do?--I just went out of my way and picked your father!

LAURA: Mother, let me clear the table.

No, dear, you go in front and study your typewriting chart. Or practice your shorthand a little. Stay fresh and pretty! It's almost time for our gentleman callers to start arriving. How many do you suppose we're going to entertain this afternoon?

LAURA: I don't believe we're going to receive any, Mother.

Not any? Not one? Why, you must be joking! Not one gentleman caller? What's the matter? Has there been a flood or a tornado?

LAURA: Hello, Mother, I was just…

I know. You were just practicing your typing, I suppose.

LAURA: Yes.

Deception, deception, deception!

LAURA: Didn't you go to the DAR meeting, Mother?

No, I didn't go to any DAR meeting. I didn't have the strength--I didn't have the courage. I just wanted to find a hole in the ground and crawl in it and stay there for the rest of my entire life.

LAURA: Why did you do that, Mother?

Why? Why? How old are you Laura?

LAURA: Mother, you know my age.

I was under the impression that you were an adult, but evidently I was very much mistaken.

LAURA: Please don't stare at me, Mother!

What are we going to do? What is going to become of us? What is the future?

LAURA: Mother, has something happened?

I'll be all right in a minute. I'm just bewildered--by life…

LAURA: I wish that you would tell me what's happened!

I went to the DAR this afternoon, as you know; I was to be inducted as an officer. I stopped off at Rubicam's Business College to tell them about your cold and to ask how you were progressing down there.

LAURA: Oh…

I went straight to your typing instructor and introduced myself as your mother. She didn't even know who you were. "Wingfield?" she said. "We don't have any such scholar enrolled in this school." I assured her she did. I said my daughter Laura's been coming to classes since early January. "Well, I don't know," she said, "unless you mean that terribly shy little girl who dropped out of school after a few days' attendance?" No, I said, I don't mean that one. I mean my daughter, Laura, who's been coming here every single day for the past six weeks! "Excuse me," she said, And she took down the attendance book and there was your name, unmistakable, printed, and all the dates you'd been absent. I still told her she was wrong. I still said, "No, there must be some mistake! There must have been some mix-up in the records!" "No", she said, "I remember her perfectly now. She was so shy and her hands trembled so that her fingers couldn't touch the right keys! When we gave her a speed-test--she just broke down completely--was sick at the stomach and had to be carried to the washroom! After that she never came back. We telephoned the house every single day and never got any answer." That was while I was working all day long down at that department store, I suppose, demonstrating those--Oh! I felt so weak I couldn't stand up! I had to sit down while they got me a glass of water! Fifty dollars' tuition. all my hopes for any kind of future for you--gone up the spout, just gone up the spout like that. What are you doing Laura?

LAURA: Oh!

What have you been doing every day when you've gone out of the house pretending that you were going to business college?

LAURA: I've just been going out walking.

That's not true!

LAURA: Yes, it is, Mother, I just went walking.

Walking? Walking? In winter? Deliberately courting pneumonia in that light coat? Where did you walk to, Laura?

LAURA: mostly in the park.

Even after you'd started catching that cold?

LAURA: I threw up on the floor!

From half past seven til after five every day you mean to tell me you walked around in the park, because you wanted to make me think that you were still going to Rubicam's Business College?

LAURA: I went inside places to get warmed up.

Inside where?

LAURA: where they raise the tropical flowers.

You did all that to deceive me, just for deception? Why? Why? Why? Why?

LAURA: like the picture of Jesus' mother in the museum!

Hush!

LAURA: I couldn't face it. I couldn't.

So what are we going to do now, honey, the rest of our lives? Just sit down in this house and watch the parades go by? Amuse ourselves with the glass menagerie? Eternally play those worn-out records your father left us as a painful reminder of him? We can't have a business career. No we can't do that--that just gives us indigestion. What is there left for us now but dependency all our lives? I tell you Laura, I know so well what happens to unmarried women who aren't prepared to occupy a position in life. I've seen such pitiful cases in the South--barely tolerated spinsters living on some brother's wife or a sister's husband--tucked away in some mousetrap of a room--encouraged by one in-law to go on and visit the next in-law--little birdlike women--without any nest--eating the crust of humility all their lives! Is that the future that we've mapped out for ourselves? I swear I don't see any other alternative. And I don't think that's a very pleasant alternative. Of course--some girls DO marry. My goodness, Laura, haven't you ever liked some boy?

LAURA: I came across his picture a while ago.

He gave you his picture, too?

LAURA: No, it's in the yearbook.

Oh--a high-school boy.

LAURA: Here he is in The Pirates of Penance

The what?

LAURA: See his grin?

He must’ve had a jolly disposition

LAURA: He used to call me--Blue Roses.

Blue Roses? What did he call you a funny name like that for?

LAURA: that's a long time ago--they're probably married by now.

That's alright, honey, that's alright. It doesn't matter. Little girls who aren't cut out for business careers sometimes end up married to very nice young men. And I'm just going to see that you do that, too!

LAURA: But, Mother--

Yes?

LAURA: I'm--crippled

Don't say that word! How many times have I told you never to say that word! You're not crippled, you've just got a slight defect. When you've got a slight disadvantage like that, you've just got to cultivate something else to take its place. You have to cultivate charm--or vivacity--or CHARM That's the only thing you father had plenty of--charm!

TOM: Roping in subscribers to on of those magazines for matrons called The Homemaker's Companion.

Ida Scott? This is Amanda Wingfield. We missed you at the DAR last Monday. Oh, first I want to know how's your sinus condition? Horrors! You're just a Christian martyr. That's what you are. You're just a Christian martyr. Well I just now happened to notice that your subscription to the Companion’s about to expire! Yes it expires with next issue honey! just when that wonderful new serial by Beaty Mae Hopper is getting off to such a good start oh honey it’s something you can’t miss! you remember how gone with the wind took everyone by storm? You simply couldn’t go out if you hadn’t read it. All everybody talked was Scarlett O’Hara. Well this is a book that critics already compare to Gone with the Wind. it’s the Gone with the wind of the Post World war generation. What? Oh, no, honey, don't let them burn. You go take a look in the oven and I'll hold on Heavens I think she’s hung up?

TOM: What in Christ name am I-

Don't you use that expression! Not in my presence! Have you gone out of your senses?

TOM: I have, that’s true, driven out!

What is the matter with you, you big big idiot!

TOM: not a single thing left in this house that I can call my own.

Lower your voice!

Tom: -in my life I can call my own, everything is—-

Stop that shouting!

TOM: You had the nerve to--

I did. I took that horrible novel back to the library--that awful book by that insane Mr. Lawrence. I cannot control the output of diseased mind or people who cater to them, but I won't allow such filth in my house. No, no, no, no, no!

TOM: Who makes a slave of himself to--!

Don't you dare talk to-

TOM: and let you do all the talking.

Let me tell you something!

TOM: I don't want to hear any more.

You will hear more--

TOM: No, I won’t hear more, I’m going out

You come right back in!

TOM: Out Out Out Because I’m-

Come back here Tom Wingfield I am not done talking with you!

Tom: Oh, go—-

Your’e going to listen, and no more insolence from you! I’m at the end of my patience!

Tom: It seems unimportant to you, what I’m doing —what I want to do—having little difference between them! You don’t think that—

I think you’ve been doing things that you’re ashamed of. That’s why you act like this. I don’t believe that you go every night to the movies. Nobody goes to the movies night after night. Nobody in their right minds goes to the movies as often as you pretend to. People don’t go to the movies at nearly midnight, and movies don’t let out at two am. Come in stumbling. Muttering to yourself like a manic! You get three hours’ sleep and then go to work. Oh, I can picture the way you’re doing down there. Moping, doping, because you’re in no condition.

TOM: I'm in no condition!

How dare you jeopardize your job? jeopardize our security? How do you think we'd manage--?

TOM: Please don;t grab at me, Mother!

where are you going?

TOM: I'm going to the movies!

I don't believe that lie!

LAURA: My glass!--menagerie..

I'll never speak to you until you apologize!

Tom: But who in the hell ever got himself out of one without removing one nail?

Rise and Shine! Rise and Shine! Laura tell your brother to rise and shine!

TOM: I'll rise--but I won't shine.

Laura, tell your brother his coffee is ready.

LAURA: Please--please!

Laura, are you going to do what I asked you to do, or do I have to get dressed and go out myself?

LAURA: Butter and what else?

Just butter. Tell them to charge it.

LAURA: Mother they make such faces when I do that.

Sticks and stones can break out bones, but the expression on Mr. Garfinkel's face won't harm us! Tell your brother his coffee is getting cold.

LAURA: Do what I asked you, will you, will you, Tom?

Laura, go now or just don't go at all!

LAURA: I'm alright. I slipped, but i'm alright.

I tell you if anybody falls down and breaks a leg on those fire-escape steps, the landlord ought to be sued for every cent

TOM: I apologize

My devotion has made me a witch and so I make myself hateful to my children!

TOM: No, you don't.

I worry so much, I don't sleep, it makes me nervous!

TOM: I understand that.

You know I've had to put up a solitary battle all these years. But you're my right hand bower! Now don't fail me. Don't fall down.

TOM: I try, mother.

Try and you will succeed! Why, you-you’re just full of natural endowments! Both my children-they’re unusual children! Don’t you think I know it? I‘m so proud! Happy and feel I’ve so much to be thankful for—promise me one thing son!

TOM: What is it mother?

Promise me you're never going to become a drunkard!

TOM: I won't ever become a drunkard, Mother.

That's what frightened me so, that you'd be drinking! Eat a bowl of Purina

TOM: Just coffee, Mother.

Shredded wheat biscuit?

TOM: No, no, Mother, just coffee.

You can't put in a day's work on an empty stomach. You've got ten minutes--don't gulp! Drinking too-hot liquids makes cancer of the stomach.. Put cream in.

TOM: No thank you.

To cool it

TOM: I want it black.

I know, but it's not good for you. We have to do all that we can to build ourselves up. In these trying times we live in, all that we have to cling to is--each other…That's why it's so important to --Tom, I --I sent out your sister so I could discuss something with you. If you hadn't spoken I wouldn’t have spoken to you.

TOM: What is it, Mother, that you want to discuss?

Laura!

TOM: --Oh.--Laura…

You know how Laura is. So quiet but--still water runs deep! She notices things and I think she--broods about them. A few days ago I came in and she was crying.

TOM: What about?

You.

TOM: Me?

She has an idea that you're not happy here.

TOM: What gave her that idea?

What gives her any idea? However, you do act strangely. I--I'm not criticizing, understand that! I know your ambitions do not lie in the warehouse, that like everybody in the whole wide world--you've had to--make sacrifices, but--Tom--Tom--life's not easy, it calls for--Spartan endurance! There's so many things in my heart that I cannot describe to you! I've never told you but I--loved your father…

TOM: I know that, Mother.

And you-- when I see you taking after his ways! Staying out late--and--well, you had been drinking the night you were in that--terrifying condition! Laura says that you hate the apartment and that you go out nights to get away from it! Is that true, Tom?

TOM: So let's respect each other's--

But, why--why, Tom--are you always so restless? Where do you go to, nights?

TOM: I--go to the movies.

Why do you go to the movies so much, Tom?

TOM: so I go to the movies.

But, Tom, you go to the movies entirely too much!

TOM: I like a lot of adventure.

Most young men find adventure in their careers.

TOM: Then most young men are not employed in a warehouse.

The world is full of young men employed in warehouses and offices and factories.

TOM: Do all of them find adventure in their careers?

They do or they do without it! Not everybody has a craze for adventure.

TOM: none of those instincts are given much play at the warehouse!

Man is by instinct! Don't quote instinct to me! Instinct is something that people have got away from! It belongs to the animals! Christian adults don't want it!

TOM: What do Christian adults want then mother?

Superior things! Things of the mind and the spirit! Only animals have to satisfy instincts! Surely your aims are somewhat higher than theirs! Than monkeys--pigs--

TOM: I reckon they're not.

You're joking. However, that isn't what I wanted to discuss.

TOM: I haven't much time.

Sit down.

TOM: You want me to punch in red at the warehouse, Mother?

You have five minutes. I want to talk about Laura.

TOM: What about Laura?

We have to be making some plans and provisions for her. She's older than you, two years, and nothing has happened. She just drifts along doing nothing. It frightens me how she just drifts along.

TOM: I guess she's the type that people call home girls.

There's no such type, and if there is, it's a pity! That is unless the home is hers, with a husband!

TOM: What?

Oh, I can see the handwriting on the wall as plain as I can see the nose in front of my face! It's terrifying! More and more you remind me of your father! He was out all hours without explanation!--Then left! Goodbye! And me with the bag to hold. I saw that letter you got from the merchant marine. I know what you're dreaming of. I'm not standing here blindfolded. Very well, then. Then do it! But not till there's somebody to take your place.

TOM: What do you mean?

I mean that as soon as Laura has got somebody to take care of her, married, a home of her own, independant--why, then you'll be free to go wherever you please, on land, on sea, whichever way the wind blows you! But until that time you've got to look out for your sister. I don't say me because I'm old and don't matter! I say for your sister because she's young and dependent. I put her in business college--a dismal failure! Frightened her so it made her sick at the stomach. I took her over to the Young People's League at the church. Another fiasco. She spoke to nobody. Nobody spoke to her. Now all she does is fool around with those pieces of glass and play those worn out records. What kind of life is that for a girl to lead?

TOM: What can I do about it?

Overcome selfishness! Self, self, self is all that you ever think of! Where is your muffler? Put your wool muffler on! Tom! I haven't said what I had in mind to ask you.

TOM: I'm too late to--

Down at the warehouse, aren't there some--nice young men?