An Expressionist Interpretation of Tennessee Williams’ The Two―Character Play

ABSTRACT：tennessee williams was a master playwright of the twentieth century， and his plays A Streetcar Named Desire， The Glass Menagerie， and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof are considered among the finest of the American stage. However， his stylistic innovations in his later period had the playwright trapped in negative criticism.

Since scholars have largely ignored the study of his late plays， this essay aims to rediscover one of Tennessee Williams’ late plays， The two-character play for its expressionist features： the abstraction of time and place； the symbolic settings and the use of monologues and fragmented utterances. Through the in-depth study of the playwright’s rendering of human tragedies and desperation， the thesis aims to expose the existential crisis of modern man， thus serving the function of catharsis in Tennessee Williams’ tragedies.

Key words： Tennessee Williams， Late plays， expressionist features.

Tennessee Williams experimented at displaying his late plays in the form of black comedies. Its motif was always centered on human psyche and the truth of man’s being. He emphasized a kind of survival， a resigned acceptance or grim endurance of life’s ills. The sense of catastrophe was seldom absent from his plays. Indeed， an aura of catastrophe hung over all his major plays. This is Williams’ weakness but also a strength.

1 A brief introduction

Before delving into the deep analysis of the play’s expressionist features， a general introduction of the play is in need.

Tennessee Williams described The Two-Character Play as a tragedy with laughter， which affirms nothing but gallantry in the face of defeat. Brother and sister， Felice and Clare， perform on a strange stage， dark and cold as if underground and without set or props； the rest of the company has disbanded. They talk about their own state of mind and conditions： her hysteria， his fears， the inability of either to carry through a simple action， their last season’s disaster.

Immobilized by the trauma of their family history， Felice and Clare imprison themselves voluntarily in their house， administering to themselves law and punishment at once in their very own penal colony. Even the hope of achieving aesthetic transcendence by acting out their suffering disappears as their performance take place in an empty theatre， a theatre with no audience other than themselves. In the end， Felice and Clare give up the possibility of ever reaching the end， and propose， instead， an attitude of passivity in which they let the end happen.

2 The expressionist features

The expressionist features of these two plays can be three-fold. Firstly， there is an abstraction of time and place. Secondly， the play have symbolic settings. Thirdly， the use of monologues and fragmented utterances can also be found.

2.1 The abstraction of time and place

The Two-Character Play begins with Felice and Clare， a pair of sibling actors about to perform a play-within-the-play.

Bereft of the appropriate props and of the audience that gradually leaves before the curtain opens， brother and sister continue with their performance in order to warm themselves in the cold space of the theatre. Felice and Clare are not spared their isolation and pain on either of the play’s two dramatic levels： the play and the play-within-the-play. Their acting careers as well as their psychological world have both been indelibly marked by a double crime committed by their father， who has killed their mother and then himself.

The passage from the play to the play-within-the-play， however， does not operate merely as a clever textual device， namely， as a metatheatrical embellishment that impresses the spectator and complicates the plot. In refusing to establish a clear boundary between the outer and inner frames of the play， Williams presents his characters with an overwhelming confusion that shatters and annuls them both as people and actors， as persons and as dramatis personae. In their attempt to respond to the blows of life， Felice and Clare reduce their art and their act to themselves. The actor’s quintessential task， that of embodying someone else’s passions and emotions， is turned upon itself， since both performers indulge in mere self-dramatization. Endlessly rehearing their professional failure in their “real” dialogue， they persistently reenact their subjective trauma in the play-within.

This is why the play demands that the space of home， asylum， prison， and theatre coincide. “I realize， now， that the house has turned into a prison，” says Felice. Clare too， returns to the repressed admitting toward the play’s end that “theatres are prisons for players”.

2.2 Unrealistic and nightmarish settings

The opening of The Two-Character Play already contains within it the structural elements of expressionism. Brother and sister， Felice and Clare， perform on a strange stage， dark and cold as if underground and without set or props.

With the theatre described as a mausoleum and the time frozen at zero， The Two-Character Play has a haunting presence of an upward ladder that lead to nowhere： “These stairs go nowhere， they stop in space”， says Clare， recognizing in them neither a heavenly ladder， nor a promise of paradisiacal infinity but rather a terrifying suspension in nothingness， an opening to a non-world. The rest of the play unfolds as an encounter with psychic， aesthetic， and metaphysical nothingness.

The futility of any experiment to conquer death， and the resignation that marks such an impossible effort， are framed from the beginning by an inhuman scene， which is rendered explicitly by The Two-Character Play’s stage directions. “There should be， at a low level， a number of mechanical sounds suggesting an inhuman quality to （half underground） vault of a foreign theatre”.

Amidst these mechanic voices， Felice discovers another inhuman presence， a cockroach on the floor， at which he exclaims ironically： “A humanizing touch！”. Being one “among the last organic survivors” of post-nuclear apocalypse， the cockroach stand for a vision of the world in which humanity has been outstripped by vermin. The earlier version of the play equally stresses this otherworldly dimension， since the setting again “must not only suggest the disordered images of a mind approaching collapse but also， correspondingly， the phantasmagoria of the nightmarish world that all of us live in at present， not just the subjective but the true world with all its dismaying shapes and shadows…”.

The world of nightmares and of unconscious horrors is symbolized by a gigantic sculpture towering over the scenery， which both siblings find thoroughly inappropriate and attempt to remove. Despite their efforts， this improper presence remains immobile， as if rooted on the stage， both a witness to and a testimony of the psychic horrors Felice and Clare wish to deny. Felice attributes to this monolith the aspect of an “unalterable circumstance”， something that cannot be disposed of， a kind of law that is fixed and remains outside of human control. Clare describes it as “monstrous aberration” and as “obscene”--- an object which literally opposes and obstructs the scene， an aberration and a deformation of the image. Such is the disturbance this statue provokes that Clare considers it an inappropriate prop even for Medea and Oedipus Rex. Despite Clare’s attempt to dissociate their performance from the horrific nature of this object， her symptomatic reference to these two tragedies exposes the fact that incest， horror， and intra-familial murder constitute the principal themes of The Two-Character Play as well.

2.3 Monologues and fragmented utterances

In The Two-Character Play， Felice marks this turn of action in his speech by identifying it self-reflexively as a moment of novelty and improvisation within the play they perform： “And now I touch her hand lightly， which is a signal that I am about to speak a new line The Two-Character Play.