A ‘Stella’ find
Rare draft of ‘Streetcar’ is up for auction
‘IHAVE always depended on the kindness of strangers,” Blanche DuBois says in “A Streetcar Named Desire” — and it’s perhaps the most famous line in the American theater.
But it’s not what Tennes see Williams originally wrote.
His first stab was this: “Whoever you are, I place myself at your mercy.” Hardly a line for the ages, and yet it’s in the first draft of the play, which will be auctioned off at Sotheby’s on Monday.
Bundled into a bunch of boxes are the original typewritten manuscript, with Williams’ scribbled changes in the margins; scenes he wrote on stationery from the Fort Sumter Hotel in Charleston, S.C.; and letters about the play to his agent Audrey Wood and his director Elia Kazan. Plus, his screenplay — for the film that made Marlon Brando’s career — with cuts for the censors; and photographs, never published, of Williams with Kazan and, in Key West, Fla., with the love of his life, Frank Merlo. “As far as drama goes, I have never seen anything like this,” says Justin Caldwell, a Sotheby’s vice president who specializes in books and manuscripts. “We sometimes see drafts of Tennessee’s later plays, but this is as good as it gets. This is the history of a great American play.”
For years, the papers were owned by Merlo’s brother, an FBI agent. He left them to his daughters, who sold them to the anonymous owner who’s now auctioning them off.
Among the gems are scenes that Williams cut from the final, haunting script.
“He was not so elusive in early drafts,” says Caldwell. “For instance, after Blanche is raped by Stanley, there’s a scene where she’s dazed and wandering around the French Quarter [of New Orleans] looking for shelter. He removed that scene, which gives the play its mystery.”
The “Streetcar” lot is expected to fetch between $300,000 and $500,000.
Christmas is coming, and I know it’s hard to come up with a gift for me. This one might fit the bill! CLUE is one of the great board games of all time. It was made into a movie in 1985 that was pretty much dismissed by the critics. It’s since become a cult favorite, hugely popular on VHS (in the old days) and now DVD and Netflix.
To mark the movie’s 30th anniversary, the Players Club is producing a staged reading of the screenplay Sunday night with Michael Urie (“Ugly Betty”) and Sara Chase (“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”).
Jonathan Lynn, who wrote and directed the movie, will be on hand.
“I go to film schools, and students tell me ‘Clue’ is their favorite movie,” Lynn says. “I want to say, ‘Have you never seen “The Godfather” or “Lawrence of Arabia”? But that would seem impolite. So I just say, ‘Thank you!’ ”
Professor Plum did it in the library with the lead pipe.