Baby Doll & Tiger Tail (21 page)

BABY DOLL
: How long we gonna be possums up this tree?

SILVA
: Shhh! Police will be here soon.

[
The wind is loud, shadows are swaying crazily in the yard. Aunt Rose scuttles out of the front door onto the porch, weighed down by her ancient suitcase, roped together. We hear the shotgun again
.]

AUNT ROSE
: E-E-EEE! Baby Doll, honey? Baby Doll, honey?

SILVA
: Don’t answer yet!

[
THERE IS A SHOTGUN BLAST FROM THE BACK OF THE HOUSE
.]

AUNT ROSE
: Terrible thunder-stawm’s struck! Heaven have mercy, I hope it’s not a cyclone!

[
She drops her suitcase, backs against wall, hand to her thin chest. Sound: fade in police siren approaching. Light: circular and blue pattern of the police car light behind the house. Archie Lee screams: “Baby Doll! Baby Doll!”
]

BABY DOLL
: Poor ol’ Aunt Rose Comfort, she don’t know where to go or what to do.

SILVA
: Does anyone know where to go or what to do,
Bambina?

[
He draws her tight into his arms
.

[
Archie stumbles maniacally into view
.]

ARCHIE
: Baby Doll, my baby! Yella son of a—

[
He staggers over a crate and sprawls onto ground among the litter of uncollected garbage. The police appear and pick him up
.]

Wha’s this, who’s you?

SHERIFF
: This here is Sheriff Coglan and that there’s Deputy Tufts, Archie Lee, and right around here is the wagon. Got a call on you, boy!

[
They support his limping figure upstage
.]

ARCHIE
: Is something wrong, what is it, what’re you doin’?

SHERIFF
: Takin’ you into town, boy.

ARCHIE
: Not without my Baby Doll, not without my baby! BABY DOLL!

DEPUTY
: Hell, she don’t need you, she don’t need nobody tonight. Ha Ha!

[
They disappear back of the house. A motor starts
,
then rapidly fades out
.]

AUNT ROSE
[
in a tremulous voice
]: “Rock of ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide my self in thee!”

[
Night sounds—musical, peaceful. Aunt Rose rocks on the front porch and sings. The lovers remain in the tree as the lights fade to a single blue light on the lovers that eventually goes out as if the moon passed behind a cloud
.]

END OF PLAY

The following is the lyric for Ruby to sing at the beginning of Act II, Scene 2:

RUBY
[
singing and moving sensually
]:

Many white gents respected high

are respected higher when they die.

Oh, we miss ’em but we know

they gone to where white gents all go.

Maybe so and maybe no

but when I turn the red lights low

and when I turn the music slow,

a doubt will creep into my mind,

a wonder that I can’t deny,

would they ruther climb the sky

than the stairs at Ruby’s place

with girls in satin underlace!?

Brown satin girls, dressed in lace,

—at Ruby’s place.

PLAYS

Baby Doll & Tiger Tail

Camino Real

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Clothes for a Summer Hotel

Dragon Country

The Glass Menagerie

A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur

The Red Devil Battery Sign

Small Craft Warnings

Stopped Rocking and Other Screenplays

A Streetcar Named Desire

Sweet Bird of Youth

THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME I

Battle of Angels, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie

THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME II

The Eccentricities of a Nightingale, Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo, Camino Real

THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME III

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, Suddenly Last Summer

THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME IV

Sweet Bird of Youth, Period of Adjustment, The Night of the Iguana

THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME V

The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, Kingdom of Earth
(
The Seven Descents of Myrtle
),
Small Craft Warnings, The Two-Character Play

THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME VI

27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Short Plays

THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME VII

In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel and Other Plays

27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays

The Two-Character Play

Vieux Carré

POETRY

Androgyne, Mon Amour

In the Winter of Cities

PROSE

Collected Stories

Eight Mortal Ladies Possessed

Hard Candy and Other Stories

One Arm and Other Stories

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

Where I Live: Selected Essays

Copyright © 1991 by Maria St. Just and John Eastman, Co-Trustees of the Rose Williams Trust U/W Tennessee Williams
Copyright © 1991 by New Directions Publishing Corporation

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

Inquiries concerning the amateur acting rights of these plays should be directed to The Dramatists’ Play Service, Inc., 440 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10016, without whose permission in writing no amateur performance may be given.

C
AUTION
: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that all of these plays, being fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, the British Empire including the Dominion of Canada, and all other countries of the Copyright Union, are subject to royalty. The individual copyright notice precedes each play in this collection. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved. Particular emphasis is laid on the question of readings, permission for which must be secured from the author’s agent, Howard Rosenstone, 3 East 48th Street, New York, New York 10017.

Manufactured in the United States of America
First published clothbound and as New Directions Paperbook 714 in 1991.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited.

eISBN 978-0-8112-2530-4

New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation,
80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011