In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel

                                

In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel is a play by Tennessee Williams that was never thought to amount to anything by most critics, but 40 years later, theater goers are breathing new life into a story that just won't die.

The play is a love story, of sorts, between a husband and wife who have come to the end of a long, mad road that ends in death.  In true Tennessee fashion, his leading lady, Miriam, is an elegant, strong minded woman who has "Blanche" like qualities.  She is beautiful, but vain, and seems to have an inability to truly love anyone. But, just when you think there is no love in her, you see small glimpses of humanity that makes you think twice. 

For me, Tennessee always had a way, a gift you could say, of taking his characters who  have wretched qualities that would make me detest them so, but by the end of the play, I would be left feeling pity and empathy.  This is how I feel about Miriam. 

Miriam is married to Mark, a crazed painter, who seems to have gone completely mad.  They venture to Tokyo and end up in a hotel where Mark locks himself in his room to create his masterpiece. He screams at his paintings, he rolls around naked, and he even convinces himself that he has invented color.  While Miriam spends the majority of her time in the bar plotting how to rid herself from the burden of Mark's madness,  she drinks herself into her own oblivion, and unsuccessfully tries to seduce the hotel's barman into her sexual web.

This past winter, I met a man named Shashi Balooja.  Balooja is a talented actor and producer who had just performed in a reading I attended in East Hampton, NY at Guild Hall.  I heard he was working on a Tennessee Williams project and I had to talk to him after the show.  I was introduced to him through a mutual acquaintance, and he told me he was working on In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel.  Even though I had never even read the play before, I told him how much I loved Tennessee and that I would love to be part of the production somehow.

We began corresponding and I offered to come meet him in NYC to talk in person about the production.  When we met to work together for the first time, he gave me the script, we talked Tennessee, and I shared with him a PBS documentary called "Wounded Genius," a biography that documents Williams' life.

It was the first time I had ever met anyone who shared the same passion for Tennessee that I had, and it was one of the most inspiring days.  We made a plan to creatively collaborate further on the production, and a friendship was born.

I read in "Memoirs," written by Tennessee Williams himself, that around the time that he wrote In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, he was suffering himself from his own form of madness fighting depression and alcoholism.  He wrote of falling down all the time.  The character of Mark falls down all the time, and aside from his artistic madness, he is suffering from alcoholism.

"My next play in the sixties was In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel.  I was still always falling down during this time and I would always say, before falling, 'I'm about to fall down,' and almost nobody, nobody ever caught me," said Williams.

Not long after the play opened, to might I add, horrible and unmerciful reviews, Tennessee's brother, Dakin, had him institutionalized for a period of time.

Tennessee seemed to always put traits of himself into his characters that were identifiable to others, so beautiful, but a dangerous vulnerability.  Whether his problem of falling down and alcoholism is reflected in Mark cannot be said for sure, but it is too strong of a connection to ignore. 

Was Mark the painter really crazy, or was he just a sensitive man in severe emotional pain that nobody understood, or cared to understand?

Balooja, along with choreographer and creative director Maria Torres, in connection with Amas Musical Theatre, have obtained the rights to produce In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel in NYC.  Balooja and Torres are dedicated, passionate, and committed to seeing this play come to light in the fashion it deserves to be shown and tell the story how it deserves to be told.  They are currently in pre-production.

Photo Credit: Media at Large

Two Cents

A man walked up to me and asked me for two cents. He looked like he was about late 20's, early 30's, tall and thin, with dark hair. He wore a marines hat, a black t-shirt, and black pants.

I was standing outside The Historic New Orleans Collection waiting for my next class to start. I was in New Orleans to attend the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival, and was taking a series of Master Classes. Now, normally, I would just ignore someone asking me for money on the street (even though I like to think I'm a kind and giving person), but I couldn't ignore him. I came out of myself.

I said, "Two cents?" He said, "Yes, two cents." I asked, "Literally, two cents?" He said yes, again. He said if I gave him two cents, and other people gave him two cents, maybe he would end up with a dollar. He told me he was homeless, hadn't eaten all day, and just wanted a cup of coffee.

"What's your name?" I asked. "My name's Todd. What's yours?" he said. "My name is Amy. Nice to meet you," I said.

I asked him if he lived in New Orleans. "Yes, Mam, " he said, "But, I'm hoping to go home on Monday." Todd explained that he was a marine from Florida who served two years overseas, and when he returned home, he followed the love of a girl that left him homeless, loveless, and lost. He told me he made bad choices and wished he never left home, but that he now knew what he had to do.

For some reason, I needed to hear his story. There was a loneliness in him that was a transparent honesty. I told myself, whatever the case may be, he fought for me, my loved ones, and my country. I at least owed him two seconds of my time.

As we stood on the street, I mentally battled with my heart and mind over what was the right thing to do.  Todd then looked at me and said something that hit me like a lightening bolt; quickly giving me my answer.

He told me that even though he felt like he lost everything, one thing he never lost through it all was God. God. I fell further out of myself. I had recently been working on my relationship with God, and low and behold, there he was, possibly standing right in front of me in the form of a stranger. I knew I had to give him more than two cents.

I gave him a dollar and said that I wished I could give him more, but that was all the cash I had on me. That was a lie. I wanted to help him, but I was scared of the moment I was having. I just couldn't let him walk away though with only a dollar. My heart was telling me to do more, but my mind was telling me that I still had to be cautious.

I offered to buy him a cup of coffee with my debit card. We walked down to Antoine's on Royal Street. I asked him if he would like something to eat. He seemed scared, or shocked, and hesitated to say yes, even though I knew he wanted to. I was impressed by his manners, but I insisted, and he eventually ordered an eclair.

Todd told me he had owned a tarot table and had been reading cards to make money, but someone stole his kit the night before. Todd said that in spite of what he was going through, he still hadn't lost faith in humanity. He said that he still thought God was good, and that having fought two years of war, you have to know God in order to survive.

He told me he was near death many times, and had hearing loss in his left ear from grenades and explosions, and that he was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

All I could think was, what a shame it is, that these men are giving their lives to keep us safe, and how was it that so many of our veterans coming home end up like this? This is not the first time I had seen, or heard of a modern day veteran ending up on the street, and it's not always because of what people usually think (it seems many people are quick to stereotype people who end up homeless because of drug addiction, but that is not always the case).

I had been struggling with this epidemic for some time now, and maybe this was God's way of validating my feelings. But maybe, just maybe, it was God's way of letting Todd know that there are people in this world that appreciate and honor his soul. Even a mere stranger, who he had to humbly ask for two of her cents.

He said to me that he wished he didn't come all this way to New Orleans to find out that what he was looking for was always at home. I told him that sometimes, when you go down a lonely road that leads you far from home, it's the only way you'll find out where your home really is.

Todd asked me for just two cents, and in return he gave me a lifetime of understanding that will last forever in my heart. I wonder now, when was the last time that someone just asked him his name?

When I was 14 years old, I took my first high school drama class.  The first play my teacher had us read was The Glass Menagerie.  She said it was written by a man named Tennessee Williams, and claimed that he was one of the greatest American playwrights.  That information was either here, nor there, to me at the time.  I didn't know how much I loved to write.  I was consumed with performing,  focusing more on how my character's dialogue was going to be portrayed, and not why the words were ever even written in the first place. Even though I loved performing, and had been writing for some time creatively, I didn't know that I HAD to write. This all changed with The Glass Menagerie.

I remember reading Laura Wingfield's words and painting a mental picture of her in my mind, of what she looked like, how she dressed, and the expressions I imagined were on her face when she spoke.  That same image is still in my mind today.  It's my picture of her life, painted for me by the words Tennessee wrote.  Growing up, I felt like Laura in some ways, and I believe, that's why I was impacted so.  I felt like I was different from everyone else.  Most of my friends did not have an  artistic bone in their body.  I could never describe it back then, but I had this passion burning inside me to create.  I didn't have the confidence to admit I had to, and needed to write, until much later in life.

Tennessee's writing of The Glass Menagerie showed me that the best source for writing a good story is yourself.  Tennessee put parts of himself in almost every character he wrote.  People have said that he was too personal at times.  For me, his writing allowed me to feel like I fit in.  I saw that part of myself that I felt didn't belong, that need to write, in Tennessee.

I realized that there was someone else out their in the world who had the urges like I, to tell stories of  life, but through the words of someone else.  A character that I could create to tell whatever story of my life that I wanted to tell.  The stories were already written in my mind.  The source was already there.  I remember thinking to myself, how much I loved Tennessee's words.  His words were so real. 

When I was taught of the parallel between Laura, Tom, and Amanda to Tennessee's own relationship with his sister Rose, and his mother, is when the flame really began to burn.   I realized that Tennessee didn't go out seeking inspiration to write.  He just had to.  It was always there, whether he liked it, or not.

To those who know The Glass Menagerie, you can see the parallels to his early life and the play he wrote here: Early Tennessee

How It All Began

My search for Tennessee began many years ago, but I never realized I was searching for him until now. The great Tennessee Williams. The greatest, (in my opinion), American playwright of all time.

Although he is no longer physically with us, his legacy and spirit lives on, and seems more alive than ever to me. It pains me to great lengths to know that a human being with such feeling, love, and humanity is now resting in a place where he did not wish to rest in peace. Who am I to say that he is not where he physically belongs, other than the fact that he said he wanted to be thrown to rest at sea, as close as possible, to the cooridinates where Hart Crane, the writer he said he felt he most related to, jumped overboard, and committed suicide.

I will never really know Tennessee,(I will omit journalistic rule here and only refer to Tennessee by first name, and not "Williams" as I feel it will deprive the story I'm trying to tell), but I feel that righfully so, a man who gave so much of himself to the world, or any person for that matter, should have their dying wishes honored.

Tennessee is buried next to his sister Rose, in St. Louis, Missouri.  If he had to choose to rest in peace anywhere other than where he wished to be, I feel in my heart, that the only other place he would choose to be is near his beloved sister Rose.

This may seem like an unlikely place to begin my story, but sometimes we must look at the end to find the beginning.

Tennessee Talks Hart Crane