LEGEND ON SCREEN: 'AFTER THE FIASCO'
[TOM speaks from the fire-escape landing.]
TOM: After the fiasco at Rubicam's Business College, the idea of getting a gentleman caller for Laura began to play a more and more important part in Mother's calculations. It became an obsession. Like some archetype of the universal unconscious, the image of the gentleman caller haunted our small apartment. ...
IMAGE: YOUNG MAN AT DOOR WITH FLOWERS.]
An evening at home rarely passed without some allusion to this image, this spectre, this hope.
Even when he wasn't mentioned, his presence hung in Mother's preoccupied look and in my sister's frightened, apologetic manner - hung like a sentence passed upon the Wingfields !
Mother was a woman of action as well as words.
She began to take logical steps in the planned direction. Late that winter and in the early spring - realizing that extra money would be needed to properly feather the nest and plume the bird - she conducted a vigorous campaign on the- telephone, roping in subscribers to one of those magazines for matrons called The Home-maker's Companion, the type of journal that features the serialized , sublimations of ladies of letters who think in terms of delicate cup-like breasts, slim, tapering waists, rich, creamy thighs, eyes like wood-smoke in autumn, fingers that soothe and caress like strains of music, bodies as powerful as Etruscan sculpture.
[SCREEN IMAGE: GLAMOUR MAGAZINE COVER.]
[A M A N D A enters with phone on long extension cord. She is spotted in the dim state.]
A M A N D A: Ida Scott? This is Amanda Wingfield! We missed you at the D.A.R. last Monday! I said to myself: She's probably suffering with that sinus condition ! How is that sinus condition? Horrors ! Heaven have mercy !- You're a Christian martyr, yes, that's what you are, a Christian martyr !
Well, I just have happened to notice that your subscription to the Companion's about to expire! Yes, it expires with the next issue, honey !- just when that wonderful new serial by Bessie Mae Hopper is getting off to such an exciting start. Oh, honey, it's something that you can't miss !You remember how 'Gone With the Wind' took everybody by storm? You simply couldn't go out if you hadn't read it. All everybody talked was Scarlet 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? -Burning !- Oh, honey, don't let them bum, go take a look in the oven and I'll hold the wire! Heavens - I think she's hung up !
[DIM OUT]
[LEGEND ON SCREEN: 'YOU THINK I'M IN LOVE WITH CONTINENTAL SHOEMAKERS?']
[Before the stage is lighted, the violent voices Of TOM and AMANDA are heard.
They are quarrelling behind the portières. In front of them stands LAURA with clenched hands and panicky expression. A clear pool of light on her figure throughout this scene.]
[TOM speaks from the fire-escape landing.]
TOM: After the fiasco at Rubicam's Business College, the idea of getting a gentleman caller for Laura began to play a more and more important part in Mother's calculations. It became an obsession. Like some archetype of the universal unconscious, the image of the gentleman caller haunted our small apartment. ...
IMAGE: YOUNG MAN AT DOOR WITH FLOWERS.]
An evening at home rarely passed without some allusion to this image, this spectre, this hope.
Even when he wasn't mentioned, his presence hung in Mother's preoccupied look and in my sister's frightened, apologetic manner - hung like a sentence passed upon the Wingfields !
Mother was a woman of action as well as words.
She began to take logical steps in the planned direction. Late that winter and in the early spring - realizing that extra money would be needed to properly feather the nest and plume the bird - she conducted a vigorous campaign on the- telephone, roping in subscribers to one of those magazines for matrons called The Home-maker's Companion, the type of journal that features the serialized , sublimations of ladies of letters who think in terms of delicate cup-like breasts, slim, tapering waists, rich, creamy thighs, eyes like wood-smoke in autumn, fingers that soothe and caress like strains of music, bodies as powerful as Etruscan sculpture.
[SCREEN IMAGE: GLAMOUR MAGAZINE COVER.]
[A M A N D A enters with phone on long extension cord. She is spotted in the dim state.]
A M A N D A: Ida Scott? This is Amanda Wingfield! We missed you at the D.A.R. last Monday! I said to myself: She's probably suffering with that sinus condition ! How is that sinus condition? Horrors ! Heaven have mercy !- You're a Christian martyr, yes, that's what you are, a Christian martyr !
Well, I just have happened to notice that your subscription to the Companion's about to expire! Yes, it expires with the next issue, honey !- just when that wonderful new serial by Bessie Mae Hopper is getting off to such an exciting start. Oh, honey, it's something that you can't miss !You remember how 'Gone With the Wind' took everybody by storm? You simply couldn't go out if you hadn't read it. All everybody talked was Scarlet 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? -Burning !- Oh, honey, don't let them bum, go take a look in the oven and I'll hold the wire! Heavens - I think she's hung up !
[DIM OUT]
[LEGEND ON SCREEN: 'YOU THINK I'M IN LOVE WITH CONTINENTAL SHOEMAKERS?']
[Before the stage is lighted, the violent voices Of TOM and AMANDA are heard.
They are quarrelling behind the portières. In front of them stands LAURA with clenched hands and panicky expression. A clear pool of light on her figure throughout this scene.]
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