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Monday, August 30, 2010

A Nation called "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" 2

 Tennessee Williams discussing the play in 1958:

I think that deliberate, conscienceless mendacity, the acceptance of falsehood and hypocrisy, is the most dangerous of sins. . . . I meant for the audience to discover how people erect false values by not facing what is true in their natures, by having to live a lie, and I hoped the audience would admire the heroic persistence of life and vitality; and I hoped they would feel the thwarted desire of people to reach each other through this fog, this screen of incomprehension. What I want most of all is to catch the quality of existence and experience. I want people to think, “This is life.”



An entire nation living a lie!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Deliberate, conscienceless mendacity. What a phrase! It's distressing to thing how many people know it's all a lie and don't say anything.

Montag said...

It was quite an experience to watch old Burl Ives play Big Daddy and realize he was a large metaphor for the country: dying in the midst of lies while the carrion-eating young pick among the decay.