Laughter Dans Le Tramway

OVER here in Paris there has been a risible piece of entertainment on offer. No, not a new boíte on the Left Bank, but a smash hit in the theater, entitled Un Tramway Nommé Désir.

(Do look out for it. I’m told that you had something on Broadway bearing a faintly similar title—but that must he purely coincidental, as the saying goes; because everybody said your piece was so terribly sad and frightfully sordid. This one that I’m talking about is almost as uproarious as the Marx Brothers at their topmost peak.)

Here’s what happens: the curtain rises on a scene which — if we are to believe the program — is taking place in New Orleans, Louisiana. It’s supposed to be the home of a PolishAmerican called Stan.

One can tell at a glance that it is, hélas, a strictly underprivileged home, because (a) its walls are diaphanous, thus enabling ces messieurs et mesdames of the audience to see right through them into the rue en dehors, and (b) there is no sign of a video set. A telephone, yes (one of those gangling French jobs, about a foot high), but definitely no video.

Now this Stan, the Polish-Amcrican, is played — and follow this carefully, if you please — by a very good-looking and slender young Frenchman called Yves: Yves is a cross between Jean Sablon and Louis Jourdan, the juvenile lead in films. As an ape man, he looks like something dreamed up by Christian Dior. But he does have fine back muscles. He realizes this, and you get to know all those muscles like old friends before the evening is out. because this Stan-Yves keeps on changing his shirt like mad. Whenever he does so, with his back elaborately turned to the audience, a man in the wings, or possibly lying in front of the footlights, turns on a special off-mauve light which shadows up the muscles most toothsomely.

And just why does Stan change his shirt so often? Nine times out of ten it’s pour le bollinck. (And of course you know all about le bollinck, don’t you? Sir Francis Drake, you will recall, was engaged in le bollinck that time on Plymouth Ha! when the Spennish flotte showed up.)

Stella, the little woman, is apt to dart out at Stan. “Stan!” she cries reproachfully. “Is it that you go out of our hearth once again — to le bollinck? ”

“Of course,” returns Stan, a hePolish-American-Frenchman to his very sideburns, flexing his hack muscles, which le bollinck is apt to develop like the very deuce. As an afterthought he turns and hurls wifey to the floor. Never get between a Polish-American-Frenchman and his bollinck seems here to be the inescapable moral.

But Stan has his intellectual moments too. It’s not all outdoor sports for him. Often he dons a tasty soccer jersey (daring vertical stripes) and settles down at home for a good game of le pokkaire with friends. But the beasts drink as they play — and that provides a rich moment of high comedy that even Groucho has rarely bettered. For the four men take turns at huge-seeming swigs from one tiny bottle of French (Pilsen type) beer.

Round and round the table of debauchees goes that sad little bottle — and in no time its innocuous contents transform the four into sententious drunks. Their eyes glaze, and they give way to such unspeakable remarks as “Zut, alors!” and “Et bien — toil”

Says the “Analysis of the Performance,” thoughtfully provided at the rear of the program, “It is an earthy life this, whose unique distractions are the bowling, the poker, the cinema, and the love.” Ahathe love!

Sure enough, into this uniquely earthy life there flutters a female character called Blanche du Bois. She turns out to be Stan’s sister-inlaw, and she looks like a fugitive from a down payment. Stan dislikes Blanche right from the start. For one thing, she puts her capacious wardrobe trunk right spang in front of the cupboard where he stores his PernodViskey. Then again she always seems to be in the bathroom when he gets home all tuckered out from a hard day’s work at le bollinck.

Blanche, let’s face it, is just a touch tactless. She asks Stella: “See you in the character of that one the least trace of un gentleman?” Stan, on the other side of the bedroom curtain, overhears this slur. Glowering, he changes his shirt.

Every so often Stan, to prove that he is indeed no gentleman (pronounced throughout this offering as “jantlaman”), has a crack at the fourth of the distractions listed in the “Analysis of the Performance.” You can always tell that something is brewing because — you’ve guessed it — off comes another shirt. However, the subtle French prefer to leave nothing to chance. They call in le symbolisme to aid l’amour. Stan does three mad entrechats across the stage, wearing a pair of bright red silk pajama trousers, but with bared torso-back strictly audiencewards. Blanche glances up from her dreams of la plantation, startled. “Brute, va!” she ejaculates. Black-out.

But immediately, through the diaphanous walls, you can perceive, in the street outside, a colored shimmy dancer billowing around to the sound of voodoo drums. The audience notably entranced by this conceit. “Ah, ces Américains!“ they observe knowingly to one another.

The shimmy dancer is quickly succeeded by a really typical American street vendor. A character wearing a hard straw hat, horn-rimmed glasses, and spats is next seen outside.

“Ertdergs, ertdergs,” he drones. The audience instantly catches on. (And you must know all about ertdergs, don’t you? They mangent them at le bessboll game.)

So it goes. Never a dull moment. “I permit myself to draw attention to a certain lack of manners,”says one character. “He is frankly bestial!" snaps another, in the authentic accents of Louisiana.

The straight man is called Meetch. He wears plastic suspenders and wants to introduce Blanche to his maman. But Stan cannot forgive the difficulties about getting a bath in his own salle de bain. He strides in suddenly, très brute, past the bespatted ertderg men outside. He is wearing a steamer cap, windbreaker jacket, plus-four trouserings, and white socks. Caddishly enough, he informs Meetch that it is by no means only a down payment that Blanche is a fugitive from. Meetch instantly feels that Maman wouldn’t much care for anything like that. Pausing only to toss off half a glass of beer, he leaves the stage with unsteady gait.

Back to the “Analysis of the Performance”: —

“Blanche, beneath this final stroke of fate, feels her reason vacillate.” But the blow only makes her the more talkative. There is no holding her now.

And obviously there’s only one remedy. Yes, the Great American Remedy: call in the psychiatrist. But lucky Blanche! She, it seems, is to get him free, instead of having to shell out the 25-dollar fee twice weekly, which is what the run-of-the-mill patient would do.

So, in a surprise ending, Blanche neatly turns the tables on Stan-leBrute, Meetch-le-Milksop, Stella-laFemme, the card players, shimmy dancers, and ertderg men. For, like all good Américains — even the most underprivileged — they have all been longing to be vetted by a good psychiatrist. And now here is tiresome old Blanche pulling it off ahead of them all — and for free.

And as she sweeps out in triumph, arm in arm with Monsieur le Directeur du Snake-Pit, all hands burst into tears of jealous rage and maudlin self-pity.

Rideau.

Don’t miss this if you can catch it on the road. One long laugh. Guaranteed to help you forget your own troubles for a couple of hours.