A Streetcar Named Desire

I was playing Stella

When I got knocked up

Ironically by the guy playing Mitch

This real sleazeball

That even Beau couldn’t stand

I don’t know why he kept him around

The guy playing Stanley was actually really sweet

And I liked him a lot

Even though he had a thing going

With the woman playing Blanche

Who happened to be Beau’s ex-wife

I wonder if, when Tennessee Williams was writing these plays

He knew that one day the actors performing them

Would be even more screwed up

Than his characters were

I had no intention of keeping the baby

I was living in a studio apartment

Which, back then we used to call closets

And I had just enough money to cover expenses

Because the rest had to be sent back home to Brooklyn

So my little sister could stay in a good school

People used to do that, you know

Send money back home

It wasn’t anything you got applause for

You just did it

So anyway, no baby—no way

Especially not with good ole Mitch

Who I only slept with because it was the end of the season

And I was feeling…

Jesus, who knows what I was feeling?

In the later years of the company

Whenever we’d consider doing a play

If the topic of abortion came up

It was an unwritten rule

That the character had to ultimately keep the baby

Beau hated that

But the Board insisted

Otherwise we would have become the Baby Killing Theater

So the girl always kept the baby

But I didn’t keep mine

The plan was to give it up for adoption

That seemed…fair

And then that summer

I got hit by a car

Crossing the street

And the decision was taken out of my hands

I was laid up in the hospital for awhile

My mom and my sister came in from Brooklyn

It was this big ordeal

Mitch never stopped by to see me

Not once

He only called and asked how I was

I said—‘The baby’s gone’

He said—‘Well, that’s something then, isn’t it?’

Click

Stanley came to visit though

I guess the thing with him and Blanche

Was just a showmance

There were a lot of those back then

Beau probably told him

To keep his hands off his wife

Beau never called her his ex-wife

Always his wife

In a weird way, I sort of found it sweet

And I thought Stanley was very sweet

And he thought I was…

He stayed with me

The whole time I was in the hospital

Then when I got out

He moved me into his place

And I sort of never left

That whole ordeal was…awful

But you know us theater people

We make the best out of the worst

And out of all that came a lovely little marriage

That lasted for forty-two years

Until last May

When my husband passed

I decided to come back today

Looking as I did

When we first met

I think he’d have liked that

We never could keep our hands off each other

I guess once you do Streetcar

It sticks with you

Do me a favor, would you?

Yell ‘Stella’—just once

(She waits, hears it, then--)

Thank you

That really brings me back