The Rose Tattoo

"Yes. It’s my favourite because it is a play front-loaded with tragedy; it doesn’t at first seem to be a life-affirming play. But it is. It’s a beautiful, tender and incredibly loving play. Williams dedicated the play to his lover Frank Merlo, “in return for Sicily.” To sum up the play very briefly, our main character Serafina Delle Rose begins happily married to her husband, Rosario, has a child, Rosa, and is pregnant with her second child. Rosario is outwardly a banana truck driver, and also a drug runner. There is a car accident, Rosario dies, Serafina suffers a miscarriage as a result and she spends the next period—maybe four years—in mourning. She’s a dressmaker, so people rely on her. At the beginning of the second act, several women in her community are up in arms because she has promised them gowns for their daughters’ high school graduations and she has kept delaying them because she doesn’t want to leave the house. She’s been in seclusion, essentially. Eventually, Serafina comes to find out that her beloved Rosario had been having an affair. Right at that point, when she makes this discovery, she meets a man, Alvaro, another truck driver, who has the “face of a clown and the body of her husband.” There’s a sense that Rosario is haunting her. But he’s also come back to her in a new, improved and more tender-hearted way. Alvaro is much less stereotypically masculine. He cries. He’s put upon by family members. He doesn’t have his own independence. He wants to settle down and have a family of his own, but the circumstances aren’t ideal. Serafina and Alvaro are drawn together. They make love, and after the night of passion Serafina gets pregnant and decides to give love another chance. The reason why it’s my favourite play is because it is Williams completely undoing what he had been known for up until this point, which—by his own admission—was violent, tragic plays. He gives you that sense that Serafina’s fate was going to be very similar to Blanche DuBois, or even Laura’s. Laura doesn’t die, but she does lose her gentleman caller, and her future isn’t particularly bright. Serafina’s fate initially seems to be that she will fall victim to those same forces. Her sense of her dead husband has been shattered, she’s exiled in her own community, she’s an Italian immigrant so her relationship with the rest of America is strained and contingent. It seems she will be another of Williams’ tragic heroines. And yet, over the course of the play, you see a woman who has lost everything, very close to a Blanche DuBois figure, throw caution to the wind and embrace life. I think that’s the most beautiful thing about The Rose Tattoo . It’s a richly affirming play. Even Williams thinks that life cannot just be a series of tragedies. There has to be some kind of sweetness or succour at the end. It stands out, because Williams plays it as a kind of comedy. He plays a trick on his audience, making you think it will be a tragedy, then pulls the rug out from under you. It’s a beautiful surprise of a play. That’s why I think some critics don’t think it works. This 180º turn doesn’t convince everybody. But I love it because Williams subverts the results he has established in the middle of his own career. On top of that, it won Anna Magnani, a brilliant Italian actress known for realist cinema, an Academy Award. Again, Williams creates these masterpieces that draw equally immense talent."