The Rose Tattoo

Continuing my series on the plays of Tennesse Williams, I turn to his 1951 play, The Rose Tattoo. I have never seen it performed, nor have I seen the film version which won Anna Magnani a Best Actress Oscar, but I read the play last night and have a few comments.

To start with, it must have been something of a surprise for audiences accustomed to Williams' searing dramas, for The Rose Tattoo is something of an opera buffa, a sex comedy, with characters that are almost caricatures of Sicilians. Williams spent a lot of time in Sicily, and no doubt there are Sicilians who are overly dramatic and whose lives revolve the statue of Our Lady in their houses, but in this day and age I couldn't help but feel it was an ethic stereotype. It is funny, though.

The play is about Serafina, who lives with her husband and daughter in a small town on the Gulf Coast. Her husband, Rosario delle Rose (the play is so full of rose imagery that we are reminded again that Williams' sister was named Rose), is a truck driver. He usually hauls bananas, but does some work for the mob and ends up getting killed,

Serafina is devastated, and spends the next three years in an almost perpetual state of dishevelment. Against the wishes of the local priest, she keeps her husband's ashes in an urn in the house. Her daughter Rosa is ready to graduate high school, and has met a sailor at a school dance, but Serafina wants to keep her away from men. There's a wonderful scene where Serafina meets the sailor, Jack, and learns that he is possibly the only chaste sailor in the entire U.S. Fleet. When he kneels to the Madonna statue and promises he will not touch Rosa, Serafina is satisfied.

The title comes from the body art on Rosario's chest, which she momentarily saw on her own chest when she conceived. Serafina and her husband had a healthy sex life, but when she learns from a pair of busybodies that he may have cheated on her, she starts to unravel. She meets another truck driver, a younger man named Alvaro, and after a halting one-day courtship, goes to bed with him (in an effort to woo her, he also gets a rose tattoo on his chest). He's almost pathological in his pursuit of her, but she takes a while to warm to his advances. I loved this little exchange:

Alvaro: I bought this suit to get married in four years ago.
Serafina: But didn't get married?
Alvaro: I give her, the girl, a zircon instead of a diamond. She had it examined. The door was slammed in my face.
Serafina: I think maybe I'd do the same thing myself.
Alvaro: Buy the zircon?
Serafina: No, slam the door.

Magnani was offered the part for Broadway, but was not confident enough in her English and passed. Maureen Stapleton took the role, and Eli Wallach played Alvaro. It won the Tony that year for best play.