e-Luminations: Tennesee Williams' Love of the South
Click here to read an excerpt from Illuminations, OSF's 64-page guide to the plays.

Audio:
Show Introduction
Podcast: Whose truth is the truth?

Synopsis: 
On a vast Mississippi Delta plantation, the Pollitt clan gathers to celebrate Big Daddy’s 65th birthday. Margaret has escaped the festivities to seek refuge in the bedroom she shares with Brick, her husband. Brick’s older brother, Gooper, and his pregnant wife, Mae, have arrived with their children to honor Big Daddy, but Margaret suspects that her in-laws are flaunting their “no-neck monsters” to remind everyone that Brick and Margaret are childless. On any other day Gooper and Mae’s ploy would be merely cruel, but today is no ordinary day.

Big Daddy is dying.

After complaining of stomach trouble, Big Daddy has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The rest of the family knows, but the doctors have kept the truth from Big Daddy and his wife, Big Mama, telling them only that he is suffering from a “spastic colon.” The news has set off a struggle for the Pollitt fortune, with Mae and Gooper determined to cut Brick and Margaret out of the will.

While Margaret is aware of their machinations, Brick couldn’t care less. Nursing a broken ankle and a highball, Brick is indifferent to both his wife and their troubled marriage. Margaret attempts to seduce him, but finally snaps after his constant rebuffs. She brings up the failed affair she had with Brick’s best friend, Skipper, who recently died. But when she suggests that Skipper’s feelings for Brick might have gone beyond mere friendship, Brick reacts violently and threatens to kill her.

Brick and Margaret’s standoff is interrupted by the entrance of the rest of the party into their bedroom: Big Daddy, Big Mama, Mae, Gooper, Reverend Tooker and Doctor Baugh. The group attempts to continue the birthday celebration—complete with cake and a sing-along—but Big Daddy is in no mood to indulge them. When Big Mama persists, Big Daddy lashes viciously out at her as the others find convenient excuses to leave the room.

Finally alone with Brick, Big Daddy confronts him about his drinking and his refusal to sleep with Margaret. Brick tries to evade his father’s questioning and finally blames his alcoholism on his disgust with the “mendacity” of his life. However, when Big Daddy notes that Brick’s drinking began around the time of Skipper’s death, Brick angrily defends his relationship with Skipper and rejects implications that it went beyond real, deep friendship. In his fury, Brick reveals the truth of the cancer diagnosis to Big Daddy.

Big Daddy walks out in disbelief as the group returns and gathers around Big Mama: The time has come. As Mae and Gooper break the news about Big Daddy’s cancer and attempt to gain control of the estate, Margaret takes matters into her own hands with one last inspired gambit.