Full-length play written in 1936.
SYNOPSIS
This play is set in a coal mining camp in the Red Hill section of Alabama.
Candles to the Sun 49
Scene 1
Before sunrise, Bram Pilcher barges out of the bed-room of his cabin. He stumbles into the furniture, complaining to his wife, Hester, that she has not lighted the oil lamp. Hester busily makes a break-fast of hot mush and coffee. She grumbles about Bram’s refusal to use the milk sparingly. Bram laughs when Hester demands that he buy a cow. He hurries her to make his coffee before the work whistle blows. When Bram scalds his tongue on the hot coffee and yelps, Hester hushes him so that he will not wake their children, Joel and Star. Bram fusses about Joel’s laziness and complains about his wasting time in school. He says that coal miners have no use for school. Hester retorts that Joel is not going to be a coal miner, but Bram reminds her that all men become coal miners in this part of the country; they have no choice. Bram does not like Hester encouraging Joel to leave the camp because they have lost contact with their oldest son, John, who left.
When Bram criticizes the newly built school, Hester calls him a “natural born slave,” as he is loyal to the mining company that keeps him igno-rant and poor. Bram notices a shift in Hester’s atti-tude toward him, and he enquires as to the source.
Hester produces a letter from her pocket. Tim Adams, the postmaster, told her it is from Pennsyl-vania, but she cannot read. They fear something has happened to John. Bram leaves the table to wake up Star to read the letter to them. Hester does not want Star to be awakened because she has only been home for a few hours. Bram is infuriated that Star has been out so late. Hester says that Star has been hanging out with rich girls in Birmingham who buy her nice things.
Bram drags Star out of her bed and into the liv-ing room. Refusliv-ing to believe her story, he demands to know how she obtained the bright red kimono she’s wearing. When Star states that it is none of his business, and Bram slaps her and asks again.
Star retorts that her father has never given her any-thing in her life and this is why she has to have friends that will help her. In her rage, Star admits that she has been going to Birmingham with Jake Walland. Bram objects to her relationship with Jake and demands that Star leave the house.
Joel enters the living room. He notices the letter that has fallen to the floor and hands it to his mother. He asks what all the shouting is about, but Hester instructs him to get ready for school and study hard. She also tells him to take the letter to school and have Mrs. Wallace read it to him.
Scene 2
The next evening Mrs. Wallace reads the letter to Bram and Hester. John has been killed in a Pennsyl-vania coal mine. His widow has written the letter informing them that she and their young son, Luke, are on their way to live with them. Bram blames Hester for encouraging John to leave home and,
“them damn Yankee mines . . . where they got all them damn fool contraptions like machine loadin’
and things to kill people with.” Hester blames John’s widow for killing him by forcing him to work in the mines.
Tim Adams approaches the cabin with a very thin woman named Fern and a small boy. He says that she came into the store looking for them. Hes-ter is delighted to see that her grandson, Luke, looks just like John.
Scene 3
One early summer morning five years later, Fern washes clothes in a big wooden washtub in the mid-dle of the cabin floor. Mrs. Abbey, the mining super-intendent’s wife, enters. She asks Fern about a pair of purple pajamas that were missing in the last batch of washing that she brought to Fern. Fern says that there were no pajamas in the last load. Mrs. Abbey plops down on a chair and begins to gossip about Joel, who is working at the company store rather than in the mine. She calls him weak for choosing not to go into the mines. Fern is insulted, but keeps calm. Mrs.
Abbey talks about Bram’s failing eyesight and how unimportant it is anyway because he works in the dark. She tells Fern about a fight that occurred at the store between Star and a red-haired woman.
Hester enters the cabin. Mrs. Abbey excitedly begins to relate the story again for Hester, but Fern interrupts and tells her good-bye. As she is leaving, Mrs. Abbey tells her to be on the lookout for Mr.
Abbey’s purple pajamas that may be lost among Joel’s and Bram’s clothes. Hester takes serious offense to this insinuation and throws the bundle of 50 Candles to the Sun
laundry at Mrs. Abbey and tells her never to return to the cabin or to utter another word about her family. Mrs. Abbey threatens to tell her husband, and Hester emphatically encourages her to do that.
After she leaves, Hester regrets her actions and remarks to Mrs. Abbey. She worries that Mrs.
Abbey will have Joel fired from the store. Fern tries to comfort her. Hester encourages Fern to start looking for another husband so she won’t have to wash other people’s dirty laundry. She wants Fern to have a good life. Fern confesses that she feels responsible for John’s death and has been saving all of her money for Luke as recompense. Fern sends Luke down the mountain to pick blueberries for lunch. Both women watch him run home, and Hes-ter is struck by his resemblance to John.
Scene 4
Five years later Star sits in her cabin with the win-dows open to the passing crowd on a lively Satur-day. Ethel Sunter comes by to deliver dinner to Star.
When Ethel comments on the cards on the table, Star says she has been telling fortunes. Ethel chas-tises her for such sinfulness and reminds her that only the Lord can divine the future. Ethel also apol-ogizes for missing Jake’s funeral, but says that she could not attend it because Jake would not “profess belief” on his deathbed. Ethel asks Star what she has planned for her future, and Star bluntly says there is no plan. Ethel proselytizes and leaves.
Luke visits Star. He tells her that Hester is very ill and that the doctor has prescribed a long rest for her. Luke talks about a man he met, called Birm-ingham Red, who is organizing a miners’ strike.
Luke has been reading books that Red has loaned him, and he believes a strike is in order. Star admits that she has heard Red speak, but she is puzzled as to why he never pays her any attention. Star expresses her cynical belief that nothing ever really changes, but Luke refuses to accept her point of view. He is young and hopeful that a strike will improve his family’s circumstances.
Luke tells Star that Hester thinks and talks about her all the time. Star makes Luke promise that he will come and get her if Hester should take a turn for the worse. Later that evening, Red visits Star. He talks about miners’ rights, the lung disease Jake contracted in the mines, and the atrocities
that happen underground. Unaware of Star’s family connections, he tells her that Hester Pilcher is dying of pellagra, a disease associated with malnu-trition. Star is shaken by this blunt news of her mother, and Red apologizes for his candor. Red and Star go down to the spring to watch the stars. Luke returns and frantically searches for Star.
Scene 5
A few months later, Bram stumbles out of his bed-room, tripping over furniture in the dark. Fern makes his breakfast in the kitchen and scolds him for being so loud and cantankerous. Bram says that Hester always had the lamp burning for him when he got up.
Fern sends him out to pump a kettle of water, and Joel enters to eat breakfast. Tim Adams comes by to collect payment of a past-due bill. Bram gives him all the scrip (coal company dollars) he has, but it is not enough to cover the debt. Luke appears in the living room in mining clothes. Fern is horrified and demands that he take the clothes off and go back to bed. Joel and Bram try to reason with her, as they are proud that Luke is going underground with them.
Fern is completely beside herself, but Luke says that he has to earn more money if he is going to college next fall. Fern pleads with him, but with Bram and Joel taking Luke’s side, her efforts are stifled.
Scene 6
Later that day Star visits Fern. She is lonely and talks about her excruciating love for Red. Star informs Fern of the impending strike. She explains that the miners are divided over the action and are forming alliances. Star and Fern lament Hester‘s passing, and especially how much they miss her in troubling times. At this moment, the women hear the whistle blow three times, signaling an emer-gency at the mine. A crowd forms in the distance, and there is shouting. Fern sends Star outside to see who has been killed, as she stands frozen in terror.
Fern has a flashback of John’s tragedy. Bram can see Star’s outline, and he shouts to tell Fern that it is not Luke. The men approach the cabin rushing Joel inside on a plank. His head is covered with a cloth.
Scene 7
Bram’s cabin is swarming with miners who have come to pay their respects. Ethel enters to conduct Candles to the Sun 51
the prayers and service in the back room where Joel’s body is on display. Eventually the strike comes up in conversation. Bram begins to fight with the younger miners who believe a strike will create bet-ter conditions. Bram reminds the miners, including Luke, that the company store will shut down if there is a strike and the whole camp will starve to death. Luke suggests the miners use his mother’s savings to sustain the camp. Bram refuses to allow Luke to touch Fern’s money. The argument esca-lates when other miners enter after attending Red’s strike rally. Fern attempts to contain the argument.
Scene 8
One or two nights later, Star paces in her cabin while Red writes something. The camp has been silent since the strike began. Star begs Red to tell her what he knows, but he refuses to involve her. Star asks Red when the provisions are going to arrive, as the whole camp is hungry. Red tells her they will arrive as soon as they can. His answer makes Star angry, and she mentions that Fern has $300. Red insists that he will get it from her, but Star tries to convince him that Fern will never part with Luke’s college money. Red suggests to Star that he move out of her house because she is not safe with him there. Star confesses that she is in love with him and that she wants a home and family with him. Red is surprised by her declaration. He reminds Star that he is not “a woman’s man.” Red explains that their relationship cannot get in the way of his mission.
Luke enters the cabin to inform Red that a truck-load of men has arrived at the camp and that they are convening in the basement of the company store. Luke has stolen his mother’s savings and hands it to Red. Star is angry that Red has made a thief of Luke. Star worries about Red’s safety and begs him to go into hiding. Red refuses to shrink from the superintendent’s goons. Fern enters demanding her money. Red tells her that she can have it back if she can deal with the guilt of refusing to feed 1,500 of her own people. He appeals to her sentimentality and asks her to ask John what to do.
Fern relents and leaves the money on the table.
Scene 9
Star and Red wait for the superintendent’s men.
Star criticizes Red for merely waiting for trouble to
arrive instead of escaping and making the fight a lit-tle harder for the goons. Red asks her why Fern left the money. Star jokes that maybe she “saw the light,” and Red agrees. Star says that she remembers Fern looking, “struck blind.” Red says, “There’s a lot of difference between looking at a candle and then looking at the sun.” Star does not understand what Red means, but she begs him to take her away from the camp. Red promises her that next spring they will go north. Star again professes her love and says that she wants him all to herself. Red explains that he must fight before he loves.
A group of men assemble outside Star’s cabin.
Red gives Star the money and tells her to take it to the miners. Star asks what he is going to do, and he replies, “Nothing.” The men break down the cabin door, grab Star, and pinion and gag her. The men shoot Red and quickly leave when they hear a mili-tia of miners approaching. Star goes to Red, sob-bing and screaming for help.
Scene 10
Two months later Star goes to Bram’s cabin to say good-bye. She tells Fern that she is going to work in Birmingham. She also promises to send money back to pay off Red’s debt, but Fern refuses repay-ment. The superintendent has submitted to the conditions of the strike. Now blind, Bram has also become disoriented. He believes Fern is Hester and that Luke is John. Luke leaves for work at the mines, and Fern rocks in Hester’s old rocking chair.
COMMENTARY
One of Williams’s first full-length plays, Candles to the Sun was written to be performed by a small semi-professional theater group in Saint Louis, Missouri, called The Mummers. The group was concerned with social issues and invited Williams to explore socially conscious themes in the plays he wrote for them. Addressing the concerns of coal-mining fami-lies, Williams drafted the play during a difficult time in U.S. history. Shortly after the Great Depression and just prior to World War II, poverty was wide-spread, and the struggle for survival was enormous for the poor. Coal-mining families were starving;
fathers, brothers, and husbands were being killed due to unsafe conditions underground.
52 Candles to the Sun
Candles to the Sun should answer questions some contemporary scholars may have about Williams’s political convictions. As in his play NOT ABOUT
NIGHTINGALES, Williams is wrestling with the seri-ous social concerns of his time. Nightingales is informed by the Holmesburg Prison Strike of 1938, during which four inmates were killed for having participated in a hunger strike; in Candles, Williams refers to the coal miners’ strikes of the early 20th century. The Matewan Massacre and the early Har-lan County (“Bloody HarHar-lan”) strikes were some of the most brutally suppressed attempts of coal min-ers to unionize.
Just as Birmingham Red is killed by the superin-tendent’s hired thugs, many miners were brutally beaten and killed in their attempt to receive fair wages, better living conditions, and safety. Some, like Bram Pilcher, felt they could mine as long as conditions were bearable, but Williams focuses on a shift in the economy that made it impossible for min-ers to feed their families in spite of their hard labor.
There is also a generational shift among the miners themselves, with the younger miners expressing the most dissatisfaction. Luke and Joel’s generation have witnessed the steady deterioration of their elders, and in Luke’s case, the death of his father in the mines. Bram is blind and mentally unstable by the end of the play. Hester dies from malnutrition in the camp. Star loses all hope when Birmingham Red is killed and leaves to work in a brothel in Birmingham. Every person suffers as a result of their association with the mines. There is com-plete destruction—emotional, physical, social, and environmental.
Candles to the Sun was, and remains, Williams’s poignant plea on behalf of long-suffering mining communities—an impoverished social group that has been largely ignored and brutually disenfranchised.
PRODUCTION HISTORY
There have been no professional productions of this play.
PUBLICATION HISTORY
Candles to the Sun was published by New Directions in 2004.
CHARACTERS
Abbey, Mrs. The wife of the coal-mining super-intendent, Mrs. Abbey spends her time gossiping and stirring up trouble among the people of the mining camp. She considers herself superior to the women in the camp.
Adams, Tim Tim Adams runs the company store in a coal camp in Red Hill, Alabama. He is at the mercy of the mining superintendent, who conducts business in a dishonest way. Although Tim has escaped the coal mines, his struggles are the same as the miners’.
Birmingham Red Leader of a group of coal min-ers in the Red Hill section of Alabama who are fighting for a union. Provocative in his beliefs and convincing in his speeches, Birmingham Red storms into the coal camp with the sole intention of fighting the tyrannical mining company. He realizes that he is jeopardizing his own life, but his convic-tions are so great that he is fearless. Birmingham Red falls in love with Star Pilcher, and he promises that together they will leave the camp the following spring; however, Red is killed by the mine superin-tendent’s thugs.
Pilcher, Bram A dedicated coal miner and a profoundly simple man who believes that he should mine coal as long as he is living. Bram is the oldest man in the mines and the brunt of many cruel jokes. Though losing his eyesight, Bram refuses to stop mining, in part because he knows that his fam-ily will starve if he does. When Birmingham Red organizes a miners’ strike, Bram strongly objects, believing that as long as the conditions are bearable he should never complain. Bram ages very quickly
Pilcher, Bram A dedicated coal miner and a profoundly simple man who believes that he should mine coal as long as he is living. Bram is the oldest man in the mines and the brunt of many cruel jokes. Though losing his eyesight, Bram refuses to stop mining, in part because he knows that his fam-ily will starve if he does. When Birmingham Red organizes a miners’ strike, Bram strongly objects, believing that as long as the conditions are bearable he should never complain. Bram ages very quickly