Screenplay/teleplay written around 1950.
SYNOPSIS
In Saint Louis, Missouri, in the late 1920s, the pre-dominant action of the play takes place at Blewett High School and in the shabby apartment of Jenny Starling and Beulah Bodenhafer.
Jenny Starling is teaching her class to conjugate the Latin word for “love.” The sound of a marching band that is practicing can be heard. The music upsets Jenny, as it reminds her of the man teaching the band, Harry Steed. One of her students, Eddie Peacock, taunts Jenny by mimicking her high-pitched voice. Jenny becomes irate, bursts into tears, and orders Eddie out of the classroom. Eddie All Gaul Is Divided 19
confides in Mr. Paige, the school superintendent, that Jenny is “on another rampage” and that every time she hears Harry Steed’s Victrola she “goes to pieces.”
After class, Jenny calls her housemate Beulah at her job at the Universal Shoe Company. Beulah urges Jenny to stay at school and to visit the school nurse. Beulah calls Mr. Paige and warns him that Harry Steed is upsetting Jenny. Jenny encounters Harry in the school cafeteria. Harry sits next to Jenny and asks her, “How many parts is Gaul divided into?” Jenny nervously responds, “Three parts.” Lucinda Keener joins Harry and Jenny at their table. Lucinda invites Harry to a bridge party on Saturday night. Harry responds that he has invited Jenny to see Blossom Time at the Municipal Opera. Jenny happily accepts his invitation.
Lucinda openly criticizes Jenny’s “little girl curls”
and suggests she have her hair bobbed. Harry states that Jenny “looks like an angel with curls.”
Jenny, torn between embarrassment and euphoria, leaves the table to call Beulah.
Lucinda chastises Harry in Jenny’s absence.
When Jenny returns, Lucinda leaves to have a ciga-rette. Noticing Jenny and Harry alone, a group of female students whisper and giggle. Jenny overre-acts and ferociously chastises the girls. Mr. Paige confronts Harry and suggests that he dress more appropriately before entering the cafeteria, instead of making a “public display” of his physique follow-ing his gym class. Harry challenges Mr. Paige’s com-ments and threatens to quit. Mr. Paige urges him to be careful in his dealings with Jenny Starling.
Lucinda discovers Jenny crying at the chalk-board in her classroom. Jenny asks Lucinda to walk her home. Once outside, the two women discuss Harry Steed. Lucinda tells Jenny sordid details of Harry’s previous romantic liaisons. Jenny naively disregards Lucinda’s warnings. Lucinda changes the subject and pressures Jenny to leave her “fat, mid-dle-aged typist” housemate and join her in a luxury apartment in an exclusive area of Saint Louis.
Jenny shares with Beulah the details of her lunchtime encounter with Harry Steed. Beulah tries to turn the conversation to her brother Buddy.
Jenny confesses that she is not interested in Beu-lah’s widowed brother or his daughter, Little Pretty.
Jenny prepares for her date with Harry. She waits for him wearing a snowy white taffeta ball gown. A rainstorm begins as Harry arrives. Jenny leaves with Harry, and Beulah phones Buddy.
Jenny and Harry are driving in his car, a “blood red” Bear Cat. They stop on Art Hill, and Harry asks Jenny for a kiss and she eagerly accepts. Jenny suggests they forgo the opera altogether and stay parked on Art Hill. Jenny sings a song from the opera for Harry. Harry decides they should go to the performance.
Harry and Jenny attend the outdoor perfor-mance and are caught in a violent rainstorm. Jenny is crushed as everyone runs for shelter. Harry car-ries Jenny home and delivers her to Beulah. Beulah ushers Jenny into her room. Harry sneaks out of the apartment while Beulah goes to answer the tele-phone. Jenny becomes hysterical when she realizes Harry has left without a word.
Buddy pays a visit to the apartment, where he crudely proposes to Jenny by suggesting that she’s
“not getting any younger.” He tries to kiss Jenny, who becomes hysterical and leaves the room. Beu-lah chastises Buddy for “moving too fast.” Buddy admits that he thinks Jenny is just a “prissy cold-heart schoolteacher.” Beulah tries to arrange a romantic picnic for the three of them the following Sunday at Creve Coeur. Buddy concedes and agrees to pursue Jenny.
Lucinda corners Jenny about her date with Harry and implies that Harry has been making fun of her behind her back. Lucinda once again pres-sures Jenny to move in with her at Westmoreland Place. She uses Harry as a reason for Jenny to move to Westmoreland Place—it will be a more fashion-able place to entertain him.
The following Saturday, Lucinda visits Jenny to collect her deposit for the new apartment. Jenny and Beulah’s living conditions mortify Lucinda.
During her visit she is rude to Beulah and hounds Jenny for the apartment deposit and taxi fare. Beu-lah criticizes Lucinda and informs Jenny that she has arranged a picnic at Creve Coeur the next day for Jenny, Buddy, and her. Jenny attacks Beulah for matchmaking and accuses her of “not have a life of [her] own.” Beulah apologizes and reminds Jenny how they met. (Jenny was a patient in the same 20 All Gaul Is Divided
sanitarium as Buddy and Beulah’s mother.) Jenny takes a wastepaper basket and collects all of Beu-lah’s tacky treasures and throws them away.
The next day, as Beulah prepares for the picnic, her upstairs neighbor quickly descends the fire escape to give her the society page from the Sunday newspaper. She shows Beulah a photograph of Harry Steed and his fiancée and their engagement announcement. The Upstairs Neighbor warns Beu-lah that the other teachers will be calling soon to tell Jenny. Beulah decides to disconnect the telephone and to hide the newspaper. Lucinda arrives to see Jenny. Beulah serves her coffee while she waits for Jenny. (Jenny is performing calisthenics in her bed-room.) Beulah makes a frantic call to Buddy, demanding that he join them for the picnic at Creve Coeur. Beulah urges him not to bring along his daughter, Little Pretty, as the little girl “makes Jenny nervous.”
Lucinda asks Beulah about Jenny’s mental health: whether she had previously had a nervous breakdown or something “mental.” Beulah dodges the question and explains that Jenny is simply a per-son who “can’t cope” with life. Beulah tells Lucinda about her plan to encourage Buddy and Jenny to marry. Lucinda asks for details about Buddy and ridicules the fact that he works at the Budweiser brewery. Lucinda slips into Jenny’s bedroom, while Beulah takes her bulldog, Rosie, outside. Just as Lucinda starts to tell Jenny of Harry’s engagement, Beulah rushes in, turns up the radio, and whisks Lucinda out of Jenny’s room. She threatens Lucinda with a cactus plant, and Lucinda storms out of the apartment.
Jenny leaves her room and informs Beulah that she will not be attending the picnic at Creve Coeur and that she is moving in with Lucinda. Jenny explains that she will need a more refined place in which to entertain Harry Steed. Beulah counters by pleading with Jenny to give Buddy a chance. She informs Jenny that Buddy is “ready and willing” to accept her “on faith.” Jenny becomes outraged by the implications of Buddy’s acceptance of her “on faith.” Beulah tries to explain delicately that this is in reference to Jenny’s previous nervous break-down. Jenny launches an attack on what she calls
Beulah’s “tyranny of kindness,” which has robbed her of her independence.
Jenny goes through the Sunday paper and questions Beulah about the society section. Beu-lah confesses that she has wrapped the deviled eggs in that page. Jenny orders her to unwrap them and give her the page. Beulah leaves Jenny with the newspaper and goes to meet Buddy at Creve Coeur streetcar station. Jenny is dumb-founded and sits in silence for a few moments. She then places a call to Creve Coeur streetcar sta-tion. She asks the station manager to relay a mes-sage to Beulah Bodenhafer, whom he will recognize by her hat (a straw hat with silk roses) and the large poppy she wears over one ear to conceal her hearing aid. The Station Manager is advised to tell Beulah that Jenny is on her way to join the Bodenhafers at Creve Coeur station.
COMMENTARY
All Gaul Is Divided is the foundation text for the play A LOVELY SUNDAY FOR CREVE COEUR. Williams penned All Gaul Is Divided during the 1950s, mislaid it, and subsequently recovered it in a file of old manuscripts in New Orleans around 1976. Williams believed the screenplay to be the superior text of the two because in the screenplay he “rectifies the major defect dilemma of the recent play: the giving away of the ‘plot’ in the first scene . . . the denouement is saved till the last few minutes of the final scene” (Williams, “Author’s Note,” 3). Although All Gaul may be structurally superior to Creve Coeur, the latter is a much more satisfying work in terms of form, content, and depth of characterization. In Creve Coeur Williams is also more concise with the material and employs farcical humor to drive the plot and relieve dra-matic tension.
PRODUCTION HISTORY
All Gaul Is Divided has not been filmed or produced professionally.
PUBLICATION HISTORY
All Gaul Is Divided was first published in Stopped Rocking and Other Screenplays (1984).
All Gaul Is Divided 21
CHARACTERS
Bodenhafer, Beulah Beulah is a middle-aged Ger-man woGer-man who works at the Universal Shoe Com-pany in Saint Louis. She shares an apartment with a young schoolteacher, Jenny Starling. Beulah met Jenny while visiting her mother in a mental institu-tion. Jenny had suffered a nervous breakdown. Beu-lah pitied her and took her in upon her release.
Although Jenny is infatuated with Harry Steed, Beu-lah strives to convince Jenny to marry her brother, Buddy Bodenhafer.
Bodenhafer, Buddy He is the large beer-drinking brother of Beulah Bodenhafer. Buddy works at the Budweiser brewery in Saint Louis and is a single father. At his sister’s insistence he is pursuing a relationship with Jenny Starling, an emotionally unstable schoolteacher. Although Jenny is attrac-tive, Buddy often finds her to be snobbish and
“prissy.” Jenny becomes interested in Buddy only when Harry Steed becomes engaged to someone else. She decides that Buddy, and his nerve-wracking daughter, Little Pretty, are better than no family at all.
Keener, Lucinda Lucinda is a sophisticated art teacher at Blewett High School in Saint Louis. She pretends to befriend Jenny Starling, a fellow teacher at the school. Jenny is insecure, mentally unstable, and easily manipulated by Lucinda and others. Lucinda swindles Jenny and procures money from her for the down payment on a luxury apartment in a posh section of the city.
Paige, Mr. Mr. Paige is the principal of Blewett High School. He is concerned for the well-being of Jenny Starling, a mentally unstable woman who teaches Latin at the high school. Jenny has fre-quent outbursts in her classes; the source of her dis-traction is the attractive gym teacher Harry Steed.
Mr. Paige confronts Harry about his behavior and his somewhat revealing attire.
Peacock, Eddie He is one of the students in Jenny Starling’s Latin class. Eddie mocks Jenny by imitating her voice during class recitation. Jenny
loses her temper, bursts into tears, and orders Eddie to leave the classroom. Eddie reports the incident to the school principal, Mr. Paige.
Starling, Jenny Jenny is a mentally unstable Latin teacher at a Saint Louis high school. She is older than age 30 and shares a tasteless apartment with Beulah Bodenhafer, a middle-aged office worker. Jenny dresses herself “like a grown woman playing a little girl” and is infatuated with the local playboy and high school gym teacher Harry Steed.
She is easily toyed with by Harry, manipulated for her money by Lucinda Keener, and coaxed into a relationship with Beulah’s beer-swilling brother Buddy.
Steed, Harry Harry is a handsome, well-built gym teacher at Blewett High School. He is a local playboy in the Saint Louis country club scene. He dallies with the affections of Jenny Starling, a men-tally unstable Latin teacher.
Upstairs Neighbor She is a stout matron who lives in the apartment above Beulah Bodenhafer and Jenny Starling. The Upstairs Neighbor rushes down the fire escape to show Beulah the society page in the Sunday paper, which contains a photo-graph of Harry Steed and his fiancée.
FURTHER READING
Williams, Tennessee. “Author’s Note,” in Stopped Rocking and Other Screenplays. New York: New Directions, 1984, p. 3.