the click, by Tennessee Williams*

*ainda à boleia de City Middle, Alligator, The National

pequenas amostras deste livro/peça de teatro/filme que me revisita frequentemente com o passar dos anos. ainda que tenha sido publicada pela primeira vez em 55, e adaptada ao cinema em 58 (magníficos desempenhos de Paul Newman e Elizabeth Taylor), há aspectos das expectativas e das dinâmicas de vida familiar que ainda são actuais. sobre tudo isto a tentativa de retrato não menos importante do que somos por dentro, do que (não) ambicionamos, e das marcas que vão ficando na alma e no coração, marcas de perdas e tentativas de conquista, dos outros e de nós próprios. livro/peça de teatro/filme que recomendarei sempre.

PERSON-TO-PERSON

...

It is a lonely idea, a lonely condition, so terrifying to think of that we usually don't. And so we talk to each other, call each other, call each other short and long distance across land and sea, clasp hands with each other at meeting and at parting, fight each other and even destroy each other because of this always somewhat thwarted effort to break through walls to each other. As a character in a play once said, 'We're all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins'.
Personal lyricism is the outcry of prisoner to prisoner from the cell in solitary where each is confined for the duration of his life.
...

[prefácio a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, de Tennessee Williams, pelo autor]

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
Act Two

...

Big Daddy: ... What makes you so restless? Have you got ants in your britches?
Brick: Yes, sir...
Big Daddy: Why?
Brick: - Something - hasn't - happened....
Big Daddy: Yeah? What is that!
Brick(sadly): - the click....
Big Daddy: Did you say click?
Brick: Yes, click.
Big Daddy: What click?
Brick: A click that I get in my head that makes me peaceful.
Big Daddy: I sure in hell don't know what you're talking about, but it disturbs me.
Brick: It's just a mechanical thing.
Big Daddy: What is a mechanical thing?
Brick: This click that I get in my head that makes me peaceful. I got to drink till I get it. It's just a mechanical thing, something like a - like a - like a -
Big Daddy: Like a -
Brick: Switch clicking off in my head, turning the hot light off and the cool night on and -
[he looks up, smiling sadly.]
- all of a sudden there's - peace!
...
[excerto de Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, de Tennessee Williams]