Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen

by Tennessee Williams

Two unnamed characters, Man and Woman, live in a crumbling flat on the Lower East Side. He is a drunk, and she is purposefully wasting away - but between them there is an intimacy of desperation.

Genres: Plays, Drama

15 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Thomas Lanier Williams III, better known by the nickname Tennessee Williams, was a major American playwright of the twentieth century who received many of the top theatrical awards for his work. He moved to New Orleans in 1939 and changed his name to "Tennessee," the state of his father's birth.

Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, after years of obscurity, at age 33 he became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. This play closely reflected his own unhappy family background. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). With his later work, he attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century, alongside Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.

Much of Williams' most acclaimed work has been adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays and a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

From Wikipedia

Reviews

[Paula Mota · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5*

HOMEM (…)Conta-me coisas. O que é que tens pensado em silêncio? Enquanto tenho feito o meu percurso de postal sujo pela cidade… Diz-me, fala comigo! Fala comigo como a chuva e eu ficarei aqui deitado a ouvir.

“Fala-me como a chuva e deixa-me ouvir…” é talvez um dos títulos mais poéticos entre todas as obras de Tennessee Williams. No palco, um quarto em Manhattan, o típico casal infeliz cuja dinâmica é descrita com minúcia:

Ficamos com a ideia de que já vivem nesta situação e intimidade há tempo demais, que a presente cena é a repetição de uma situação já de si tão repetida, que o plausível conteúdo emocional, como o opróbrio e a contrição, já foi esgotado por completo.

Quando o homem acorda ressacado num domingo, depois de gastar todo o subsídio de desemprego na borga, depara-se com a mulher que, calmamente, lhe diz que quer ir-se embora. O seu desejo é instalar-se sozinha num pequeno hotel na costa, a ouvir a chuva cair enquanto tem a mais simples das existências. A vida que ambiciona longe dali é tentadora e aparentemente exequível…

MULHER (...)Lerei longos livros e diários de escritores que já morreram. E vou sentir-me mais próxima deles do que me senti de outras pessoas que conheci antes de me retirar do mundo. Será uma amizade calma e encantadora, a que terei com esses poetas mortos, porque não terei de lhes tocar ou de responder às suas perguntas. Irão falar comigo sem esperar que lhes responda.

…mas dará ela o primeiro passo nessa direcção?

[Théo d'Or]

Dontcha just hate it when you wake up and realize the whole world outside is moving, people walking fast down the street, and somehow you just know that you're not really part of it , that even if you got up and stepped outside, you would still be stuck in your quiet, damn emptiness where time isn't measured in minutes, but in a broken chain of dreams, in the silence between words, and you try to do something, and close your eyes and try to stick the pieces of dreams, wondering if you'II ever go anywhere, to break free from this slow , relentless drifting toward nothingness, and even the person lying beside you, sighing, can feel they're a million miles away, lost in a place where you can't reach, because even though you share a space, a roof, it's like you're both trapped in separate glass rooms, watching each other fade, and all you can really do is listening to the rain like it's got answers, like it can tell you where to go, how to slip away without anyone noticing, and even the person beside you , lost in their own quiet fading - can feel like something that once mattered but now just stays, because staying is easier than moving, hoping is easier than knowing, and all that's left to do is listen, to let the sound fill up the empty places, listen like the sound of footsteps disappearing down a long, empty corridor, listen like someone who knows that nothing ever really changes, but sometimes, you can almost believe it will...

[Shima · Rating 5 out of 5]

«می‌خواهم بروم، تنها، با یک اسم ساختگی، به یک هتل ساحلی کوچک ...»

[maría · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I will read long books and the journals of dead writers. I will feel closer to them than I ever felt to people I used to know before I withdrew from the world. It will be sweet and cool this friendship of mine with dead poets, for I won’t have to touch them or answer their questions. They will talk to me and not expect me to answer. And I’ll get sleepy listening to their voices explaining the mysteries to me. I’ll fall asleep with the book still in my fingers, and it will rain. I’ll wake up and hear the rain and go back to sleep. A season of rain, rain, rain . . .” wow 🙂‍↕️

[rosarioesete · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nombre en español de la obra: Háblame como la lluvia y déjame escuchar.

Acabo de leer esta pequeña obra de teatro de apenas 5 páginas. Me costó bastante encontrarla, se nota que es una obra olvidada y después de disfrutarla tanto ojalá mucha más gente la leyera. Tengo un buen sabor de boca después de leerla, y eso que es bastante amarga.

Gracias a la recomendación de Elvira Sastre, encontré este tesoro.

[Hili B. Stern · Rating 5 out of 5]

brilliant, one of my favorites by Tennessee Williams

[xira · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will read long books and the journals of dead writers. I will feel closer to them than I ever felt to people I used to know before I withdrew from the world. It will be sweet and cool this friendship of mine with dead poets, for I won’t have to touch them or answer their questions. They will talk to me and not expect me to answer. And I’ll get sleepy listening to their voices explaining the mysteries to me. I’ll fall asleep with the book still in my fingers, and it will rain.

[lizzie mcguire · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful

[ANNA fayard · Rating 4 out of 5]

2. Five by Tenn
New York City, 1956
First of all the title for this one is so beyond gorgeous and deserves a moment. Quite a few moments, really. Saw five of Tennessee William's one act plays on a splendid little Sunday afternoon in New Orleans. Beautiful, beautiful. Spellbound. Wanted to record a few of the lines that I was trying to commit to memory while watching the performance. Somewhat rereading all of these in the process because wow oh wow.

Man: "Could I say, I'm lost? Lost in this city? Passed around like a dirty postcard among people?--And then hang up...I am lost in this--city..."

Repeated throughout: "Talk to me like the rain and I will lie here and listen"

Woman: "The windows will be tall with long blue shutters and it will be a season of rain--rain--rain . . . My life will be like the room, cool--shadowy cool and--filled with the murmur of--" Man: "Rain . . ."

Woman: "There will be a season of rain, rain, rain. And I will be so exhausted after my life in the city that I won't mind just listening to the rain. I'll be so quiet" (this is so beautiful--)

**Woman: "I will read long books and the journals of dead writers. I will feel closer to them than I ever felt to people I used to know before I withdrew from the world. It will be sweet and cool this friendship of mine with dead poets, for I won’t have to touch them or answer their questions. They will talk to me and not expect me to answer. And I’ll get sleepy listening to their voices explaining the mysteries to me. I’ll fall asleep with the book still in my fingers, and it will rain. I’ll wake up and hear the rain and go back to sleep. A season of rain, rain, rain . . ."

[Marco Lizarraga]

Overall: 7/10

Definition of a solid one-act. Clear people and ideas that are being represented. Poetic. Really interesting dreams both of these people have. Not the most engaging dynamic between the two, but that's probably the point. Good.

[Ðayana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Talk to me like the rain and left me listen.
یک زن در نمایشنامه بود،
انگار زمانی زندگیش کرده بودم،
انگار الان خواسته هاش رو میفهمم و
حتی انگار آینده ی منه.
یکجورهایی اون زن در سه زمان مختلف در من می‌زیسته.

[ZI · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very deep and moving story about a couple, emotionally lost and desolate, against the poetry of the beautiful rain.

[Vera · Rating 3 out of 5]

𝗍𝖺𝗅𝗄 𝗍𝗈 𝗆𝖾 𝗅𝗂𝗄𝖾 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗋𝖺𝗂𝗇 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗅𝖾𝗍 𝗆𝖾 𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗍𝖾𝗇, 𝗅𝖾𝗍 𝗆𝖾 𝗅𝗂𝖾 𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗍𝖾𝗇 ...

[Cory Hinsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

One act play I was once in. I really enjoy it.

[Nicolas Giovanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

El título mismo es poesía. Eso es Tennessee. Poesía por todos lados. Un desborde.

[Natalie Sickling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short but so sweet and sad and lovely to read

[Pam Odair · Rating 4 out of 5]

En el amor, nunca tanto.

[marta · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Encontrémonos y quizás no nos perdamos [...] ¡Desde que te fuistes no he tomado más que agua! [...] Pues háblame como la lluvia... y déjame escuchar."

[Xime roca]

se volvió en mi monólogo???? favorito

[Jojo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just a bit boring to me.

[Camille · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elegantly written and open to a myriad interpretations, while at the same time providing you with key elements and emotions—such as loneliness, desolation, the feeling of being stuck somewhere, deliriums, of things and people inherently broken, of escapism and the ways we subject ourselves and the people around us to destruction in search of a remedy that can alleviate the pain, intimacy and the comfort that comes with it.

With a hurried pace and tone to it, with not many spikes to the overall feelings inspired in the reader—this isn't a story that will wreck and devastate you with all its turnings—, Tennessee Williams paints a careful picture of melancholy to the sound of the rain falling outside.

[andre · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I will read long books and the journals of dead writers. I will feel closer to them than I ever felt to people I used to know before I withdrew from the world. It will be sweet and cool this friendship of mine with dead poets, for I won’t have to touch them or answer their questions. They will talk to me and not expect me to answer. And I’ll get sleepy listening to their voices explaining the mysteries to me.”

[Anna Sinclair · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title alone captured me. The pages flew by, Tennessee Williams rarely disappoints, and this is an example of just that. Will add to favorite shelf.