As a boy in Clarksdale, Tennessee Williams was dazzled by the lavish entertainments hosted by
Blanche Clark, the daughter of the town’s founder, and her husband J.W. Cutrer at their mansion
(below left) built in 1916. The playwright even used the Cutrer name in many of his plays including
The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire.
In his poem The Couple, Tennessee Williams wrote, It’s all so wide in the Delta and so level! The seasons could walk across it four abreast! Clarksdale has dedicated an elegant Tennessee Williams Park, overseen by an angel (right)…a wistful reminder of Summer and Smoke. Source
.Moon Lake Casino
Williams’ work is filled with references to Clarksdale and neighboring towns. More than any other site, Moon Lake and Moon Lake Casino in nearby Dundee are at the center of the playwright’s work. Speaking about her gentleman callers, Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie remembers Moon Lake, and Blanche DuBois talks about it most movingly in A Streetcar Named Desire. The casino is where Blanche would go dancing on a summer’s night, until the evening she discovered that her young husband was romantically involved with a male friend.The Moon Lake Casino, or club, has had several incarnations, on and off stage. The Reverend Dakin would often take the family there for dinner, which in the southern tradition came at midday. But the place also had its moments of notoriety, and in Summer and Smoke Williams suggested that it had once been a brothel. As Alma Winemiller says to a stranger at the end of the play, “There’s not much to do in this town after dark, but there are resorts on the lake that offer all kinds of after-dark entertainment. There’s one called Moon Lake Casino.” source
Today it is a quaint bed and breakfast known as Uncle Henry’s Place.
Above Right: Moon Lake…directly across the road from Uncle Henry’s/ Moon Lake Casino.Below Left: Carole and I rented one of the 2 remaining cabins.
Right: With a steep path down to swampy river.
George Wright (Uncle Henry’s grandson) warned us “Feel free, but if something starts to stink like rotten cabbage, it’s a water moccasin! Back away…They don’t much like you neither.”
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.Left:: A City Girl (Carole Giacona) encounters RoadKill for the first time.
Center: So, I bought her a gift.
Right: William Faulkner probably stayed in this very cabin. But he didn’t come to Moon Lake for the gambling, drinking, whoring and great food. Bill was here to kill critters…Great hunting and fishing in these here parts!…OK, maybe Bill also came to Moon Lake Casino for the drinking.
Published by Nick at 08:14 PM on August 19, 2010