Tennessee Williams (1911–1983)

Stepping off a streetcar run by the Desire line in New Orleans, the flighty Southern belle Blanche DuBois steps into the lives of her sister Stella and her primally masculine, roughneck husband Stanley, who live in a small, two-room apartment in an unpromising district of the city. What follows is a series of entertaining sparks from Tennessee Williams' carefully-crafted tinderbox.

There might not be any deeper theme to Williams' play, beyond the idea that people "needn't [be] cruel to show more someone alone" (pg. 81) – an irony brought home by the play's famous line, delivered by Blanche, that she has "always depended on the kindness of strangers" (pg. 107). Said by Blanche at a moment in the play when she has been treated cruelly – and needlessly so – it throws into tragically harsh light the idea that, with such a worldview, Blanche was always destined to be crushed by cold reality. Her old-fashioned idea of how people should interact (even if she doesn't follow it herself) comes up against the brute reality-check of Stanley Kowalski. And it's not that Stanley is particularly villainous. Blanche was always eventually going to cross paths with someone who would provide this reality-check.

There are things to discuss then, but less in theme and more in how the characters interact. I didn't find Blanche as sympathetic as many others appear to, and I thought the real victim of the story was Stella, caught between her overpowering and high-maintenance sister Blanche on one hand and her abusive husband Stanley on the other. I would have liked the play to focus more on the compromises Stella makes than the traps that Blanche wilfully falls into. The question of why women like Stella stay with men like Stanley is an interesting one, but one that the play does not take the opportunity to address – and one which hasn't, as far as I am aware, really been addressed in commentary on the play. Stanley has become rooted in popular culture as a smouldering and desirable bad boy, epitomised in his famous portrayal by Marlon Brando, and while this might be great for the play's popularity it distracts from the real implications of Stanley. Mostly, the orthodox ruling on the play has been that Stanley is a predatory male, a brute and a villain, and that Blanche and Stella are innocent birds caught in his trap – while simultaneously granting us licence to swoon over him when shirtless (a hypocrisy also found in modern depictions of Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice). Such an orthodoxy denies the two women characters the agency they display on every page – it is a Blanche-like fiction obscuring the cold realism the man provides.

This, however, is a fault in how we have absorbed the play into our popular culture, not with Williams' play itself. Williams himself provides us with the nuance in how his characters interact, and it is up to us to choose how to interpret that. If a deeper theme isn't penetrated, Williams nevertheless provides greater scope and grandeur by staging his scenes evocatively, and in how naturally his dialogue comes across. My ultimate impression of A Streetcar Named Desire was as something of a high-class soap opera; too well-made to be dismissed as frivolous, and with a few trappings that make it appear grand, but not deep enough to provide a lasting fascination either. show less

Blanche is a southern belle whose youth is beginning to fade. She goes to visit her younger sister Stella in New Orleans and quickly finds herself out of her element in the city. Stella is married to a Polish brute named Stanley who is none too pleased to have his waifish sister-in-law in his home. He’s determined to expose Blanche’s true nature and the problems she seems to be hiding.

Blanche’s life fell apart when her young, sweet husband committed suicide. Since then she’s slowly show more lost control of things, but chooses to pretend that everything is going swimmingly; ignoring her problems in the hopes that they’ll disappear. She clings to her long absent aurora of virginal innocence in the hopes that ignorance really will provide bliss.
Williams had such a brilliant way of painting the most vivid, broken characters. He creates stories built around life’s disappointments and heart-breaks and pulls you into the characters’ dysfunctions.

Here’s the thing about reading plays, they’re not meant to be consumed that way so you really need to judge them by a different scale. Obviously you aren’t going to have three paragraphs describing the characters’ relationships and struggles; it’s all about the dialogue. You have to think about the way they would be staged and the emotions that would be conveyed when you saw it live. I’m especially reminded of this whenever I read Shakespeare. His work is brilliant, but so many innuendos or intense moments are missed when we skim a line of dialogue on the page.

That being said, I really enjoyed Streetcar. I watched the movie years ago, but I really wish I could see it performed. There’s something so visceral about that infamous scene when a drunk Stanley (Marlon Brando in the film), stands in the street screaming for his wife, “Stel-lahhhhh!”

BOTTOM LINE: I really liked it, but as it is with any play, I have no doubt that it’s better on stage than the page.

“Oh you can’t describe someone you’re in love with.” show less

A collection of short stories exhibiting Williams' genius for creating drama with memorable characters, sexual electricity and atmosphere. I am not a fan of reading plays, but the availability of performances of Williams' work to watch over and over would be reason enough for me to sustain a video service subscription of whatever sort indefinitely. These short stories, published in 1967 during Williams' long depression, are frequently brilliant, often heart-breaking, occasionally bizarre and show more macabre. Two of the selections, "A Girl Made of Glass'" and "The Night of the Iguana" tell stories previously dramatised. Other powerful selections include the title story, in which a former boxer turned hustler finds his inner spark, just a bit too late; and "Desire and the Black Masseur", one of those that takes a turn to the very very dark side. Remarkably, there is even a flash or two of humor in the final piece, "Yellow Bird", before it takes off into outright fantasy. One or two of these stories left me a bit at a loss, but after completing the entire collection, I think I will go back and reread those, as I may just possibly have missed something, given the quality and impact of the rest.
Review written in 2014 show less

“Physical beauty is passing - a transitory possession - but beauty of the mind, richness of the spirit, tenderness of the heart - I have all these things - aren't taken away but grow! Increase with the years!”

When Blanche DuBois comes to stay with her sister Stella and her working class husband Stanley Kowalski she seems just an aristocrat who has fallen on hard times but it soon becomes clear that it is more about the battle between imagination and reality. Blanche is clothed in fading show more pastel dresses bedecked with costume jewellery refusing to give her true age or be seen in full light, covering a lamp with a paper shade and declining to go outside in daylight. She has had a number of passing sexual flings including being run out of town for having an affair with a 17 year old boy as she tries to cling onto her fading youth. Stanley in contrast is rooted in the present,physically handsome with a sort of animal magnetism, preferring beer,bowling and poker with his friends. He doesn't believe in Blanche's tales and it is he who unravels her past. They constantly clash culminating in Stanley's rape of Blanche.(The rape is not actually stated but is more implied as he throws her to the bed while the background music reaches a crescendo).Stella who has always stood up for Blanche refuses to believe in the rape sending Blanche into the final spiral of madness. It is also interesting that Stanley is of Polish extraction suggesting there is a transition in America from a society based on whites supremacy to a more multi-cultural one. Blanche represents the past whilst Stanley and his friends are the future.

There is another statement on American society and women's dependence on men. Blanche and Mitch are alone which draws them together despite being different but whilst Mitch loves Blanche she is more pragmatic believing that a union will cement her future. Similarly in the very first scene Stanley throws some Stella some meat much to her and her neighbour Eunice's amusement it is suggestive of both sexual dominance and the old male hunter gatherer stereotype.

I can see why it is regarded by many as a modern classic and studied fairly widely in schools and colleges.Overall this was a very enjoyable especially as it is not something that I would normally pick up. show less