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A Streetcar Named Desire
Escrito por Tennessee Williams
Narrado por Theater Lincoln Center
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Blanche DuBois arrives at her sister Stella's New Orleans apartment seeking refuge from a troubled past—but her ethereal spirit irks Stella's husband, the loutish Stanley Kowalski. Crudely, relentlessly, he unmasks the lies and delusions that sustain Blanche, until her frail hold on reality is shockingly severed.
This atmospheric recording of Tennessee Williams's powerful classic stars Rosemary Harris and James Farentino as Blanche and Stanley—roles they performed to acclaim in a smash revival at New York's Lincoln Center.
Acciones del libro
Comenzar a escucharInformación sobre el libro
A Streetcar Named Desire
Escrito por Tennessee Williams
Narrado por Theater Lincoln Center
Descripción
Blanche DuBois arrives at her sister Stella's New Orleans apartment seeking refuge from a troubled past—but her ethereal spirit irks Stella's husband, the loutish Stanley Kowalski. Crudely, relentlessly, he unmasks the lies and delusions that sustain Blanche, until her frail hold on reality is shockingly severed.
This atmospheric recording of Tennessee Williams's powerful classic stars Rosemary Harris and James Farentino as Blanche and Stanley—roles they performed to acclaim in a smash revival at New York's Lincoln Center.
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A formerly-rich Southern Belle spends a few weeks with her sister and her working-class husband. No-one can know she’s really poor and desperate, but her brother-in-law feels punched in the working class by her very presence and sets out to diminish her. Tensions simmer and are expressed through spite, violence and power games. I liked this one a lot better than Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which I read earlier this month. At least the characters in this one seem human, can be empathized with, show some characterization. And not just a little: they’re fully fleshed out and do not really feel like made-up people in made-up circumstances. I enjoyed not enjoying spending time with them. Very well done!
There's a reason why this is a classic. It blew me away. WOW!!There's a reason why this is a classic. It blew me away. WOW!!In the forward to the 2004 edition of A Streetcar Named Desire, Arthur Miller wrote that he vividly remembered the first time he saw the play on stage, before it opened to the public on Broadway in December 1947. How could one forget when the original production featured all the players we have come to so strongly identify with the movie roles of popular culture (except that Jessica Tandy , rather than Vivien Leigh, played Blanch DuBois)?And yet, it wasn’t the players or their acting skills that Miller commented on, but the writing itself. “On first hearing Streetcar . . . the impression was . . . of language flowing from the soul . . . but remarkably, each character’s speech seemed at the same time uncannily his own.” Miller adds that, “What Streetcar’s first production did was to plant the flag of beauty on the shores of commercial theatre.”If you know A Streetcar Named Desire only from snatched clips or even just your friends’ impersonation of Brando’s “STELLL- AHHHHH!”, as I had, then you’ve missed the quality of this writing. But even if you can’t attend a live production of Streetcar, you can still access the beauty of this play in the written word – a slim 179-page volume that reads quickly and easily and, thanks to many school curricula, continues to be in print.But while the reading is quick and easy, the story that unfolds is anything but. Williams’ classic play begins with Blanche DuBois’s arrival in New Orleans to stay with her sister and brother-in-law, Stella and Stanley Kowalski. Blanche puts on airs of gentility and seems shocked and shaken by Stanley’s frequently aggressive behavior. But Blanche has a secret past that is catching up with her, and the knowledge of it in the hands of her brother-in-law wrecks her last chance at happiness. Not satisfied with that, Stanley also physically assaults Blanche, driving her over the edge of sanity.Look at the original cast list. Find photos of Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Jessica Tandy and Karl Malden in the 1940s. Then read the play and enjoy the language. You owe it to yourself.
I didn't know much about this play before I started reading it. I had a vague notion of the character of Blanche DuBois and I knew that someone would yell "Stella!" at some point, but that's about it. I wasn't prepared for how dark the play was going to be. It deals with some pretty heavy issues. I agree with Kim that the stage directions were very well written and one of the best parts of the play. I would never have thought that stage directions would be so poetic, as I mainly think of them as bland physical descriptions. Williams does an excellent job describing the mood that should be created by the scenery.
Read this one for ENC1102 with good ol' Professor Macia at MDC. I haven't read many plays aside from A Raisin in the Sun back in High school (i.e., in 3-4 years), but I thought this one was pretty great. This is mostly as a result of having fallen in love with the two main characters that are Stanley and Blanche - especially Blanche, who I believe depicts the idea of narcissism in a very interesting way with her magical thinking and the like. I did feel a bit bummed about some of the other characters, such as Stella, whom I believe were meant to represent the more dependent side of the co-dependent relationship when it comes to narcissistic and co-dependent relationships, and as a result were shown to be more characteristically naive and innocent, but this had the unfortunate effect of making them rather uninteresting at times. I do find the ultimate idea behind the book (or at least if my interpretation of it) of man and woman relationships being at their core narcissistic and co-dependent to be absolutely bonkers, but it's a fascinating idea to consider either way! I also loved the use of music to add to the different scenes and the way Tennessee Williams describes New Orleans - you can tell he really did love the place and the whole idea behind it.
It deals with difficult issues in a powerful and accessible way, explaining why this work has become a true American classic.
I picked this one up because it's on the Rory Gilmore Book List. It's one of the many books Rory reads in "Gilmore Girls". I didn't know whether or not I would like it. I kind of did... but I can't really say why. It was frustrating because of the abusive relationships, but... it was interesting.
Reread for one of my book clubs. It still packs a punch.
Williams gives such depth to each character. Characters are incredibly different and fit the time-appropriate archetype. Blanche and Stanley are a great juxtaposition, the primal nature of Stanley contrasting with Blanche's desire for beauty. Musical cues weaved into the scenes build tension and create an aura of dramatic intensity. The booming of trains in the distance makes the scene feel raw and completely exposed, it works well as a symbol for escape. Williams uses lots of these symbols and even settings like the bathroom moments to really keep the audience tense. A bit of a tragic story, though a good read.
I had some idea, from the hokey friendliness of the name "Tennessee Williams," and the cute titles of his plays - "Streetcar Named Desire"! "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof!" - they sound like musicals - I had an idea that these would be friendly. Pop culture. In the great telephone game of pop culture, what I ended up hearing was Marlon Brando yelling "STELLA!", which sounded pretty goofy to me.
So that was the wrong impression. This play is fucking dark.
I love the mix of realism and poetry here. Stanley is almost always realistic - in the style of other 20th-century playwrights, saying things that real people might say. But Blanche is all poetry, Shakespearean. (And she gets the best lines; most of the stuff I quoted below is by her. (The first one is Stella.)) Williams weaves those styles together wonderfully; that's one of his best achievements.
Here's me confused about the message: I'm not sure what to make of it. I sympathized with Stanley at his first appearance, because he seemed down-to-earth; then I sympathized with Stella, because Stanley was quickly uncovered as a violent man; then with Blanche, who just wants a fresh start; then with Stanley again, because he's really trying to tell the truth. In the end, Stella recedes into the background, an insignificant person - not Williams' fault; his decision - and Blanche emerges as the person you're most able to empathize with, out of a thin stable. So...the upper classes whore themselves out, are traumatized by homosexuals (which Williams was) and then raped by the emerging, grounded lower classes, who are furious at their shallow lies? To be led away in defeat and insanity? Hrmf, that doesn't feel like I've got it right. I'd like to read more of Williams' plays; I think there might be more to it than that. I mean, I think part of his point is clearly that people are too complicated for heroes and villains - but still, everyone has a point, and...I'm not sure I have a handle on his.
But I really liked this. I thought it was complicated and nasty and progressive. I got a lot out of this.
Here are some of the things I got:
Act I scene 4: "There are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark - that sort of make everything else seem - unimportant."
Scene 5: "When people are soft - soft people have got to court the favor of hard ones, Stella. Have got to be seductive - put on soft colors, the color of butterfly wings, and glow - make a little - temporary magic, just in order to pay for - one night's shelter! ... I've run for protection, Stella, from under one leaky roof to another - because it was storm - all storm."
"I want to deceive him enough to make him - want me...
Blanche, do you want him?
I want to rest! I want to breath quietly again! Yes - I want Mitch...very badly!"
Scene 6: "I made the discovery - love. All at once and much,much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow...but I was unlucky." Holy shit! That next passage is unexpected.
Scene 9: "I'll tell you what I want. Magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, the let me be damned for it! - Don't turn the light on!"
So that was the wrong impression. This play is fucking dark.
I love the mix of realism and poetry here. Stanley is almost always realistic - in the style of other 20th-century playwrights, saying things that real people might say. But Blanche is all poetry, Shakespearean. (And she gets the best lines; most of the stuff I quoted below is by her. (The first one is Stella.)) Williams weaves those styles together wonderfully; that's one of his best achievements.
Here's me confused about the message: I'm not sure what to make of it. I sympathized with Stanley at his first appearance, because he seemed down-to-earth; then I sympathized with Stella, because Stanley was quickly uncovered as a violent man; then with Blanche, who just wants a fresh start; then with Stanley again, because he's really trying to tell the truth. In the end, Stella recedes into the background, an insignificant person - not Williams' fault; his decision - and Blanche emerges as the person you're most able to empathize with, out of a thin stable. So...the upper classes whore themselves out, are traumatized by homosexuals (which Williams was) and then raped by the emerging, grounded lower classes, who are furious at their shallow lies? To be led away in defeat and insanity? Hrmf, that doesn't feel like I've got it right. I'd like to read more of Williams' plays; I think there might be more to it than that. I mean, I think part of his point is clearly that people are too complicated for heroes and villains - but still, everyone has a point, and...I'm not sure I have a handle on his.
But I really liked this. I thought it was complicated and nasty and progressive. I got a lot out of this.
Here are some of the things I got:
Act I scene 4: "There are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark - that sort of make everything else seem - unimportant."
Scene 5: "When people are soft - soft people have got to court the favor of hard ones, Stella. Have got to be seductive - put on soft colors, the color of butterfly wings, and glow - make a little - temporary magic, just in order to pay for - one night's shelter! ... I've run for protection, Stella, from under one leaky roof to another - because it was storm - all storm."
"I want to deceive him enough to make him - want me...
Blanche, do you want him?
I want to rest! I want to breath quietly again! Yes - I want Mitch...very badly!"
Scene 6: "I made the discovery - love. All at once and much,much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow...but I was unlucky." Holy shit! That next passage is unexpected.
Scene 9: "I'll tell you what I want. Magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, the let me be damned for it! - Don't turn the light on!"
The story of a Southern belle who finds herself down on her luck and forced to live with her sister and her sister's working class husband. Blanche is a classic character, a troubled woman with a secret past who tries to make a new life for herself, but finds that she can't leave her old self behind. There's no escaping a reputation, especially when those you must rely on are scoundrels. This script manages to capture the sense of futility in life, and also provides a grim picture of the cost of pride, lust, anger, and prudery, especially when they meet heat on. It's difficult to find a truly sympathetic character among this lot, and Williams paints a clear picture of people who continue to destroy each other and themselves, and jump back into self-destruction with a relish. This script retains its power even all these decades after the fact because the characters and the situations are recognizable, perhaps even universal.
This is my all time favorite play. The devistation of the tragedy that unfolds is painful, yet Williams manages to create sympathy for each character, including Stanley, who, just before Stella goes into labor, pleads with his abused wife for her affections to remain with him, to stick it out until Blanche leaves, as his dominance is wavering and we see his weakness and desperation brought on by a simple mind in brutal circumstances.Each time I read this with my students, they break into spontaneous applause at the end. Not for the circumstances of the play, but for Williams' ability to care about the outcome of this sad story.
Disturbind and depressing. I think I need some time to process it before I can say more.
Read this in a safe place, and give yourself time to rest between scenes! It's wound so tight, and springs so hard, it can take the wind out of you. The main characters - Blanche and Stanley - will be imprinted in my memory for a long time. Blanche reminds me a lot of Laura in the Glass Managerie, but Williams develops the character type more in this play. She's just so broken and disconnected with reality that you can't help feeling deep sympathy and understanding, even when she's at her most fake and disgusting. On the other hand, Stanley is mainly just a one-dimensional brute. I guess you can justify his anger and vindictiveness a little if you consider the class context; Blanche really sets him off by acting so superior and denigrating him as a "Polack" when she is the one that's in desperate need. The fallen southern aristocrat who can't come to terms with her new position vs. the virile son of an immigrant who has married "class" but can't seem to live up to it. The other chartacters are mostly just spineless - Blanche's sister Stella and Stanley's friend Mitch. What a wonderful bunch Tennessee Williams comes up with! I've got to see the film version with Marlon Brando.
Read this in high school, Poor, poor Blanche. It was very well-written though, I do enjoy Tennessee Williams.
It's been a long time since I read the Glass Menagerie, but I believe Williams' female characters may be very similar. I don't think that's a good thing, but I thought it worked for this play. It's gritty, it's groundbreaking and in my mind, it's obvious as to why it's such an enduring classic.
This american play was by far one of my favorite that I have ever read! Tennessee Williams uses this book to describe the events in the past that were taboo, such as domestic violence, alcholism, and insantiy. This play is shown through the lives of the two dynamic/round characters of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. Both of these two opposing forces drive the story to its dramatic finish, where Williams leaves the reader thinking, "Why the Hell would Stella stay with Stanley after all he did to Blanche!?"
Whew! What a ride. What a terrible ride into the lives of three sad, miserable lives. Blanche comes to stay with her sister, Stella, after Blanche's life deteriorates. Stella has married and is expecting a baby, but her life is anything but cozy and warm. Stella's husband, Stanley, beats his wife and drinks heavily. Everything in this story echoes, No Way Out, and You are Doomed to Misery.
I'm not generally impressed with plays and movies of this era, as they portray a time when it was considered acceptable for men to treat women as property. Women endured physical as well as emotional and psychological violence, without a inkling that something may be wrong about that. When Blanche encourages Stella to leave Stanley after he hits her after the poker game, I agreed very firmly with her. I was amazed that Stella returns, and that she still stays with him after what he does to Blanche near the end of the play. Blanche is written as flighty and slutty and her final fate is galling because I believe she's the only character in the play with a lick of sense. I found myself reading this quite quickly because I just wanted it over with. The whole thing repulsed me.
This beautiful play is as wonderful to see as to read. It is interesting to have the staging descriptions as they are very detailed and sometimes abstract which is unusual for drama.
In Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize winning drama A Streetcar Named Desire, a triangular relationship between Blanche Dubois, her sister Stella, and Stella's husband Stanley takes center stage. Blanche and Stella came from a refined breeding on a southern plantation, Belle Reve, in Mississippi; Stanley and his friends, however, come from a lower class upbringing. Throughout the story Blanche and Stanley are posed as competing opposites: the educated vs. street smarts; refinement vs. vulgarity; charm vs. rudeness; civility vs. brutality. The strengths of the play are the well drawn characters, a riveting plot, and compelling symbols (a lantern representing "magic") and ironies (a birthday "gift"--a bus ticket out of town!). Some critics claim Williams' main weakness as an author was his constant reference to his own household with an alcoholic father, abused sister, and weak mother. Students can be drawn in to many interesting discussions about the nature of the truth, for example, and the ever increasing harshness in society.
I don't normally enjoy reading plays, but Tennessee Williams is an exception, and this one did not disappoint; it was excellent, a true masterpiece. The plot takes place in early 20th century New Orleans and tells the painful story of aging Southern belle, Blanche DuBois, her sister Stella, and Stella's dominant husband Stanley. Williams examines socioeconomic differences, prejudices, and sexuality, while drawing the reader in to Blanche's world of desperation. This was heartbreaking and unforgettable, full of desire, shame, and disturbing revelations. "Streetcar" should be essential reading for anyone interested in drama as well as those interested in classic literature in general. Now off to rent the movie...
Tennessee Williams "A Streetcar Named Desire" is set in New Orleans, and begins with the character Stella with her upstairs neighbor Eunice sitting on the front porch as Stella's husband Stanley walks by on his way to go bowling, and yells out "Hey Stella" as he tosses her a package from the butcher. Stella goes with Stanley to watch him bowl as her sister Blanche DuBois comes to their house. Blanche puts on the airs of a southern belle who has been through more than she can handle, which her sister Stella takes with good nature. Stanley on the other hand doesn't dig this wilting flower routine and doesn't hide any of his blue collar roughness around Blanche.The famous "STELLA!!!" scene, made famous by Marlon Brando, happens a few scenes later when Blanche gets on Stanley's last nerve during one of his poker games and he ends up taking it out on Stella. So to get away from him, Stella runs upstairs to Eunice. Once over his fit a rage Stanley relizes what he has done and runs outside to the porch yelling "Stella!!! Hey Stella!!!" so she would come back down. Stella does eventually come down, and all is forgiven with a loving embrace.The rest of the play goes on with Stanley and Blanche's "delegect nature" butting heads. I am a little confused on what really was wrong with Blanche. At times she seemed to be honestly crazy when thinking about how her and Stella use to live in a big beautiful house with servants and everything, and other times it seemed like just an act. The story briefly goes into Blanche's past about losing her husband and then the bad name she ended up giving herself.Stanley was a little hard to figure out too. Whenever he was talking to Blanche his remarks were sarcastic and mean. But when it came to Stella his words were always kinder, more loving, and wanting to protect her. Maybe his relationship with Blanche was to show how tense relationships between in-laws can be, the husband has his way of living while the wife's family goes on about how her life should be.The story ends with Stella finally realizing that there is something really wrong with her sister, more than just her pain over losing their home Belle Reve. So it all ends with Blanche being carted away, (to a mental instituation I guess), with the famous line "I always depended on the kindness of strangers.""A Streetcar Named Desire" I thought was a good summer read. The version I had was 142 pages and had some pictures from its originally production. Tennessee Williams is one of the American writers I think anyone who enjoys literature should experience at least once.
some of the most powerful scenes i've read in literature. the old south vs the new south. written well and very quotable.
Deception seems to be one of the most salient themes. As Goleman writes, "We are piloted in part by an ingenious capacity to deceive ourselves, whereby we sink in obliviousness rather than face threatening facts." Blanche buries her devious past with a new start in New Orleans and skirts questions with a swift wit in conversation. She waters down the pains and frustrations of the past with concealed drinking and shrouds her aging face from gentleman callers in a soft light. She delusionally and openly believes that a fictional Texas oil magnate will arrive to whisk her away from yet another prison she finds herself in. Blanche maintains a very interesting relationship with Stanley, the bane of her existence in the French Quarter. While Stanley is ostensibly boorish and untamed, Blanche poorly masks these same latent characteristics in her own personality with a ladylike charm, frequent bathing, and heavy perfume. Her attacks on Stanley are actually projections, effectively assaults on the qualities she hates most about herself. Her outward disdain for her sister's husband is likely an aggressive reaction to what is better known as jealousy. What's more, this behavior runs in the family (another universal Williams theme). Stella convinces herself that an abusive relationship is fit to raise a child in. And at one point, the sisters recall their mother's refusal to accept her own mortality and her imploration to her young daughters to participate in this shared collusion. In the final scenes of the story, as Stella is giving birth to their son, Stanley finishes what he started, defeating Blanche completely in a territorial act of rape. When Blanche finally does choose to embrace honesty and come clean with Stella about the crime, her sister refuses to believe her and locks her away with the truth in an asylum, in step with what we'd expect from the DuBois family. The play was originally to be named "The Poker Night" and like "The Glass Menagerie", this image is an appropriate symbol to help unify the piece. As Williams writes it, poker, a game of deception, is not just played by the men in this play.
I'm really struggling between three and four stars for this. The dialogue is fantastic, and the atmosphere is really well evoked, but the implied rape ruined the whole thing for me in a lot of ways, but mostly because I feel it happened purely so something bad happened, if you know what I mean? It felt like it ruined any of the subtlety in the characterisation of either Blanche or Stanley. I struggled to feel any sympathy at all for Blanche up until that point, especially after it turned out that she had sexually exploited/assaulted one of her school pupils, and I felt that scene went too far in trying to reverse how I felt about her.
Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is a very interesting play, specifically in terms of human morality (under certain circumstances). All of the characters show purity at one time, and then just how despicable they really are at another, which was honestly pretty clever, and it stops the reader from picking a side (though they ultimately do).One of the two sides is Blanche, a woman who came from a rich and generally sheltered life, who herself hides some dark secrets, and whose life has been touched by tragedy a few times before. She has fallen on hard times and so she visits Stella, her sister, in New Orleans, where she meets the second side. Stella’s husband Stanley antagonizes Blanche, basically trying to get her to leave. One can see his point, given that Blanche showed up at a not-so-good time and completely disrupted their world with her own contrasting one, but one can also note his foul cruelty and ignorance displayed in his crusade. Blanche is a fragile woman whom their world is attacking. But yet again one could note Blanche’s confessed breakdown of morals and generally poor job of taking care of herself and her property (or lack thereof). Blanche eventually loses and is taken away, still without making it entirely clear who the pro- and antagonists really are.The play is tragic. It is somewhat ambiguous at times, but primarily it’s tragic. It’s smart, though. Reading about a monster with a green silk bowling shirt and a dishonest woman with a rhinestone tiara is sad, and just... not fun to read about. But it’s really well done! That’s the problem with it, is that there’s nothing wrong with it, and yet it still is a drag to read because of the horrible things that happen to everyone. Which would imply that Streetcar’s style isn’t for everyone. Of course, whether I actually liked it or not shouldn’t factor into the rating, which is on how well it was written. Against my better will, I’ll give it 5 stars.
This play is a great work. Captures the typical scene of a woman bailing out her husband from jail the morning after a beating.
Also captures a woman who had lost her youth... terrific in it's sadness, somehow thrilling in how you can feel joy afterward.
I was near to tears with the very last scene.
Also captures a woman who had lost her youth... terrific in it's sadness, somehow thrilling in how you can feel joy afterward.
I was near to tears with the very last scene.
The story of a Southern belle who finds herself down on her luck and forced to live with her sister and her sister's working class husband. Blanche is a classic character, a troubled woman with a secret past who tries to make a new life for herself, but finds that she can't leave her old self behind. There's no escaping a reputation, especially when those you must rely on are scoundrels. This script manages to capture the sense of futility in life, and also provides a grim picture of the cost of pride, lust, anger, and prudery, especially when they meet heat on. It's difficult to find a truly sympathetic character among this lot, and Williams paints a clear picture of people who continue to destroy each other and themselves, and jump back into self-destruction with a relish. This script retains its power even all these decades after the fact because the characters and the situations are recognizable, perhaps even universal.
While I have read all the fiction which has won the Pulitzer prize, this is only the 5th book I have read of Drama Pulitzer prizewinners. (The other four I've read are Strange Interlude (read 24 Apr 1949), Death of a Salesman (read 28 July 2003), Alison's House (read 9 Apr 2007) and Harvey ((read 6 Dec 2009) I saw the movie A Streetcar Named Desire in 1952 in Norfolk, VA, but I found the reading of the play pretty interesting and it is the next best thing to seeing the play. I could not help but feel some sympathy for Blanche and some revulsion as to Stanley's brutalistic behavior even before his dastardly attack on Blanche while Stanley's wife was in the hospital to have a baby. Blanche was clearly sick and deserved better treatment than Stanley ladled out to her.
As someone who doesn't depend on the kindness of strangers, I was out of my element.