A Streetcar Named Desire

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Broadway Show
A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire
Theatre Ethel Barrymore Theatre
Opening Night December 3, 1947
Tony Nominations n/a
Tony Awards 1
Author(s) Tennessee Williams
Director Elia Kazan
Leading Original Cast Members Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy

A Streetcar Named Desire is a play by Tennessee Williams describing a culture clash between Blanche DuBois—a pretentious, fading relic of the Old South—and Stanley Kowalski, a rising member of the industrial, inner-city immigrant class.

Williams was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948 for the play. The movie on the play won several awards too. Streetcar came shortly after Williams's first big success, The Glass Menagerie of 1945. While Williams kept writing plays and fiction into the 1980s, none of his later works lived up to the critical reputation of his first hits.

Contents

Plot

The play presents Blanche DuBois, a fading Southern belle whose pretensions to virtue and culture only thinly mask her nymphomania and alcoholism. Blanche arrives at the house of her sister Stella Kowalski in the French Quarter of New Orleans, where the seamy, multicultural ambience is a shock to Blanche's nerves. Explaining that her ancestral southern plantation has been "lost" due to the "epic fornications" of her ancestors, Blanche is welcomed to stay by a trepidatious Stella, who fears the reaction of her husband Stanley.

In contrast to both the self-effacing Stella and the studied refinement of Blanche, Stella's husband, Stanley Kowalski, is a force of nature — primal, rough-hewn, brutish and sensual. He dominates Stella in every way, and she tolerates his offensive crudeness and lack of gentility largely because of her sexual need for him.

The interjection of Blanche upsets her sister and brother-in-law's system of mutual dependence. Stella is swept aside as the magnetic attraction between the oppositely-charged Stanley and Blanche overwhelms the household. Stanley's friend and Blanche's would-be suitor Mitch is similarly trampled along Blanche and Stanley's collision course. Their final, inevitable confrontation results in Blanche's mental annihilation.

Blanche and Stanley, together with Arthur Miller's Willy Loman, are among the most recognizable characters in American drama.

The reference to the streetcar (tram) called Desire is ironic, as well as an accurate piece of New Orleans geography. Blanche has to travel on it to reach Stella's home, the idea being that she has already indulged in desire before she arrives. Her sorrow is that the pleasure brought from desire is only short, just like the streetcar journey. It does not give her security. Still, she cannot return on the streetcar named Desire because she has only a one-way ticket.

Movie

In 1951, Elia Kazan directed a movie based on the play; Vivien Leigh replaced Tandy but the other three main characters remained the same. In 1999 the film, widely regarded a classic, was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Censorship of the time called for the end of the film involving Stella's renunciation of Stanley's rape, perhaps to the point of leaving the household. The actual play's ending is far more ambiguous with a distraught Stella (at having sent off her sister Blanche) mutely allowing herself to be fondled by Stanley.

The movie won Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Karl Malden), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Vivien Leigh), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Kim Hunter), and Best Art Direction -- Set Decoration, Black-and-White. It was also nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Marlon Brando), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White, Best Director, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, Best Picture, Best Sound, Recording and Best Writing, Screenplay.

Performances

The first stage version was produced by Irene Mayer Selznick with Marlon Brando starring as Stanley, Jessica Tandy as Blanche, Kim Hunter as Stella, and Karl Malden as Mitch. Brando portrayed Stanley with an overt sexuality that made him, the character of Stanley, and Tennessee Williams into cultural touchstones. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947. Brando's magnetic performance caused audiences to sympathize with Stanley in the opening scenes of the play, effectively implicating them in Stanley's eventual brutality towards Blanche. Tandy's performance won her a Tony Award.

Comparison with other works

Williams' Streetcar explores a similar situation to the works of Chekov, who explored the parallel fall of the upper class in turn of the century Russia. Stanley may represent the proletariat (working class) which desires to overthrow the bourgeoisie.

Streetcar revival in New Orleans

Over 50 years after the play opened, the revival of the streetcar system in New Orleans is credited by many to the worldwide fame gained by the streetcars made by the Perley A. Thomas Car Works, Inc. which were operating on the Desire route in the play, and have been carefully restored and continue to operate there in 2004 (though not on the Desire route.)

Oh! Streetcar!

The Simpsons parodied the play with a "musical version" in the episode entitled "A Streetcar Named Marge." The musical presented by the characters in the show humorously misses Williams' point entirely, ending with a song featuring the lyrics "You can always depend on the kindness of strangers."

See also

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