A Streetcar Named Desire Book

It is the steamy summer in New Orleans in the late 1940s. Old war buddies have gone to their weekly bowling league after work. Meanwhile, young brides pass the time in their two flat apartment while waiting for their husbands to return. It is amidst this backdrop that begins Tennessee Williams' classic play, A Streetcar Named Desire, which still stands the test of time today and became a classic film featuring Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy. This steamy play ran the gamut of human emotions, and for this I rate it 4 stars.

Tennessee Williams introduced the world to characters who have become archetypes for the post-war 1940s. Stella Kowalski, a young bride expecting her first child, who is very much in love with her husband and submits to his every want and need. Her husband, Stanley Kowalski, a war veteran working in a supply company to provide for his wife, and still feeling the need to gather with the men bowling or playing poker after work. Harold Mitchell "Mitch" the bachelor son who looks after his sickly mother. And, of course, the sultry Blanche DuBois, Stella's sister of an undetermined age, the independent, modern woman, who also has a myriad of problems.

Blanche DuBois, fresh off of another failure, has taken a streetcar named Desire to spend the summer with Stella and Stanley Kowalski in their one bedroom apartment. Heightened sexually whereas Stella is submissive, there is obvious tension between Blanche and Stanley from the beginning, with Stella acting as a go between. Not only is there tension, Stanley immediately sees beyond Blanche's gaudy clothes and jewelry and sets out to investigate her past. With only a sheet separating their living arrangements in a sweltering summer, the tension continues to escalate throughout the play.

As Stanley discovers layer upon layer of Blanche's past, Stella is forced to choose between her dominate husband and sister. While very much in love with her husband, as she points out, she still feels a loyalty to her sister and to her past. She is appalled when her husband reveals that Blanche compromised her role as high school English teacher to engage in inappropriate relationships with her students. If this play had taken place thirty years later, I can believe that Stella would have done some digging of her own to clear Blanche's name. Yet, it is clear that Stella's loyalties lie with her husband, and that what makes the denouement of the play all the more shocking for me, as I am sure it did for many others as well.

Tennessee Williams went on to have a hall of fame career as a playwright, including the classics Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Glass Menagerie, which have been performed hundreds if not thousands of times over the years. He also was ahead of his time in Desire by discussing social issues such as homosexual relationships, domestic violence and a woman's monetary independence from her husband. While not my absolute favorite play, A Streetcar Named Desire introduced classic characters, and I look forward to seeing them portrayed on film.