A Streetcar Named Desire (New Directions Paperbook) Paperback – September 1, 2004 Author: Visit Amazon's Tennessee Williams Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0811216020 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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From Publishers Weekly
Williams's classic play begins with Blanche DuBois's arrival in New Orleans to stay with her sister and brother-in-law, Stella and Stanley Kowalski. The determinedly genteel Blanche is shocked by their lower-class lifestyle—and by Stanley's frequently aggressive behavior. As Blanche's secrets catch up with her, a seedy reality trumps her love for romance. Rosemary Harris embodies Blanche with all the flare, attitude and Southern drawl commonly associated with the cultural icon. The role of Stanley is so physical that his presence is diminished by the lack of a visual performance, but James Farentino's Stanley is excellent. The overall production quality is excellent with musical segues and sound effects that enhance without distracting the listeners. This recording captures the cast of the 1973 Broadway revival (which won Harris a Drama Desk award and Farentino a Theatre World award).
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--This text refers to the
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Review
“In Streetcar Williams found images and rhythms that are still part of the way we think and feel and move.” (Jack Kroll - Newsweek)
“Lyrical and poetic and human and heartbreaking and memorable and funny.” (Francis Ford Coppola)
“The introductions, by playwrights as illustrious as Williams himself, are the gem of these new editions.” (Ken Furtado - Echo Magazine)
“Blanche is the Everest of modern American drama, a peak of psychological complexity and emotional range.” (John Lahr - The New Yorker)
See all Editorial Reviews
Books with free ebook downloads available A Streetcar Named Desire (New Directions Paperbook) Paperback – September 1, 2004 Free PDF
- Series: New Directions Paperbook
- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: New Directions (September 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0811216020
- ISBN-13: 978-0811216029
- Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
- Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Tennessee Williams probably signed there his best play, at least the one that is best-known. It is entirely centered on a woman who flees from Mississippi to New Orleans to live, for a while, with her married sister. The two sisters were born in the Southern aristocracy that got bankrupt by not being able, or even refusing, to get into the new flow of time. One went away and married a working class immigrant who is in many ways uncultured and rough, even violent at times. But desire is stronger than that violence and love survives a row from time to time, provided truthfulness and some sensual sincerity exist. But that is only the secondary theme to which Blanche, the other sister, is confronted and this brings back her real drama that is burried in her memory. She married very young. Her husband was also very young and a poet. But she discovered that he also was gay and she could not accept it due to her southern aristocratic principles. He was an abomination and she told him so one night and he went out and killed himself. She never overcame her guilt and she delved into a more and more dissolute life with any man that could come along, till she went back to a substitute of her dead husband, a 17 year old boy. The family protested and she was expelled from the school system (she was a teacher) and from the city. Confronted to the life of her sister and husband, she regresses into southern sophistication. She comes across a man, Mitch, who could and even would like to marry her. But her sister's husband, wanting to get rid of her, exposes her lies about her past to his friend Mitch and his wife. He destroys the dream and Blanche sinks into some psychotic nightmare that becomes a complete breakdown when her brother in law, on the very night when his son was born, rapes her.
This is another classic from my high school days that seems wasted on youth. How can a fifteen-year-old in prep school appreciate the desperation and human frailty of Blanche DuBois? Or the dichotomy inherent in Stanley Kowalski's passionate brutality?
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BLANCHE: What you are talking about is brutal desire--just--Desire!--the name of that rattle-trap street-car that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another...
STELLA: Haven't you ever ridden on that street-car?
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Many will have seen either the stage or film versions of Streetcar, but reading through Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning play allows for the depression to really set in. Readers may even recognize qualities in friends and family members approximating those of alcoholism or domestic violence.
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BLANCHE: A hot bath and a long, cold drink always give me a brand new outlook on life!
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There are so many great dialogue exchanges here, outside of the classic "kindness of strangers" quote. I'll snip a few of my favorites.
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MITCH: You ought to lay off his liquor. He says you been lapping it up all summer like a wild-cat!
BLANCHE: What a fantastic statement!
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