And I wanted to sneer at said un-named child but the fact is that, while I knew it was from Streetcar named Desire, had heard it quoted and misquoted for years, and had seen video snapshots of Marlon Brando from the 1951 film version, I'd never seen or read the play. Until a few days ago.
As with almost all of the plays on this 100 plays, it comes with wide recognition and high expectations. In a very brief overview, it's a bit overlong, well written, open for powerful and dramatic interpretation, and if you see the play through, quite powerful and bound to stick with you for long after you've seen it.
It explores the themes of reality v illusion, desire, brutality and sweeping uncomfortable truths under the carpet and the original 1947 Broadway production won for Williams the Pullitzer Prize for Drama. The film made of it four years later picked up four Oscar including one for Vivien Leigh as Blanche. And, like so many other plays on this list, those who have played the roles in productions of this play include a who's who of Hollywood.
So let's get to the play.
The Play
Just to get the title out of the way, the streetcar routes in New Orleans at the time of writing were given names that related to their destinations, including one route that went to Desire Street. To get to her sister Stella's house, she has to catch that streetcar... which also provided a handy piece of foreshadowing
And arriving on that streetcar, Blanche is the visitor from hell. She comes uninvited, stays in a squashed apartment for a crazy length of time (about five months I think), is persistently demanding and loud, and continues to poke the Kowalski bear. She suffers from great anxiety and struggles also to accommodate things from her past. She is particularly self conscious about her appearance and is concerned with whether she is still capable of attracting men.
Suffering from an extreme and extended case of cabin fever, Kowalski is completely over Blanche's invasion of his home (and he does believe very much in the home being the man's domain to rule over). He's sick of her her high maintenance, her perpetual long and involved stories, her influence on his wife, her lack of respect for him and her antagonism towards him, calling him an ape and swine among other observations. To borrow a phrase, he is well and truly sick of her shit.
Stanley finds out some information about her past, matters that he feels speak of her morality, and in that way that people do when they want to win an argument, drags in any negative details about Blanche that might get her out of their home. Sorry, his home.
While staying with the couple, Blanche also meets a friend of Stanley's called Mitch, and without allowing it to gain legs, she tries to maintain his interest in her with coquettish and flirtatious behaviour.
Reaching his limits, Stanley purchases a ticket on a greyhound bus for Blanche to use, insisting that she has to go but she avoids the conversation, avoids leaving and becomes more and more heightened as her stay there continues.
[SPOILERS]
The play has a disturbing ending. And while the topics it brings up are ones I'd like to talk about, I don't want to ruin any fellow newcomers opportunity to discover it as I did. I will, say that a lot of the play's power relies on the ending. It's very uncomfortable. Some of the final elements are more alluded to than detailed, perhaps that's for the better as it may provoke deeper discussions about the willing disbelief of likely evidence versus the drama queen that cried wolf, of unacceptable violence being swept under the carpet and trauma induced mental health issues an being believed. Without the ending it would have had far less impact for me and hit far less powerfully.
And as the play reach its conclusion, Blanche is led away, then poker game continues and it's almost as if the world continues and nothing had happened.
The version I saw
I watched the 2014 Young Vic production pro shot shown on the National Theatre at Home, starring Gillian Anderson as Blanche, Vanessa Kirby as Stella and Ben Foster as Stanley Kowalski among others. I was always going to like Gillian Anderson's turn at the role. Scintillating and gives herself completely to the role, including a very pronounced southern belle accent. I also very enjoyed Kirby's interpretation of Stella, but it was Ben Foster as Stanly Kowalski for me that was mesmerising. At times charming and personable, and at a turn menacing, knee jerk, tightly strung, and on the edge. Foster's Kowalski was more like Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper than it was to Brando as Kowalski.in the 1951 film version. Speaking of that version, I will probably watch it some day but this was 3 hours of heavy going attention and I need to give it some space to settle.
My thoughts.
Williams is a very powerful writer. He has a lot of dialog that is more about setting the mood and establishing the patter, then he hits you with something like Blanche's comment: "I don't want realism, I want magic," and the heartbreaking revelation that she has "always depended on the kindness of strangers." Williams also includes a lot of unobvious, uncliched conversations.
For my money though, he does go on a bit. I still appreciate the quality of his work, I just think some of the ongoing, often directionless conversations did more to annoy me than Stanley. This is coming up with a few writers, my wish for a bit more self editing, and it's not lost on me that there is come irony in that given I am prone to overwriting.
In my post on "The Glass Menagerie" I made mention that I found the repeated use of smoking as a mood setting crutch was a bit over the top and intrusive, and the heavily southern accented characters, apparently another motif of Williams', also had an erosive effect on me after a while. Ditto for both elements in "A Streetcar named Desire" as well. And having briefly looked at some other versions, it's not limited to these presentations. But just like you're going to have to get used to descriptions of Maine and the people who live and some of their regional quirks when you're reading a Stephen King book, this is just part of the well from which Williams writes.
Just like with "The Glass Menagerie," this is another "actor's play" that I believe actors would line up to perform such strong, individual characters. Form much of the play I felt like I was uncomfortably goggleboxing a real life argument with a whole lot of conversations that didn't always add to my understanding of what was going on (and I believe that's a skill of Williams... chats that aren't always plot developing but are consistently mood establishing). But, in my very humble opinion, the ending redeemed the play considerably.
It's very difficult talking about the ending without describing the ending. Suffice to say it DID have a powerful impact for me and I'm assuming many others. You can go around in circles debating whether a powerful ending is enough to carry a show (and no doubt many will disagree with my call that the show needed to be carried), but it's called a climax for a reason. It makes the show more about something and heavily underlines some themes that had already been established.
This is a great work.
Materials I accessed:
- "A Streetcar named Desire" - script (1947). Freely available on multiple websites including PB Works.
- "A Streetcar named Desire" - pro shot video (2014). Available on subscription on National Theatre at Home.
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