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A Streetcar Named Desire and Other Plays
Tennessee Williams’s sensuous, atmospheric plays transformed the American stage with their passion, exoticism and vibrant characters who rage against their personal demons and the modern world. In A Streetcar Named Desire fading southern belle Blanche Dubois finds her romantic illusions brutally shattered; The Glass Menagerie portrays an introverted girl trapped in a fantasy world; and Sweet Bird of Youth shows how we are unable to escape ‘the enemy, time’.
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About the author
Tennessee Williams
764 books3,806 followersThomas Lanier Williams III, better known by the nickname Tennessee Williams, was a major American playwright of the twentieth century who received many of the top theatrical awards for his work. He moved to New Orleans in 1939 and changed his name to "Tennessee," the state of his father's birth.
Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, after years of obscurity, at age 33 he became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. This play closely reflected his own unhappy family background. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). With his later work, he attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century, alongside Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
Much of Williams' most acclaimed work has been adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays and a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
From Wikipedia
Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, after years of obscurity, at age 33 he became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. This play closely reflected his own unhappy family background. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). With his later work, he attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century, alongside Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
Much of Williams' most acclaimed work has been adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays and a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
From Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 116 reviews
February 3, 2020
I don't know what happened with this book, but I was thoroughly underwhelmed except for The Glass Menagerie.
As I said in my review of The Night of the Iguana and Other Stories, Tennessee Williams writes about broken people, and people on the fringes of society. Many of them are also rebels who do not subscribe to the "moral" code of the middle class, which dictates that all drinking, drugs and sex can be carried out under the cover of darkness, protected by the veneer of respectability. Chance Wayne of Sweet Bird of Youth and Blanche Dubois of the famous A Streetcar Named Desire are examples of these moral outcasts. Laura Wingfield of The Glass Menagerie is of a different species altogether - extremely introvert, one act of involuntary betrayal is enough to break her, as her collection of glass animals.
I could muster a certain level of sympathy for Blanche, the classic tragic heroine. Her fall from grace as the feudal society which sustains her fades away is very clearly drawn. As the play proceeds and her duplicity gets revealed, we find ourselves not condemning her, but rather feeling sorry for the inevitable descent into darkness of a person who has always relied on "the kindness of strangers" for sustenance. However, Chance left me cold, as also did the play - a jumbled cacophony of violent emotions. Maybe it does better on the stage. Some plays are not meant to be read.
The tragedy of Laura, however, is exquisitely drawn in one of the most touching pieces of drama that I have ever read. The Glass Menagerie stands out.
As I said in my review of The Night of the Iguana and Other Stories, Tennessee Williams writes about broken people, and people on the fringes of society. Many of them are also rebels who do not subscribe to the "moral" code of the middle class, which dictates that all drinking, drugs and sex can be carried out under the cover of darkness, protected by the veneer of respectability. Chance Wayne of Sweet Bird of Youth and Blanche Dubois of the famous A Streetcar Named Desire are examples of these moral outcasts. Laura Wingfield of The Glass Menagerie is of a different species altogether - extremely introvert, one act of involuntary betrayal is enough to break her, as her collection of glass animals.
I could muster a certain level of sympathy for Blanche, the classic tragic heroine. Her fall from grace as the feudal society which sustains her fades away is very clearly drawn. As the play proceeds and her duplicity gets revealed, we find ourselves not condemning her, but rather feeling sorry for the inevitable descent into darkness of a person who has always relied on "the kindness of strangers" for sustenance. However, Chance left me cold, as also did the play - a jumbled cacophony of violent emotions. Maybe it does better on the stage. Some plays are not meant to be read.
The tragedy of Laura, however, is exquisitely drawn in one of the most touching pieces of drama that I have ever read. The Glass Menagerie stands out.
June 24, 2019
One of the greatest playwrights of the 20th Century, a writer for the theatre in the same league as Beckett, Brecht, Ionesco, but completely different from them. Tennessee Williams was a master of drama filled with menace and the ever-present threat of sudden violence, of hot passions and driving ambitions, of the clash of egos and desires, of people on downward spirals who are still trying to hold onto their dignity and self-belief. This book contains three great plays among the extraordinary body of his complete work. They are arranged in reverse chronological order.
The first, Sweet Bird of Youth, is the best and strongest; the complexity of the characters and the situations they are in, and the subtle and devastating interplay between them, serves to enhance the power and intensity of this masterpiece. Tennessee Williams always shows the point of view of every side. His work is never simplistic, it never takes the easy path. A Streetcar Named Desire is a brutal, sweaty, aggressive drama about doing what it takes in order to survive the bad hand that fate has dealt you. The Glass Menagerie is the weakest of the trio, but still affecting and important, a sad story that has humour bubbling away beneath the melancholy, a play about frustration and determination.
The first, Sweet Bird of Youth, is the best and strongest; the complexity of the characters and the situations they are in, and the subtle and devastating interplay between them, serves to enhance the power and intensity of this masterpiece. Tennessee Williams always shows the point of view of every side. His work is never simplistic, it never takes the easy path. A Streetcar Named Desire is a brutal, sweaty, aggressive drama about doing what it takes in order to survive the bad hand that fate has dealt you. The Glass Menagerie is the weakest of the trio, but still affecting and important, a sad story that has humour bubbling away beneath the melancholy, a play about frustration and determination.
July 24, 2011
I’ve never read this play before today and I’ve still never seen the film – I’m going to assume that makes me the last person in the world to have now read this play and so will not worry that this review will have lots of spoilers. I’ve heard of this play before, of course – I even thought I knew what happened in it from a million or so references I’ve heard about it over the years. I can’t say I really enjoyed it. Parts of it were so heavy-handed that they made me cringe – the blind Mexican woman, for example, calling out ‘flowers for the dead’ was perhaps only forgivable because it was in Spanish, but really... and I found the all-too-convenient music piping up from the local bar increasingly annoying – the problem with reading this play is that I’ve no idea what ‘blue piano’ means, I’ll google it later, I guess. And I found the stage directions nearly laughably detailed. Like this one when Blanche is first introduced, “Her delicate beauty must avoid a strong light. There is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggests a moth.” I’m not sure how you might act that – although, I do see that moths need to avoid strong lights.
There is not a single likeable character in this play. There is Blanche DuBois, the white woods, a kind of tragic, fading beauty who hasn’t quite forgiven herself for having killed her angelic husband by telling him how disgusted she was in him over his homosexual affair, conveniently while the other piece of music that plays throughout was playing. This tragic end to her first husband has proven to have driven her into the arms of an endless string of increasingly younger men (ending with a 17 year old student of hers) in an attempt to – what? Retaste her youth? The explanation given in the play is that she is seeking a kind of security. You might think that her life experience to date might speak against this path as the most obvious means of achieving security. The problem is that Blanche suffers from anxiety – relieved only by endlessly long baths, booze and flirting – she is suffering from some kind of mental illness and so is portrayed as self-medicating neurotic. When she first meets her sister’s (Stella, the star) husband (Stanley) she even flirts with him. Except, of course, she finds him beneath her in almost every way, being particularly put off by his crudity and his beating up her sister. He is portrayed as an animal – a kind of sexual and muscular beast – which women, or at least some women, are supposed to find irresistible. This is almost a play contrasting the animal with the civilised – except that the civilised is presented as an illusion, as really only a thin layer of varnish that is all too easily scratched off – as with Blanche, the Southern Belle, whose own life has been brought to the point of near total destruction by her own animal lusts itself shows all too clearly. This is a play full of kettles and pots that are all too ready to call each other black.
Stella has come down in the world by marrying the meat-man, Stanley – but is prepared to put up with a bit of rough treatment as long as the sex afterwards makes it all worthwhile. She comes across as a bit of an air-head, to be honest. She refuses to believe the worst about either Blanche or Stanley – despite the worst being the truth on both occasions. There is also a certain inevitability to Stanley raping Blanche. He has decided she is of low sexual virtue and that she has been insulting him throughout the play has made him ‘need’ to get back at her. Interestingly enough, Stanley is the first to mention his inferior status, in their first meeting he tells Blanche, “I’m afraid I’ll strike you as being the unrefined type.” The second time they talk he makes it clear that he is sexually interested in her. Blanche says, “To interest you a woman would have to – “ and he responds, “Lay … her cards on the table.” So, it is hardly surprising that when Blanche starts to show some interest in Stanley’s friend Steve this leads to Stanley’s extremes of sexual jealousy. As he says himself just before raping her, “We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!”
This is the second of Williams plays I’ve read, this and The Glass Menagerie – having an intellectually disabled older sister made that play much harder to cope with for me than this one. I still haven’t reviewed that the Menagerie and probably never will now.
So, what with the music (both floating in from the local bar and bouncing around in Blanche’s head) and nearly everyone in the play being a pain and some of the scenes being simply unbelievable (the last scene with the poker game going on as Blanche is being taken to the loony-bin is a case in point), I really can’t say I enjoyed this. I was thinking while I was reading it that perhaps the problem is that the play has become dated and we are now so used to American plays with lots of shouting that this has become a bit ho-hum. Hard to say.
There is not a single likeable character in this play. There is Blanche DuBois, the white woods, a kind of tragic, fading beauty who hasn’t quite forgiven herself for having killed her angelic husband by telling him how disgusted she was in him over his homosexual affair, conveniently while the other piece of music that plays throughout was playing. This tragic end to her first husband has proven to have driven her into the arms of an endless string of increasingly younger men (ending with a 17 year old student of hers) in an attempt to – what? Retaste her youth? The explanation given in the play is that she is seeking a kind of security. You might think that her life experience to date might speak against this path as the most obvious means of achieving security. The problem is that Blanche suffers from anxiety – relieved only by endlessly long baths, booze and flirting – she is suffering from some kind of mental illness and so is portrayed as self-medicating neurotic. When she first meets her sister’s (Stella, the star) husband (Stanley) she even flirts with him. Except, of course, she finds him beneath her in almost every way, being particularly put off by his crudity and his beating up her sister. He is portrayed as an animal – a kind of sexual and muscular beast – which women, or at least some women, are supposed to find irresistible. This is almost a play contrasting the animal with the civilised – except that the civilised is presented as an illusion, as really only a thin layer of varnish that is all too easily scratched off – as with Blanche, the Southern Belle, whose own life has been brought to the point of near total destruction by her own animal lusts itself shows all too clearly. This is a play full of kettles and pots that are all too ready to call each other black.
Stella has come down in the world by marrying the meat-man, Stanley – but is prepared to put up with a bit of rough treatment as long as the sex afterwards makes it all worthwhile. She comes across as a bit of an air-head, to be honest. She refuses to believe the worst about either Blanche or Stanley – despite the worst being the truth on both occasions. There is also a certain inevitability to Stanley raping Blanche. He has decided she is of low sexual virtue and that she has been insulting him throughout the play has made him ‘need’ to get back at her. Interestingly enough, Stanley is the first to mention his inferior status, in their first meeting he tells Blanche, “I’m afraid I’ll strike you as being the unrefined type.” The second time they talk he makes it clear that he is sexually interested in her. Blanche says, “To interest you a woman would have to – “ and he responds, “Lay … her cards on the table.” So, it is hardly surprising that when Blanche starts to show some interest in Stanley’s friend Steve this leads to Stanley’s extremes of sexual jealousy. As he says himself just before raping her, “We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!”
This is the second of Williams plays I’ve read, this and The Glass Menagerie – having an intellectually disabled older sister made that play much harder to cope with for me than this one. I still haven’t reviewed that the Menagerie and probably never will now.
So, what with the music (both floating in from the local bar and bouncing around in Blanche’s head) and nearly everyone in the play being a pain and some of the scenes being simply unbelievable (the last scene with the poker game going on as Blanche is being taken to the loony-bin is a case in point), I really can’t say I enjoyed this. I was thinking while I was reading it that perhaps the problem is that the play has become dated and we are now so used to American plays with lots of shouting that this has become a bit ho-hum. Hard to say.
August 7, 2025
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Exceptional play
Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
This play has won the Pulitzer Prize and it is best known in the adapted for the big screen form with Marlon Brando in the lead role.
I have read in Adventures in the Screen Trade that it was the role in On the Waterfront that consecrated Brando as a movie star.
But it happened only because Montgomery Clift had turned down the part.
Blanche Dubois, Stella Kowalski and Stanley are the main characters of this masterpiece.
It all starts with the arrival of Blanche at the home of Stella and her husband.
Blanche and her sister Stella have lived in style on a property called Belle Reve.
Now that is gone and Stanley is suspicious and angry about it, for according to Napoleonic laws he is entitled to what his wife has.
He says that loud and clear and mentions he doesn't want to be cheated.
There is a conflict and a tension throughout on account of the big gap in education between Stella and Blanche on one hand and The rude and primitive Stanley on the other.
He is clever, determined and assertive, but I don't like him.
Because he is also violent, insensitive and barbaric at times.
He speaks like this:
- We was, wasn't we...
It is also true that Blanche comes across as arrogant, lazy, demanding and a liar.
She reminded me of the shortest joke I know, heard in Fawlty Towers:
- Pretentious?
- Moi?!
Blanche acts like she is too good to be near Stanley...swine, pollack and other insults are used.
Meanwhile, she has descended from a good life to poverty and disgrace.
Her reputation is shattered because she was thrown out of the school where she was teaching and later from a hotel with a bad name to begin with.
But all the characters are complex, with the exception of Stanley, for whom I have mentioned that I don't care too much.
The downfall of the poor woman was brought about by an early romance that ended badly.
She loved a boy, when she was merely a teenager and he had a talent for poetry.
They got married and she was enchanted with his extreme beauty and poetic manner.
Alas, he turned out to be a "degenerate" - this is the term used by Stella when she is telling the story to her spouse, trying to make him understand the ordeal that her sister had been exposed to.
The young man shot himself in the mouth and the back of his head was smashed on the wall.
After this tragedy, Blanche sought refuge, solace, remedy in the arms of other men.
Many men.
And she even tried to console herself with a boy of seventeen.
This brought about her dismissal from her job as an English teacher.
Therefore, she does not say the truth, but what she feels the truth should be.
That is more or less the message she gives to Mitch, a man who had wanted to marry her, until he learned about her damaged reputation.
To end with a joke
Seinfeld, the comedy series has included a reference to this classic, when Elaine, drunk at a party keeps shouting
- Stella!!!, trying to imitate Brando in the famous scene when he calls his wife, after he has abused her...
Fantastic chef d'oeuvre
Exceptional play
Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
This play has won the Pulitzer Prize and it is best known in the adapted for the big screen form with Marlon Brando in the lead role.
I have read in Adventures in the Screen Trade that it was the role in On the Waterfront that consecrated Brando as a movie star.
But it happened only because Montgomery Clift had turned down the part.
Blanche Dubois, Stella Kowalski and Stanley are the main characters of this masterpiece.
It all starts with the arrival of Blanche at the home of Stella and her husband.
Blanche and her sister Stella have lived in style on a property called Belle Reve.
Now that is gone and Stanley is suspicious and angry about it, for according to Napoleonic laws he is entitled to what his wife has.
He says that loud and clear and mentions he doesn't want to be cheated.
There is a conflict and a tension throughout on account of the big gap in education between Stella and Blanche on one hand and The rude and primitive Stanley on the other.
He is clever, determined and assertive, but I don't like him.
Because he is also violent, insensitive and barbaric at times.
He speaks like this:
- We was, wasn't we...
It is also true that Blanche comes across as arrogant, lazy, demanding and a liar.
She reminded me of the shortest joke I know, heard in Fawlty Towers:
- Pretentious?
- Moi?!
Blanche acts like she is too good to be near Stanley...swine, pollack and other insults are used.
Meanwhile, she has descended from a good life to poverty and disgrace.
Her reputation is shattered because she was thrown out of the school where she was teaching and later from a hotel with a bad name to begin with.
But all the characters are complex, with the exception of Stanley, for whom I have mentioned that I don't care too much.
The downfall of the poor woman was brought about by an early romance that ended badly.
She loved a boy, when she was merely a teenager and he had a talent for poetry.
They got married and she was enchanted with his extreme beauty and poetic manner.
Alas, he turned out to be a "degenerate" - this is the term used by Stella when she is telling the story to her spouse, trying to make him understand the ordeal that her sister had been exposed to.
The young man shot himself in the mouth and the back of his head was smashed on the wall.
After this tragedy, Blanche sought refuge, solace, remedy in the arms of other men.
Many men.
And she even tried to console herself with a boy of seventeen.
This brought about her dismissal from her job as an English teacher.
Therefore, she does not say the truth, but what she feels the truth should be.
That is more or less the message she gives to Mitch, a man who had wanted to marry her, until he learned about her damaged reputation.
To end with a joke
Seinfeld, the comedy series has included a reference to this classic, when Elaine, drunk at a party keeps shouting
- Stella!!!, trying to imitate Brando in the famous scene when he calls his wife, after he has abused her...
Fantastic chef d'oeuvre
June 26, 2012
A tragic play. The title is named after the Streetcar Desire, which transports the protagonist Blanche DuBois past Cemeteries to Elysian Fields Avenue named after the beautiful Avenue des Champs-Élysées en France but which also signifies the Greek paradisaical afterlife Elysian Fields. Ironically, the grandeur of the paradise that awaits Blanche is largely revealed to be a false pleasing fiction once she arrives in disbelief to the cramped one bedroom, one kitchen apartment of her sister Stella and her brother-in-law Stanley. But her fantasy-weaving mental faculties recover (to the annoyance of Stanley) and she soon settles comfortably in his roost.
Unfortunately, Blanche's ideals and fantasies are woefully outdated. She believes she deserves certain queenly privileges and desires chivalrousness male attentions as a previously affluent Southern belle. However, it is through insisting on veiling the harsh light of her shameful past with a paper lantern that she is blinded by her own inconsistencies and is confined to lying to others and to herself.
Blanche's character foil is the new American immigrant from Poland Stanley Kowalski. The audience will be moved to side with Stanley each time Blanche vehemently spits the racist attack: "He's an animal- a Polack!". Stanley is complicated though because he brings a brutal male dominance that affirms traditional gender roles of female sexuality and domesticity. Thus, the importance of male camaraderie and the insistence on abusive male dictatorship and patriarchy will sicken feminists. Further complicating is that because both Blanche and Stanley both relate to the opposite sex in a sexual way, Stanley acts as Blanche's executioner by raping her at the exact moment that Stella is giving birth. This act of desire results in the destructive death of Blanche's sanity leading her to her next afterlife- a nut house.
My opinion is that Tennessee Williams weaves an intricate play from the dirt of humanity to show us caricature versions of ourselves. All of his characters are flawed and fallible.
1) They choose the ideology that best suits their survival instincts to protect their values from the attack of external munitions. For example, the male dictatorship chosen by Stanley to protect the ritual of poker games from the encroaching female fancies of listening to the radio. Stanley's chosen ideology tells him it is okay to toss the radio out the window in drunken rage!
2) But other than outward attack, characters choose to shield themselves from deteriorating under internal self-criticism. As we know, Blanche's mind retreats into the balmy construction of maiden fantasies to shield herself from the "epic fornications" of her past.
3) Finally, characters crudely choose to overlook morality and simple logic to protect their own lifestyles as we see when Stella contentedly forgives her husband for abusing her (demonstrating to the women in the audience that abuse is acceptable and that she has no confidence to leave him) and also when Stella consciously refuses to believe that her husband raped her own sister. Stella largely relies on Stanley for financial support and clearly in this case, she obligingly allows him write her response to the real world.
Essentially, I believe that from this mud, Tennessee Williams wishes to remind us "what asses and fools we are" (or have been) and give us examples of people we should strive to avoid emulating.
Of course in terms of Mitch, Blanche's primary real male suitor, I am of the opinion that he has the structure of a good person. He respects his mother, he treats Blanche with gentleness, he is inexperienced with love and therefore not used to treating women as just sexual beings, he aims for marriage out of love for his mother, he is also a new American valuing equal opportunity, he values being told the truth and is hurt when he discovers Blanche's deceit. To top it off, he punches Stanley in the end and who doesn't like dramatic heroic retribution? Finally, I will argue that Mitch is a realist or he's careful to avoid passionate and whimsical idealism. He places himself in a position of a lover without admitting to feeling love. Instead of love, he uses the word "need" even though his actions express genuine interest and care towards Blanche. This diction subverts the idea of true love and attributes the process of marriage to a function of life- a cog along the wheel that gives both constituents a caring companion. It is thus realistically, a mutually beneficial process as long as the couple is mutually dependent and respectful.
Unfortunately, Blanche's ideals and fantasies are woefully outdated. She believes she deserves certain queenly privileges and desires chivalrousness male attentions as a previously affluent Southern belle. However, it is through insisting on veiling the harsh light of her shameful past with a paper lantern that she is blinded by her own inconsistencies and is confined to lying to others and to herself.
Blanche's character foil is the new American immigrant from Poland Stanley Kowalski. The audience will be moved to side with Stanley each time Blanche vehemently spits the racist attack: "He's an animal- a Polack!". Stanley is complicated though because he brings a brutal male dominance that affirms traditional gender roles of female sexuality and domesticity. Thus, the importance of male camaraderie and the insistence on abusive male dictatorship and patriarchy will sicken feminists. Further complicating is that because both Blanche and Stanley both relate to the opposite sex in a sexual way, Stanley acts as Blanche's executioner by raping her at the exact moment that Stella is giving birth. This act of desire results in the destructive death of Blanche's sanity leading her to her next afterlife- a nut house.
My opinion is that Tennessee Williams weaves an intricate play from the dirt of humanity to show us caricature versions of ourselves. All of his characters are flawed and fallible.
1) They choose the ideology that best suits their survival instincts to protect their values from the attack of external munitions. For example, the male dictatorship chosen by Stanley to protect the ritual of poker games from the encroaching female fancies of listening to the radio. Stanley's chosen ideology tells him it is okay to toss the radio out the window in drunken rage!
2) But other than outward attack, characters choose to shield themselves from deteriorating under internal self-criticism. As we know, Blanche's mind retreats into the balmy construction of maiden fantasies to shield herself from the "epic fornications" of her past.
3) Finally, characters crudely choose to overlook morality and simple logic to protect their own lifestyles as we see when Stella contentedly forgives her husband for abusing her (demonstrating to the women in the audience that abuse is acceptable and that she has no confidence to leave him) and also when Stella consciously refuses to believe that her husband raped her own sister. Stella largely relies on Stanley for financial support and clearly in this case, she obligingly allows him write her response to the real world.
Essentially, I believe that from this mud, Tennessee Williams wishes to remind us "what asses and fools we are" (or have been) and give us examples of people we should strive to avoid emulating.
Of course in terms of Mitch, Blanche's primary real male suitor, I am of the opinion that he has the structure of a good person. He respects his mother, he treats Blanche with gentleness, he is inexperienced with love and therefore not used to treating women as just sexual beings, he aims for marriage out of love for his mother, he is also a new American valuing equal opportunity, he values being told the truth and is hurt when he discovers Blanche's deceit. To top it off, he punches Stanley in the end and who doesn't like dramatic heroic retribution? Finally, I will argue that Mitch is a realist or he's careful to avoid passionate and whimsical idealism. He places himself in a position of a lover without admitting to feeling love. Instead of love, he uses the word "need" even though his actions express genuine interest and care towards Blanche. This diction subverts the idea of true love and attributes the process of marriage to a function of life- a cog along the wheel that gives both constituents a caring companion. It is thus realistically, a mutually beneficial process as long as the couple is mutually dependent and respectful.
April 24, 2010
“Whoever you are, I’ve always relied on the kindness of strangers,” — Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
I had never read Tennessee Williams before, which I clearly now realise was a huge error on my part. I seem to shock people when I tell them that I haven’t seen the 1951 movie, I haven’t even seen a snippet. I know it’s Brando’s signature role, but I wish people would stop saying it’s such a big deal.
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed Streetcar. I always find it fascinating to read texts where one is not immediately predisposed to idolize a character, and that’s definitely the case here. I thought Blanche was fascinating and I wanted to use my black-belt skills on Stanley and make him bleed. He got me so angry. I wanted to shake Stella out of her stupor. Williams’ writing conveys such emotion, though. Reading up a little on his life makes me understand how he could write with such depth, though unlike some critics I’m loathe to make a direct link between Blanche and his sister.
One curious effect the play had on me was it made me hungry to direct it. I’m not really inclined toward drama any more than watching movies and attending the theatre as much as I am able. I have a deep appreciation for it but rarely would actually want to insert myself into the equation. Now, though, I’m seriously considering putting on a production. Considering we’ve got a student acting society, with several good actors, I may actually do this next year. We’ll see.
This edition also includes Sweet Bird of Youth and The Glass Menagerie, which I haven’t read because they weren’t included in the module. You get bet that I will, though, the moment I have a minute to spare.
I had never read Tennessee Williams before, which I clearly now realise was a huge error on my part. I seem to shock people when I tell them that I haven’t seen the 1951 movie, I haven’t even seen a snippet. I know it’s Brando’s signature role, but I wish people would stop saying it’s such a big deal.
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed Streetcar. I always find it fascinating to read texts where one is not immediately predisposed to idolize a character, and that’s definitely the case here. I thought Blanche was fascinating and I wanted to use my black-belt skills on Stanley and make him bleed. He got me so angry. I wanted to shake Stella out of her stupor. Williams’ writing conveys such emotion, though. Reading up a little on his life makes me understand how he could write with such depth, though unlike some critics I’m loathe to make a direct link between Blanche and his sister.
One curious effect the play had on me was it made me hungry to direct it. I’m not really inclined toward drama any more than watching movies and attending the theatre as much as I am able. I have a deep appreciation for it but rarely would actually want to insert myself into the equation. Now, though, I’m seriously considering putting on a production. Considering we’ve got a student acting society, with several good actors, I may actually do this next year. We’ll see.
This edition also includes Sweet Bird of Youth and The Glass Menagerie, which I haven’t read because they weren’t included in the module. You get bet that I will, though, the moment I have a minute to spare.
December 29, 2022
The Glass Menagerie- just wow! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A Streetcar Named Desire was a good read: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Sweet Bird of Youth started of well but was anticlimactic: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A Streetcar Named Desire was a good read: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Sweet Bird of Youth started of well but was anticlimactic: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
July 26, 2025
What a joy to read a play so brilliantly imagined and written so vividly that the characters and setting lift from the page.
Tennessee Williams was an American playwright and screenwriter who lives long after his work. Many will know his plays from film adaptations that return frequently to our TV screens.
I was fortunate to see Rosamund Pike in Summer and Smoke at the Nottingham Playhouse in September in 2006 before it was transferred to the Apollo Theatre in the West End. That it closed 10 weeks short of its planned 16-week run due to disappointing ticket sales, perhaps reflects the problem with theatre rather than the author himself.
I am pleased to see “A Streetcar Named Desire” has prospered better. Gillian Anderson starred as Blanche DuBois in the 2014 National Theatre Live production of "A Streetcar Named Desire". This filmed performance is being shown again in movie complexes this year which perhaps brings a new and different audience to this play. The production, a collaboration between the Young Vic and Joshua Andrews, was filmed live during a sold-out run.
For me, even after reading this play, nothing can beat live actors on the stage. But the staging of the play with the sound effects and directions are all here in this great book.
The play works on the strength of the characters and the clarity of their words to carry and convey the emotions of life. We perhaps only hear Marlon Brando when a Stanley speaks, but the words of all the actors live long in our hearts when a play is so well etched and finished as this one is by Tennessee Williams.
This book is a poor substitute to watching the play but worth all my time reading it and whets my appetite to watch it live sometime soon.
Tennessee Williams was an American playwright and screenwriter who lives long after his work. Many will know his plays from film adaptations that return frequently to our TV screens.
I was fortunate to see Rosamund Pike in Summer and Smoke at the Nottingham Playhouse in September in 2006 before it was transferred to the Apollo Theatre in the West End. That it closed 10 weeks short of its planned 16-week run due to disappointing ticket sales, perhaps reflects the problem with theatre rather than the author himself.
I am pleased to see “A Streetcar Named Desire” has prospered better. Gillian Anderson starred as Blanche DuBois in the 2014 National Theatre Live production of "A Streetcar Named Desire". This filmed performance is being shown again in movie complexes this year which perhaps brings a new and different audience to this play. The production, a collaboration between the Young Vic and Joshua Andrews, was filmed live during a sold-out run.
For me, even after reading this play, nothing can beat live actors on the stage. But the staging of the play with the sound effects and directions are all here in this great book.
The play works on the strength of the characters and the clarity of their words to carry and convey the emotions of life. We perhaps only hear Marlon Brando when a Stanley speaks, but the words of all the actors live long in our hearts when a play is so well etched and finished as this one is by Tennessee Williams.
This book is a poor substitute to watching the play but worth all my time reading it and whets my appetite to watch it live sometime soon.
March 5, 2026
overall 4 stars with the heavy lifting from streetcar and the the glass menagerie! very interesting character studies that explore the influence of memory and the past. sweet bird of youth started off strong but the ending was a little lacklustre. streetcar is obviously a great, with so much potential analysis to be done of each character and the symbolic motifs throughout the play. glass menagerie was my first memory play and i’d want to watch this one most on the stage, laura is a deviation from the social rebels of the prior plays and i think he scene of her and tom could be a great watch. altogether, i enjoyed reading these plays but omg what is with williams’ small obsession with sound/music? haha
Did Not Finish
April 20, 2026I really enjoyed A Streetcar Named Desire (and LOVED the Gillian Anderson NT Live). I'm sure I'll get to the other two at some point but I'm sick of looking at this in my Currently Reading lol.
February 6, 2008
I first fell in love with A Streetcar Named Desire when I studied it at an english literature evening class in 2005. I had actually owned the book for a while; in a moment of sheer rebellion when I was hunting through my scatterbrained drama teacher's office for a book of monologues I came across an old battered version of Streetcar and pocketed it, thinking it looked 'interesting'. It was only when I studied it, I realised I had actually stolen a little gem that afternoon. Definately my most favourite play of all time, I feel a strong sympathy for Blanche, yet at the same time find it hard to relate to her. I think it is this confusing feeling I recieved regarding the main character that interested me, and I find the majority of her dialogue simply marvellous to read. I just plain LOVE Tennessee Williams!
July 12, 2018
So I enjoyed this book/play. It was the first time in a long time that I sat down and used my eyeballs. Thankfully vacation and pool time gave me a chance to finish this buddy read about 4 months late.
I enjoyed the dialog and the setting. I haven't read a play in forever but it was fun to get the off stage descriptions. I felt like I could see/hear/smell all the stuff that was going on. I never saw the movie so this was all new to me.
The one thing I was totally surprised at was the rape scene at the end. Um, this is kind of a big deal and it've never heard anything about it ever. Even I had heard people yell out "Stella" before but no one wants to talk about how Stan rapes his sister in law then has her thrown in the looney bin? What?
I enjoyed the dialog and the setting. I haven't read a play in forever but it was fun to get the off stage descriptions. I felt like I could see/hear/smell all the stuff that was going on. I never saw the movie so this was all new to me.
The one thing I was totally surprised at was the rape scene at the end. Um, this is kind of a big deal and it've never heard anything about it ever. Even I had heard people yell out "Stella" before but no one wants to talk about how Stan rapes his sister in law then has her thrown in the looney bin? What?
March 10, 2020
I’ve loved Tennessee Williams’s work since I was a boy. Much more so than Arthur Miller. It isn’t simply because the latter is taught in the classroom where the former (mostly) isn’t in the U.K. Miller always feels like a writer wearing his Sunday best. Williams never does and two of the three plays in this volume* are all the better for it. Later Penguin Classic reprints only include Streetcar and not the other two. Cheap bastards!
(*A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, and Sweet Bird of Youth. The first two are best.)
(*A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, and Sweet Bird of Youth. The first two are best.)
August 21, 2016
I love Tennessee Williams plays. I first discovered him whilst studying at university and although I never read a full play I enjoyed his work and his insight into humanity. I found this whilst unpacking my books and decided to read it. Out of the three my favourite was the glass menagerie...I think everyone has a laura in them....where they feel down on themselves to have their hopes raised only for them to be taken away again. I'm looking forward to rereading cat on a hot tin roof and maybe try another play or even see another in the theatre.
June 25, 2018
সুইট বার্ড ... :
ভালো লাগে নাই তাও না। পড়ে মনে হইছে টেনিসি উইলিয়ামস সারা জীবন লেখালেখি করার পর, যেই অসাধারণ কিছু বুলি কোনো নাটকে জুড়ে দিতে পারেন নাই, তাদের ব্যভার করতে কোনোমতে জোড়াতালি দিয়ে এই নাটক দাঁড় করায়ে ফেলছেন।
এইভাবে বলা ঠিক না। কিন্তু নাটকটার গল্পে আমি কোনো তাল পাইলাম না। অন্যদিকে বুলিগুলি, ক্লাসিক।
দ্য গ্লাস ... :
অত্যন্ত ভালো। ছাপায়ে হাতে হাতে বিলি করার মত। ঘরে ঘরে মহড়া হওয়ার মত।
ঘরে ঘরে, অন্তত আমাদের স্মৃতিতে, অবশ্য তাই হয়।
স্ট্রীটকার নেইমড ... :
অসাধারণ লাগছে পড়ে।
দুঃখ লাগতেছে, কার জন্য জানি না। মিচ, ব্লানশ, স্টেলা, স্ট্যান, আমি জানি না।
৫ অক্টোবর ২০১৫
ভালো লাগে নাই তাও না। পড়ে মনে হইছে টেনিসি উইলিয়ামস সারা জীবন লেখালেখি করার পর, যেই অসাধারণ কিছু বুলি কোনো নাটকে জুড়ে দিতে পারেন নাই, তাদের ব্যভার করতে কোনোমতে জোড়াতালি দিয়ে এই নাটক দাঁড় করায়ে ফেলছেন।
এইভাবে বলা ঠিক না। কিন্তু নাটকটার গল্পে আমি কোনো তাল পাইলাম না। অন্যদিকে বুলিগুলি, ক্লাসিক।
দ্য গ্লাস ... :
অত্যন্ত ভালো। ছাপায়ে হাতে হাতে বিলি করার মত। ঘরে ঘরে মহড়া হওয়ার মত।
ঘরে ঘরে, অন্তত আমাদের স্মৃতিতে, অবশ্য তাই হয়।
স্ট্রীটকার নেইমড ... :
অসাধারণ লাগছে পড়ে।
দুঃখ লাগতেছে, কার জন্য জানি না। মিচ, ব্লানশ, স্টেলা, স্ট্যান, আমি জানি না।
৫ অক্টোবর ২০১৫
November 14, 2020
HMMMMMM. For a one-room play, this is smashing.
I never quite knew what was going to happen, but it all took place in an inevitable kind of way- perfect tragedy.
Blanche's character... what a relatable stinker.
Stanley- somehow abusive and attractive at the same time within the story.
Stella- soft and a foil to Blanche without being unbelievable. She makes interesting choices towards the end...
I tried to tell Ethan the plot of this and he said he couldn't repeat it back if he tried.
I never quite knew what was going to happen, but it all took place in an inevitable kind of way- perfect tragedy.
Blanche's character... what a relatable stinker.
Stanley- somehow abusive and attractive at the same time within the story.
Stella- soft and a foil to Blanche without being unbelievable. She makes interesting choices towards the end...
I tried to tell Ethan the plot of this and he said he couldn't repeat it back if he tried.
February 22, 2024
Énorme coup de cœur pour The Glass Menagerie, impressionnée notamment par le travail sur les directions de mise en scène qui est hyper poussé et précis + l’histoire en général et les personnages sont incroyables. J’ai aussi adoré A Streetcar Named Desire, un peu moins accroché à Sweet Bird of Youth mais ça n’en rest pas moins une très bonne pièce. Globalement gros coup de cœur pour ma découverte de Tennessee Williams !
May 3, 2026
A Streetcar Named Desire and Other Plays
(I have reviewed The Glass Menagerie in another edition, so will review only the two remaining plays here).
1. A Streetcar Named Desire
Who is Blanche, what is she? (Pace Shakespeare)
Blanche, the fading Southern belle of this play, believes she is above other mortals, garnering, if only in imagination, garlands she doesn’t merit. The question I ask myself is whether it is her physical and mental degeneration that offers us food for thought – because her swift and irrevocable decline is the basis of the plot – or whether what she represents is more important, the Old South whose values Williams’ oeuvre flays.
Blanche, like others of Williams’ creation, lives on her illusions and her memories of her privileged childhood (in Laurel, Mississippi, where she was fêted in her youth). Through her sister, Stella, whom we may choose to regard as a survivor of the past ‘glories’ of the South, we learn that Blanche has always been vulnerable. When her home and position as a schoolteacher are lost, Blanche is rootless, and cannot adapt, as Stella has done, to a new and harsher reality. Her pathetic attempts to cling to and pursue an image of herself that has long gone lead her into ever increasing self-deceit and mental instability.
We do not know how it was that Stella ended up in the city, married, for love, for desire, to Stanley, a Polish workman, who, in Blanche’s eyes, is unsufferable. Stanley’s attitude to women is Neanderthal. He works hard and plays hard, earning enough to satisfy his drinking and his Poker nights that end in violence against Stella, a violence that she chooses to forgive, and live with. Their passion locks the two of them together, in contrast to the lonely romantic imaginings and the need for love that increasingly destroy Blanche.
I don’t want to say too much about the way the plot develops, though the character of Mitch, a friend of Stanley, interested me. As in the other Tennessee Williams plays I have read, the characters are lashed by social expectations and personal distress. Of course, with these very different characters living in two stifling rooms with no privacy, their clash becomes the catalyst. Layers of misunderstanding and deceit contort and deceive. Blanche’s mental fragility worsens in a way that makes her final utterance in the play unbearably moving. Poor Blanche; a delicate flower, in her own eyes; but a faded rose, with a broken stem.
2. Sweet Bird of Youth
I can’t say that, even after many years and the onset of age, I understood, or enjoyed re-reading, this play. I’ve mentioned before that in the plays I have read by Tennessee Williams there are many layers of human interaction that work into the main theme. Here I couldn’t really tie it all in. Obviously, the title tells us that it is about the passing of youth, but what is that worth here, when youth, if not swept up in the transience and superficiality of fame, screams hurt and bewilderment, when fame cannot be recovered, or guilt be assuaged? In this play, for the protagonist (named ‘Chance’) now with “thinning hair”, who pursues his youthful dream in the face of threats of revenge for his past actions, there seems to be an absolute denial of consequences, even of imminent danger. And yet, there is more than denial in his refusal to move on from the misdeeds of his youth; at best, there is a sort of blind resolve, and even courage. There is also a defiant recognition that he is trapped by his own failures in life and by the thwarted promise of his youth. He is not the only one; he has come to his home town in search of his youthful sweetheart in the company of an ageing actress (referred to as a ‘princess’) who has had success but who sees it fleeing from her now.
There is little beauty in any of the characters, even in the wonderfully named “Heavenly”, Chance’s childhood sweetheart. What there was in their youth has been either worn down, or brutally spoiled. Alongside what amounts to a confessional box for Chance and the Princess, Williams offers us in Heavenly’s powerful, wealthy father only one moment of dignity, when he calls his daughter to him, after which he plays out a role worthy of the collective guilt of the Old South. In him we see a condoning and an encouraging of the most vicious cruelty towards a black man (a ‘random’ black man his thug of a son picked out). This is justified in his own mind by an almost demented readiness to embrace violence in the name of a religious ‘mission’ and convert young zealots to his beliefs, this indoctrination a further, tortured, exploration of the complexities of youth.
Williams himself, in a forward to this play, addresses the violence in his writing:
“If there is any truth in the Aristotelian idea that violence is purged by its poetic representation on a stage, then it may be that my cycle of violent plays have had a moral justification after all. I know that I have felt it. I have always felt a release from the sense of meaninglessness and death when a work of tragic intention has seemed to me to have achieved that intention, even if only approximately, nearly.”
This, then, forces us to confront our lost youth, our misdeeds, the consequences and the harm, and what we have become. In this disturbing work youth is fair but fallible; age is neither. Surely this is Williams at his most savage.
(I have reviewed The Glass Menagerie in another edition, so will review only the two remaining plays here).
1. A Streetcar Named Desire
Who is Blanche, what is she? (Pace Shakespeare)
Blanche, the fading Southern belle of this play, believes she is above other mortals, garnering, if only in imagination, garlands she doesn’t merit. The question I ask myself is whether it is her physical and mental degeneration that offers us food for thought – because her swift and irrevocable decline is the basis of the plot – or whether what she represents is more important, the Old South whose values Williams’ oeuvre flays.
Blanche, like others of Williams’ creation, lives on her illusions and her memories of her privileged childhood (in Laurel, Mississippi, where she was fêted in her youth). Through her sister, Stella, whom we may choose to regard as a survivor of the past ‘glories’ of the South, we learn that Blanche has always been vulnerable. When her home and position as a schoolteacher are lost, Blanche is rootless, and cannot adapt, as Stella has done, to a new and harsher reality. Her pathetic attempts to cling to and pursue an image of herself that has long gone lead her into ever increasing self-deceit and mental instability.
We do not know how it was that Stella ended up in the city, married, for love, for desire, to Stanley, a Polish workman, who, in Blanche’s eyes, is unsufferable. Stanley’s attitude to women is Neanderthal. He works hard and plays hard, earning enough to satisfy his drinking and his Poker nights that end in violence against Stella, a violence that she chooses to forgive, and live with. Their passion locks the two of them together, in contrast to the lonely romantic imaginings and the need for love that increasingly destroy Blanche.
I don’t want to say too much about the way the plot develops, though the character of Mitch, a friend of Stanley, interested me. As in the other Tennessee Williams plays I have read, the characters are lashed by social expectations and personal distress. Of course, with these very different characters living in two stifling rooms with no privacy, their clash becomes the catalyst. Layers of misunderstanding and deceit contort and deceive. Blanche’s mental fragility worsens in a way that makes her final utterance in the play unbearably moving. Poor Blanche; a delicate flower, in her own eyes; but a faded rose, with a broken stem.
2. Sweet Bird of Youth
I can’t say that, even after many years and the onset of age, I understood, or enjoyed re-reading, this play. I’ve mentioned before that in the plays I have read by Tennessee Williams there are many layers of human interaction that work into the main theme. Here I couldn’t really tie it all in. Obviously, the title tells us that it is about the passing of youth, but what is that worth here, when youth, if not swept up in the transience and superficiality of fame, screams hurt and bewilderment, when fame cannot be recovered, or guilt be assuaged? In this play, for the protagonist (named ‘Chance’) now with “thinning hair”, who pursues his youthful dream in the face of threats of revenge for his past actions, there seems to be an absolute denial of consequences, even of imminent danger. And yet, there is more than denial in his refusal to move on from the misdeeds of his youth; at best, there is a sort of blind resolve, and even courage. There is also a defiant recognition that he is trapped by his own failures in life and by the thwarted promise of his youth. He is not the only one; he has come to his home town in search of his youthful sweetheart in the company of an ageing actress (referred to as a ‘princess’) who has had success but who sees it fleeing from her now.
There is little beauty in any of the characters, even in the wonderfully named “Heavenly”, Chance’s childhood sweetheart. What there was in their youth has been either worn down, or brutally spoiled. Alongside what amounts to a confessional box for Chance and the Princess, Williams offers us in Heavenly’s powerful, wealthy father only one moment of dignity, when he calls his daughter to him, after which he plays out a role worthy of the collective guilt of the Old South. In him we see a condoning and an encouraging of the most vicious cruelty towards a black man (a ‘random’ black man his thug of a son picked out). This is justified in his own mind by an almost demented readiness to embrace violence in the name of a religious ‘mission’ and convert young zealots to his beliefs, this indoctrination a further, tortured, exploration of the complexities of youth.
Williams himself, in a forward to this play, addresses the violence in his writing:
“If there is any truth in the Aristotelian idea that violence is purged by its poetic representation on a stage, then it may be that my cycle of violent plays have had a moral justification after all. I know that I have felt it. I have always felt a release from the sense of meaninglessness and death when a work of tragic intention has seemed to me to have achieved that intention, even if only approximately, nearly.”
This, then, forces us to confront our lost youth, our misdeeds, the consequences and the harm, and what we have become. In this disturbing work youth is fair but fallible; age is neither. Surely this is Williams at his most savage.
April 17, 2016
Plays are meant to be brought to life in a theatre and reading them is usually a second rate experience. But not these plays. TR could have written them as novels; he chose the language of the stage to reveal everything he knew about the fragile little birds of this world. Pure poignancy.
October 10, 2022
A good play indeed, would have been great to see it.
February 8, 2023
Teaching this again and we’ve just done our cold read. The students are responding well to it - so good! I’ve read it three times in the last month.
March 6, 2024
Had to annotate and read it for English A level and it was very easy to annotate!! There’s a lot of stuff to talk about!! Overall I really enjoyed it
November 11, 2025
【A Streetcar Named Desire and Other Plays / Tennessee Williams / 1962, Penguin Books】
This selection is made up of Sweet Bird of Youth, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie. As for the latter two, I'm re-reading it after almost a decade.
I honestly felt offended by The Glass Menagerie, not because of its theme or setting, but it was simply terribly written, in an extremely preachy way about the cult of poetry (of course, I do admit that it'd be greatly interesting for people for its very denial of theatricality and performance in a literary sense, and it is, in that sense, terrifically realistic). However, as a person who's aiming at a career of studying Shakespeare for a life, it's nothing but a great offense to the very genre, and it was inevitable for me to feel offended.
The play was made up of endless narrations and lines barely more conversational than narrations, but it was barely dialogues, less monologues, much less poetry, and it was actually nothing but a transcription of 'memory play' which it calls itself to be (really successful in that sense too).
However, it wouldn't do much good to my impression on this play, for I am probably way too averse to approve of this use of memory as a person with some historical interest in mind - a person who'd see the shadow of hatred for theatricality in Louisiana after Huey Long - it's certainly unsettling for me to read such a selection.
This selection is made up of Sweet Bird of Youth, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie. As for the latter two, I'm re-reading it after almost a decade.
I honestly felt offended by The Glass Menagerie, not because of its theme or setting, but it was simply terribly written, in an extremely preachy way about the cult of poetry (of course, I do admit that it'd be greatly interesting for people for its very denial of theatricality and performance in a literary sense, and it is, in that sense, terrifically realistic). However, as a person who's aiming at a career of studying Shakespeare for a life, it's nothing but a great offense to the very genre, and it was inevitable for me to feel offended.
The play was made up of endless narrations and lines barely more conversational than narrations, but it was barely dialogues, less monologues, much less poetry, and it was actually nothing but a transcription of 'memory play' which it calls itself to be (really successful in that sense too).
However, it wouldn't do much good to my impression on this play, for I am probably way too averse to approve of this use of memory as a person with some historical interest in mind - a person who'd see the shadow of hatred for theatricality in Louisiana after Huey Long - it's certainly unsettling for me to read such a selection.
April 28, 2026
A BULLY'S GUIDE TO GETTING YOUR WAY WITH TESTOSTERONE, MUSCLE & BLOOD
You get the feeling that Tennessee Williams would have loved to be on the end of Stanley's tongue - and other things - even though Stanley Kowalski is your typical macho dickhead. The unravelling of Blanche 'I've-always-relied-on-the-kindness-of-strangers' DuBois is nasty to witness. Some people - like lots of people - need their illusions. Yes, you have to pander to that. But sometimes you run across a Neanderthal like Stanley who needs to stomp on you because he cannot face the fact that - underneath everything, skin included - he's just another empty vessel with a bigger pair of biceps than those around him.
In other words, reader, I love this play. It is a mirror of human degradation incorporated. Twist & twizzle it any way you like - it stands up as a meisterwork.
You get the feeling that Tennessee Williams would have loved to be on the end of Stanley's tongue - and other things - even though Stanley Kowalski is your typical macho dickhead. The unravelling of Blanche 'I've-always-relied-on-the-kindness-of-strangers' DuBois is nasty to witness. Some people - like lots of people - need their illusions. Yes, you have to pander to that. But sometimes you run across a Neanderthal like Stanley who needs to stomp on you because he cannot face the fact that - underneath everything, skin included - he's just another empty vessel with a bigger pair of biceps than those around him.
In other words, reader, I love this play. It is a mirror of human degradation incorporated. Twist & twizzle it any way you like - it stands up as a meisterwork.
December 10, 2025
Aggghhhhh. The death of the author is very true because i spent all of my time whilst reading these plays pondering williams’ symbolic and didactic functions . I need a new historical scholar and a structuralist scholar to whisper sweet nothings to me to cease my fear
October 11, 2025
love blanche dubois , i am so sorry (;-;)
April 4, 2026
IGCSE dramaaa in English !
April 17, 2026
Ever powerful.
April 21, 2026
Everyone is a mess
Displaying 1 - 30 of 116 reviews