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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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Tennessee Williams
754 books3,690 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 110 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.
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 !
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.
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 27, 2023
I seldom find texts written for the stage to be good reads out of the setting they are intended for, that is the stage (or a film). The only exception I so far have noted on GR is Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” I picked up this book containing three plays by Tennessee Williams mainly for “A Streetcar Named Desire.” This was an encounter that even surpasses Godot. I review the three plays below separately in order of reading.
An extra benefit of this edition of the plays is the author’s forewords and detailed production notes. It adds much to the reader’s ability to picture each play in his mind.
All texts are extraordinarily strong in their presentation, contain splendid dialogue and strong sentiment even when the characters are stereotyped.
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE *****
I have seen the splendid Elia Kazan movie with Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden decades ago and the film entered my mind when reading the book, almost like an illustration to the text. Reading the text now took me (via the movie) to the quarters of New Orleans were the action takes place and I felt like I would have been witnessing these events in real life.
This is a splendid story that you feel in your guts. The vivid text absorbs the reader from the start. The characters and the milieu are very much alive, the dialogue perfect, sentiment strong. I consider Blanche to be the central character of the story. She has lost herself in an imagined world of glory and has become untouched by the reality that surrounds her. The text also depicts well Blanche’s drinking problem of which she herself is unconscious of.
THE GLASS MENAGERIE ****
I still remember a splendid production of The Glass Menagerie on Finnish television decades ago. After now having read this text, it would be nice to see it again from the archives of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE).
The Glass Menagerie is in many ways related to Streetcar. This is also a deep dive into the pathology of family relations. Laura seems like the Blanche of this play. The women are dismissive and unassertive. The men can be seen as aggressive, but neither are they strong. Everybody seems to live in his or her own imaginary world, in a family that is not a unity, but rather a random group of isolated individuals who in a peculiar way are interdependent.
SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH ***
Sweet Bird of Youth differs from the two other plays in its violent content, which to some extent the author explains in his foreword to the play. We encounter a bunch of amoral characters in the Deep South in a story that is not novel and appealing in the same way as the two others. In my mind the author does not distance himself enough from his characters and their action. Despite that I must admit I enjoyed reading this.
An extra benefit of this edition of the plays is the author’s forewords and detailed production notes. It adds much to the reader’s ability to picture each play in his mind.
All texts are extraordinarily strong in their presentation, contain splendid dialogue and strong sentiment even when the characters are stereotyped.
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE *****
I have seen the splendid Elia Kazan movie with Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden decades ago and the film entered my mind when reading the book, almost like an illustration to the text. Reading the text now took me (via the movie) to the quarters of New Orleans were the action takes place and I felt like I would have been witnessing these events in real life.
This is a splendid story that you feel in your guts. The vivid text absorbs the reader from the start. The characters and the milieu are very much alive, the dialogue perfect, sentiment strong. I consider Blanche to be the central character of the story. She has lost herself in an imagined world of glory and has become untouched by the reality that surrounds her. The text also depicts well Blanche’s drinking problem of which she herself is unconscious of.
THE GLASS MENAGERIE ****
I still remember a splendid production of The Glass Menagerie on Finnish television decades ago. After now having read this text, it would be nice to see it again from the archives of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE).
The Glass Menagerie is in many ways related to Streetcar. This is also a deep dive into the pathology of family relations. Laura seems like the Blanche of this play. The women are dismissive and unassertive. The men can be seen as aggressive, but neither are they strong. Everybody seems to live in his or her own imaginary world, in a family that is not a unity, but rather a random group of isolated individuals who in a peculiar way are interdependent.
SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH ***
Sweet Bird of Youth differs from the two other plays in its violent content, which to some extent the author explains in his foreword to the play. We encounter a bunch of amoral characters in the Deep South in a story that is not novel and appealing in the same way as the two others. In my mind the author does not distance himself enough from his characters and their action. Despite that I must admit I enjoyed reading this.
October 28, 2007
What makes this worthy of four stars is the inclusion of two of Williams' "great" works, and one of his lesser known ones. Each of these is intriguing in it's own way, though hardly the kind of work that will endure the test of time.
Sweet Bird of Youth is intriguing, particularly when you realize that Paul Newman was the first to play the lead. Picturing Newman throughout the piece makes it twice as readable, dreaming of what it might have been like to see a master plying his craft with such fine material.
The rest of the play, however, is melodramatic and riddled with dull diatribes. The standard Williams' motifs of stained southern womanhood and the seedy underbelly of human relationships is present, as is his insipid refusal to just come out and say what he means.
Insipid also more or less sums up my feelings about The Glass Menagarie a bland little piece about an overbearing mother and a standard Williams hero (another young boy who tires of the hypocricies and inconsiderate manners of the south, what a surprise).
But both of these characters seem to merely kill time before the scene between the fragile Laura and Jim the Gentleman caller. I've seen the play twice and that scene several times and it never fails to grab me, one of the finest scenes in drama (that unfortunately comes in the middle of a drab and dreary play).
Equally interesting, for me as a drama dork, is the concept Williams presents and that shows in the stage directions, a thin screen with projections on it, subheadings for each scene, and little images that match the vinette. A creative concept, one that I've never seen done well (and so, intimidates me to try, myself)
So with two relatively mediocre plays, why did I give it four stars? (Besides the redeeming features of Paul Newman's name and stage directions?) Streetcar Named Desire. For all of Williams' faults (and as you can tell, I think there are many) this play stands out as a compelling and intriguing character study, an icy window that gradually thaws and reveals the flaws and blemishes of its society. It brims with heat and tension and dramatic passion. And much as I will associate it with a particular inside joke with a particular colleague of mine, it is phenomenal to see it unspooling in your mind's eye.
The plays are the thing here, the bang for your buck, individually, not that enjoyable, as a trio, much better.
Sweet Bird of Youth is intriguing, particularly when you realize that Paul Newman was the first to play the lead. Picturing Newman throughout the piece makes it twice as readable, dreaming of what it might have been like to see a master plying his craft with such fine material.
The rest of the play, however, is melodramatic and riddled with dull diatribes. The standard Williams' motifs of stained southern womanhood and the seedy underbelly of human relationships is present, as is his insipid refusal to just come out and say what he means.
Insipid also more or less sums up my feelings about The Glass Menagarie a bland little piece about an overbearing mother and a standard Williams hero (another young boy who tires of the hypocricies and inconsiderate manners of the south, what a surprise).
But both of these characters seem to merely kill time before the scene between the fragile Laura and Jim the Gentleman caller. I've seen the play twice and that scene several times and it never fails to grab me, one of the finest scenes in drama (that unfortunately comes in the middle of a drab and dreary play).
Equally interesting, for me as a drama dork, is the concept Williams presents and that shows in the stage directions, a thin screen with projections on it, subheadings for each scene, and little images that match the vinette. A creative concept, one that I've never seen done well (and so, intimidates me to try, myself)
So with two relatively mediocre plays, why did I give it four stars? (Besides the redeeming features of Paul Newman's name and stage directions?) Streetcar Named Desire. For all of Williams' faults (and as you can tell, I think there are many) this play stands out as a compelling and intriguing character study, an icy window that gradually thaws and reveals the flaws and blemishes of its society. It brims with heat and tension and dramatic passion. And much as I will associate it with a particular inside joke with a particular colleague of mine, it is phenomenal to see it unspooling in your mind's eye.
The plays are the thing here, the bang for your buck, individually, not that enjoyable, as a trio, much better.
June 15, 2019
Set in the once working-class French Quarter of New Orleans, Williams tells the story of Blanche DuBois, an alcoholic relic of the waning genteel South, and her brother-in-law, the sensuous working-class brute Stanley Kowalski. Their mutual attraction and repulsion drive the conflict in this sexually frank, lyrical melodrama about the boundaries between illusion and reality and the changing South.
Blanche Dubois is a neurotic young woman in her late 20s. A widow, her husband died under mysterious circumstances, and Blanche has a history of seducing teenage boys. When she comes to live with her sister, Blanche has trouble dealing with her brother-in-law, Stanley. When confronted with her past, Blanche turns to alcohol and madness.
Stella Kowalski is Blanche's younger sister. She is married to Stanley, an unpredictable violent man, but she's enthralled by his manliness. Stella tries to make excuses for her sister's deeds when they come to light, but she refuses to believe that Stanley has raped Blanche.
Stanley Kowalski is Stella's husband and a primitive, brutal man. He sets out to discredit Blanche and send her back to Mississippi by learning of her past indiscretions. He finally rapes Blanche.
Harold Mitchell, "Mitch," is one of Stanley's poker-playing friends. He courts and proposes to Blanche, unaware of her history. When Stanley reveals the truth about Blanche, Mitch reviles her and even attempts to assault her sexually.
My review of this masterpiece was stolen and lost forever. HEY, STELLA!
Blanche Dubois is a neurotic young woman in her late 20s. A widow, her husband died under mysterious circumstances, and Blanche has a history of seducing teenage boys. When she comes to live with her sister, Blanche has trouble dealing with her brother-in-law, Stanley. When confronted with her past, Blanche turns to alcohol and madness.
Stella Kowalski is Blanche's younger sister. She is married to Stanley, an unpredictable violent man, but she's enthralled by his manliness. Stella tries to make excuses for her sister's deeds when they come to light, but she refuses to believe that Stanley has raped Blanche.
Stanley Kowalski is Stella's husband and a primitive, brutal man. He sets out to discredit Blanche and send her back to Mississippi by learning of her past indiscretions. He finally rapes Blanche.
Harold Mitchell, "Mitch," is one of Stanley's poker-playing friends. He courts and proposes to Blanche, unaware of her history. When Stanley reveals the truth about Blanche, Mitch reviles her and even attempts to assault her sexually.
My review of this masterpiece was stolen and lost forever. HEY, STELLA!
March 16, 2014
The Glass Menagerie is, quite possibly, one of the best works written describing the fruitlessness of a forced existence, the consequences of stifling both talent and passion and the importance of the legacy one generation can leave the next.
The relationship between Tom and Laura is the most important in the play with both of them the target of Amanda's (their mother) neuroses and high expectations. As a pair, they work - Tom in a practical sense supporting the family and filling the shoes of a father who had left them years before to follow his own passions, and Laura from an emotional perspective by constantly placating her mother whilst playing the role of victim that her mother has lumbered her with and this, along with being left alone by her husband, has allowed Amanda to martyr herself. Her frequent mention of her own glory days provide a statically contrasting backdrop for the sad, depleted woman she has become and leaves the audience between the realms of sympathy and pity for Amanda who inadvertently, in her desire to protect her children from her own fate, actually drives Tom away from the family and fuels his desire to escape a life of drudgery and contains Laura to the point where she is afraid to leave the house having developed a nervous complex and self esteem issues. The glass menagerie of animals Laura collects represent the fragility of family ties which can, if handled incorrectly or clumsily, shatter into pieces never to be repaired.
The relationship between Tom and Laura is the most important in the play with both of them the target of Amanda's (their mother) neuroses and high expectations. As a pair, they work - Tom in a practical sense supporting the family and filling the shoes of a father who had left them years before to follow his own passions, and Laura from an emotional perspective by constantly placating her mother whilst playing the role of victim that her mother has lumbered her with and this, along with being left alone by her husband, has allowed Amanda to martyr herself. Her frequent mention of her own glory days provide a statically contrasting backdrop for the sad, depleted woman she has become and leaves the audience between the realms of sympathy and pity for Amanda who inadvertently, in her desire to protect her children from her own fate, actually drives Tom away from the family and fuels his desire to escape a life of drudgery and contains Laura to the point where she is afraid to leave the house having developed a nervous complex and self esteem issues. The glass menagerie of animals Laura collects represent the fragility of family ties which can, if handled incorrectly or clumsily, shatter into pieces never to be repaired.
January 16, 2019
I love the way Tennessee Williams is capturing the concept of memory affecting these characters dreams, their reality and their present lives. It is a though he is wanting his audience to picture how the world for these characters along with their ambitions and wishes are nothing more than a tantalising dream. Memory is a precious thing for humans, but sometimes it is the cause of misery and deception for others. I see memory as a delicate object that makes us humans think of our past selves, understand the world better and how to live our lives when the nearby future approaches us. Memory is like a piece of glass, if it maintains, we have memories we cherish. If we are haunted by memories and they return to effect us, the glass shatters. There is a sense of poetry in each of the plays written by TW. The things we cherish so much are close by and yet they are so far away it is far beyond our reach. In other words, nothing more than a tantalising dream. The Glass Menagerie exemplifies this, when I read the play I picture the characters in a little snow dome, that lays in the palm of your hand, a memory you cherish and hold so delicately. But once you drop it and the glass shatters, the memory is no longer there anymore.
June 5, 2013
I don't read plays very often and as a result, it's not a format (genre?) I read easily. Like many high schoolers, I read the Glass Menagerie for English class, and other than seeing a few Williams' one-acts staged several years ago, that was my sole experience with his work until I read Streetcar. I read this solely over a series of train rides (treating the breaks in reading as my intermissions), and found that I quite enjoyed this play. I didn't realize until I was about a third of the way through it that Blanche is really the main character of this play, and it's the unfolding of her story that drives the plot. I imagine that playing Blanche is an actor's dream, and a meaty challenge to pull off her fragility without making her just seem cuckoo for cocoa puffs crazy. The intensity of Stella and Stanley's relationship was a surprise, and I found myself uncomfortable with the violence that was always simmering just under the surface of their interactions (uncomfortable in a good way, meaning the writer did a great job conveying this).
A recommended read. Now I think I shall allow myself to watch the movie.
A recommended read. Now I think I shall allow myself to watch the movie.
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February 21, 2019I felt a bit odd about never having read this play or seen the film since they are both highly regarded. Although I did not enjoy either experience, I am glad that I read the play and watched the Brando film. i had no idea that so many stereotypes of American culture appear in the play, or perhaps were created by the play: the attractive and sexual man in his wife-beater t-shirt and the flakey southern belle who drinks too much and is a little mad. Like Blanche, I like magic and escapism, so the violence and simmering tension of impending violence was not entertaining. The analyst in me was fascinated at the way Tennessee Williams wove opposing images and ideas and used music to create tension. I left feeling that Blanche, suffering from post traumatic stress disorder finally found some peace and safety in the mental hospital to which she is sent. I hope.
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