A Streetcar Named Desire
Tennessee Williams · 1947
Blanche DuBois arrives in New Orleans clinging to Southern gentility and collides with her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski's brutal realism. Williams wrote the great American play about self-deception, desire, and cruelty. Marlon Brando's Stanley in the original production changed acting forever.
The case against
Williams pitches everything at eleven: the symbolism (paper lantern, bathtub, the streetcar names) arrives underlined, and Blanche's destruction is orchestrated with an operatic relish that edges toward cruelty. Stanley is written so magnetically that productions keep accidentally siding with him, which says something uncomfortable about the play's own design.
Drama · the Pro canon
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