It was the sweltering summer in New Orleans during the late 1940s.

Old war comrades had headed off to their weekly bowling league after work. Meanwhile, young brides whiled away the hours in their two-flat apartment, patiently waiting for their husbands to come back.

Against this backdrop, Tennessee Williams' classic play, A Streetcar Named Desire, began. This play has withstood the test of time and was later made into a classic film starring Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy.

This steamy drama encompassed the full range of human emotions, and for this, I give it a 4-star rating.

Tennessee Williams introduced the world to characters who became archetypes of the post-war 1940s. There was Stella Kowalski, a young bride expecting her first child, deeply in love with her husband and subservient to his every whim and need. Her husband, Stanley Kowalski, a war veteran working in a supply company to support his wife, still felt the urge to gather with the guys for bowling or poker after work. Then there was Harold Mitchell "Mitch," the bachelor son who took care of his sickly mother. And, of course, the sultry Blanche DuBois, Stella's sister of an indeterminate age, an independent, modern woman with a plethora of problems.

Blanche DuBois, fresh from another failure, had taken a streetcar named Desire to spend the summer with Stella and Stanley Kowalski in their one-bedroom apartment. Sexually charged compared to Stella's submission, there was palpable tension between Blanche and Stanley from the start, with Stella acting as a mediator. Not only was there tension, but Stanley immediately saw through Blanche's gaudy clothes and jewelry and set out to investigate her past. With only a sheet separating their living arrangements in the sweltering summer, the tension continued to build throughout the play.

As Stanley uncovered layer after layer of Blanche's past, Stella was forced to choose between her domineering husband and her sister. While deeply in love with her husband, as she pointed out, she still felt a loyalty to her sister and her past. She was horrified when her husband revealed that Blanche had compromised her role as a high school English teacher by engaging in inappropriate relationships with her students. If this play had taken place thirty years later, I believe Stella would have done some digging of her own to clear Blanche's name. However, it is clear that Stella's loyalties lay with her husband, and this makes the denouement of the play all the more shocking to me, as I'm sure it was for many others as well.

Tennessee Williams went on to have a hall-of-fame career as a playwright, with classics like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Glass Menagerie, which have been performed hundreds, if not thousands, of times over the years. He was also ahead of his time in Desire by addressing social issues such as homosexual relationships, domestic violence, and a woman's monetary independence from her husband. While not my absolute favorite play, A Streetcar Named Desire introduced classic characters, and I look forward to seeing them brought to life on film.

Blanche: How could you come back here last night? Why did you sleep with him?

Stella: But there is something that happens between a man and a woman in the dark, something that makes everything else seem unimportant.
Blanche: What you're saying is just wild, animal lust. Just lust!

The same as that noisy bus that goes up and down these streets all the time.
Some books are masterpieces

Because even after you finish reading and close the book, the pages still turn in your mind

Not because the book is written in a fluid, nonlinear style, but because throughout the book, the ideas are constantly changing

After reading the play, I watched the movie and my mind was once again captivated by the complex characters
...
The main characters in the story are Blanche, Stella (Blanche's sister), Stanley (Stella's husband), and Mitch (Blanche's lover)

Tennessee Williams first shows the characters in the story in a peaceful setting and then gradually adds the elements of violence and lust, and all the things you thought about the characters fade away and take on a different color

You start to hate Blanche, and then you feel sorry for her, and even her pitifulness decreases
...
Let your tears flow and then stop

The same goes for Stanley
Of course, forget about crying for Stanley
:)

Blanche and Stanley are bound to be enemies. One still holds on to the truth of herself, and the other is not bound by any law that has its roots in the past, not even taboos

We can also see this immoral, chaotic society in A Streetcar Named Desire and The Taxi Driver
Blanche has a bitter past and often suffers from nostalgia and pain. Her past is filled with bad men and is haunted by them

Stella says to Stanley: You didn't see Blanche when she was my little girl. No one was as kind-hearted and trusting as she was, but men like you took advantage of her and made her pay the price.
Blanche plays a role when she sees men, hoping to find one of them to save her and give her a place to hide. She is afraid of the light because she doesn't cover her face and shows her true age. Every day, God scalds her with boiling water

Mitch didn't get anything from me last night except a match. I just gave him a match. I want him to respect me, and men don't like things that are easy to get. Besides, they get cold easily, especially if the girl is over thirty years old. They think that a girl who is over thirty should be left alone, and I don't want that
Maybe in a society where appearance is so important, playing a role is inevitable and can be excused, but teasing Mitch by saying the following sentence in French means something else

I am Madame Camellia, and you are Armand
! Do you want to sleep with me tonight? Don't you understand what I'm saying? Oh, so sad
Madame Camellia is a work by Alexandre Dumas fils, a story about a fallen woman who is redeemed by the pure love of Armand. Blanche calls herself Madame Camellia in French, which Mitch doesn't understand, but throughout the story, she shows herself in English as a pure, lonely, and heartbroken woman in love, hoping to make Mitch fall in love with her

One of Stanley's friends describes a joke to make the group of poker players laugh, which shows the lustful spirit of this group

An old country man was sitting behind his house waiting for the chickens to lay eggs. Suddenly, there was a loud noise and a duck flew into the chicken coop. A pig also came along and chased after it
But when the pig saw the old man and saw that he was waiting for the duck to lay eggs, it picked up the duck and started laying eggs. The old man, seeing this, said
<< !Great God, don't ever make me that horny >>

Stanley is the king of lust, and maybe even his friendship with Mitch is for the sake of his own lust, to eliminate his rival and get Blanche for himself

He is a pig, and a pig doesn't describe a duck or make friends with it. He just satisfies his lust in any way possible in a few moments

He says to Blanche: Women's preoccupation with their appearance is one of the vices. I've never seen a woman who didn't know she was beautiful before someone told her. Some of them even think too highly of themselves.

The adaptable character Stella in this chaos is not as obvious as Blanche and Stanley. She is exactly like a duck that submits to the cats, betrayals, and lusts of the pig

And this submissiveness is clearly shown in the first few lines of the review when she says that all these things are forgotten at night in the arms of Stanley

A hundred blessings on Eunice (the neighbor woman) who, upon hearing of her husband's betrayals, cries at least a few times
!!! But she still has to forget these betrayals

Maybe the only character Mitch is the one who can be loved. A man who takes care of his old and sick mother, but there is no news of Stanley's father and mother or his other friends. Although Mitch has a lot of sexual desire for Blanche and has the opportunity to take advantage of her, he doesn't

You are an ordinary guy and your wife's sister comes to stay with you.

\\"Whenever you want to go to the toilet, there she is in the bathroom, primping or having a bath. My God, you yell, can't a man pee in his own house?\\" This variation on the mother-in-law joke, which stunned Broadway in 1947 with the heroine's rape, swiftly became an American classic. It had such lines for the sex act as \\"getting those colored lights going.\\"

On arrival, Blanche, played by Jessica Tandy, was the focus of critics. The New York Times' Brooks Atkinson devoted a graf to the characterization, then added briefly that others were Brando, Karl Malden and Kim Hunter. But within weeks, Brando dominated theatre talk. My visiting grandmother from Los Angeles, who couldn't get a ticket, did standing room and fainted! A religious person, she found the suicide, incest, insanity, drunkenness, homosexuality and rape too much. Worse, the vulgarians played cards and the heroine used cheap perfume.

In his notebooks, director Elia Kazan wrote that it was a poetic tragedy - \\"the final dissolution of a person of worth.\\" For him, Blanche was a social type who symbolized a dying civilization - the genteel tradition of the old South. Now, she was outdated like the dinosaur. Stanley, \\"who sucks on a cigar all day because he can't find a teat,\\" must bring her right down to his level, beneath him. So he levels her with his cock.

A tragic triangle: Blanche, Stanley, Stella. To finally accept Blanche, Stella would then have to return to the subjugation of the Tradition: childhood, younger sister, the South. Stella must be narcotized to forget the price she's paying for a kind of salvation. She's doomed too.

The \\"Streetcar\\" comes to the last stop at the end of the line.

The audiobook was truly phenomenal.

It was an absolute joy to listen to, as it added a newfound energy to my steps while traversing these hilly trails.

I'm still out here hiking, but I managed to finish listening to this audiobook faster than my hike.

It's an Audible original, and a free download for Audible members. However, I still have quite a bit more hiking to do.

This audiobook is like a terrific theatre production. The actors were fantastic, bringing the story to life in the most vivid way.

The sounds and special effects were so well done that they gave this play the emotional integrity that it truly deserves.

HUGE THANKS go out to you, Anne!!!

This has been a great way to start my morning!!!

It has not only entertained me but also motivated me to keep going on this hiking adventure.

I can't wait to see what other wonderful audiobooks Audible has in store for its members.

“I don’t want realism. I want magic!”

This is simply one of the best plays I have ever read. Alongside A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, it will remain etched in my memory as one of the very finest.

Stella and Stanley's life is going well until Blanche, Stella's sister, arrives for a visit from the small town of Lurel, Mississippi. A former Southern belle, Blanche struggles to fit into her new rough environment and is completely shaken by a violent outburst Stanley has during a drunken poker night with his friends. The row ends with him hitting his pregnant wife. Stella first flees to her friend on the second floor but almost immediately forgives him after he sobers up. Blanche cannot fathom how Stella can endure such behavior and how she could so easily accept such a meager life with an abusive husband after their comfortable upper-class upbringing. As the tension between Stanley and Blanche mounts, events spiral out of control, and some dark and sad secrets about Blanche are uncovered.

Tennessee Williams, along with Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller, is regarded as one of the greatest playwrights of twentieth-century American drama. I have read Death of a Salesman by Miller and The Emperor Jones by O’Neill, and I can easily assert that Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is the very best and most memorable.

One remarkable aspect of this play is how visually engaging the reading experience can be. I am amazed by the vivid stage descriptions, instructions, actions, lines, and the music (the outstanding “blue piano” that seems to have a life of its own on stage). All these elements work together to bring the play to life, making it more vivid and graphic. This perhaps explains the numerous adaptations the play has received, including into film, opera, and ballet.

**A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams**

A Streetcar Named Desire is a renowned play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams in 1947. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948.

The play had its Broadway debut on December 3, 1947, and ran until December 17, 1949, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Directed by Elia Kazan, it starred Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, and Kim Hunter. The London production, which opened in 1949 and was directed by Laurence Olivier, featured Bonar Colleano, Vivien Leigh, and Renee Asherson.

This drama is widely regarded as one of the finest plays of the 20th century and is considered by many to be Williams' greatest work. After losing her family home, Belle Reve, to creditors, Blanche DuBois travels from the small town of Laurel, Mississippi, to the New Orleans French Quarter to live with her younger, married sister, Stella, and brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski.

Blanche, who is in her thirties and has no money, has nowhere else to turn. She lies to Stella, claiming to have taken a leave of absence from her English-teaching job due to nerves. Blanche is appalled by the shabbiness of Stella's two-room flat and finds Stanley loud and rough, eventually referring to him as "common." Stanley, for his part, dislikes Blanche's manners and resents her presence.

The story unfolds with the complex relationships and conflicts between the characters. Blanche's past secrets and Stanley's brutish nature create a tense and explosive atmosphere. The play explores themes such as desire, illusion, reality, and the breakdown of Southern aristocracy.

Elia Kazan also directed a film adaptation of the play in 1951, starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando. The film was a critical and commercial success, further cementing the play's status as a classic.

The characters in A Streetcar Named Desire are vividly drawn and memorable. Marlon Brando's portrayal of Stanley Kowalski is iconic, as is Vivien Leigh's performance as Blanche DuBois. The supporting cast, including Kim Hunter as Stella, Karl Malden as Harold Mitchell, and others, also adds depth and authenticity to the story.

A Streetcar Named Desire continues to be performed and studied around the world, captivating audiences with its powerful drama and unforgettable characters.

I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. —Blanche DuBois

A Streetcar Named Desire is one of the great plays of the American theater, perhaps even the very best Tennessee Williams play. It was first performed on Broadway with Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski, Kim Hunter as Stella Kowalski, and Blanche DuBois played by Jessica Tandy. The play is truly riveting. I listened to a version with James Farentino as Stanley and Rosemary Harris as Blanche, which was also very good. It was more disturbing than I ever remembered, filled with passion, shock, and sadness, and was permeated with the sizzling southern summer heat, sweat, and desire.

Marlon Brando's yell of “Stella!” is iconic. Stanley is an animal, a sexual animal, “uncouth.” He works hard, bowls, plays cards, and drinks hard. He is married to Stella, who was formerly from a more “genteel,” upper-class family. Blanche arrives after losing her inheritance, the estate Belle Reve, being fired as a teacher for a “dalliance” with a student, and recently being kicked out of a low-rent tenement house. But she arrives to visit/stay with her sister and brother-in-law dressed as the southern belle she once was, trying to convince them, her friends, and maybe even herself of the illusion that she never quite left her fine “cultured” life.

It is tempting to view this play as a commentary on American masculinity/sexuality, class, and the struggle between the “refined” Southern aristocracy and the “barbaric” working class. And there is some evidence to support all of that. However, the play, with its visceral, lyrical, tragic, and deeply sad nature (and I warn you again, it is disturbing in a couple of places), resists easy definitions or interpretations.

Blanche DuBois, at the end, says, “I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.” The image left is of Blanche, a woman in financial ruins. Her beautiful young husband turned out to be gay, she lost her inheritance, she was a victim of scandal, and now she is simply trying to seek help from her sister, having run out of options. She is a single woman without property, fragile and vulnerable, aging, and her attraction to men (crucial in this time as she has no money) is fading. She is possessed by delusions of grandeur, yet she possesses some strength and spirit that you admire more than just pity as she fights for a place in an often threatening male world that blames her for her vulnerability.

Of course, seeing the play is always better. I highly recommend seeing the Brando film version. It is an amazing literary experience that will never leave you.

This was surprisingly a good read.

I often find reading a play disjointed, but this one worked well for me.

The contrast between fantasy and reality is鲜明. The changes in society have made the old world of the family plantation, Belle Rive (which is indeed a beautiful dream), a thing of the past. Blanche's old-world style class attitudes don't mesh with the world of her sister Stella and her husband Stanley.

Blanche is already in turmoil when she arrives at her sister's flat in New Orleans. She drinks excessive amounts from the start, and gradually her story unfolds. Sadly, the women still have no choice but to depend on men, whether through marriage or other means.

Sex and death are prominent motifs throughout the play. Stanley's violence is quite astonishing, and the tragedy of the ending, with Blanche being taken away to a mental asylum and Stella remaining with Stanley, denying the reality of what happened to Blanche, is powerful.

I've never seen a performance or film version (I'm assuming the Simpsons musical version with Marge as Blanche and a surprisingly muscular Ned Flanders as Stanley doesn't count!). I'll have to keep an eye out for one.

I have never been a fan of stage dramas. However, if it were possible for me to travel back in time, I would eagerly have wanted to witness this particular play on its opening night.

In the remarkable film adaptation, Marlon Brando, in the role of Stanley, is simply outstanding. He is not only incredibly handsome but also delivers a performance that is nothing short of brilliant. He flawlessly creates (and imparts to the rest of the cast) the illusions that the author so skillfully wrote about.

It is only when one reads the play that Stanley's almost inhuman beast-like nature truly comes through with great clarity. Stanley's wife, Stella, is not much of an improvement either. She allows and even enables Stanley's abhorrent behavior. Blanche, Stella's truly mentally ill sister, is victimized and raped. Yet, she is the 'bad' person who is 'taken away' while Stanley sits there playing poker, with one hand brazenly exploring the inside of Stella's blouse.

The rapist, Brando/Stanley, the one who violates a mentally ill woman and a man who would毫不犹豫 toss Stella out the door given the opportunity, somehow goes without blame. His character is monstrous, yet it seems timeless. As the saying goes, some things never change.

The daughter of a finance official falls in love with a drug-addicted Turk, and they move to a 1 ½-room apartment in Berlin-Kreuzberg where she gets pregnant. Her crazy slut of a sister, who thinks she's better than that, comes to visit, drinks up all the schnapps supplies, and brings even more chaos to the place with her ramblings and lies until Mustafa finally gets too fed up and calls the doctor. That's the plot so far.

Or did I mix that up somehow? Was that from some soap on RTL 2 or something? It would have been nice if it was, because I don't even turn on a private TV channel and would have saved a lot of time, but a soap would probably have been even more entertaining, with proper gutter language and involuntary flashes of wit, and sometimes even a slip and bra.

Wait a minute, am I really comparing "ENDSTATION SEHNSUCHT" to trashy entertainment right now? Maybe a bit exaggerated, but then again, not really.

Tennessee Williams' characters come across as so plump and stiff-legged as the German translation of B. Viertel ("I'm about to faint", "she retired a little again" or "Stella obediently laughed" - for goodness sake!). They are types that Williams puts on stage, theater blood flows through their veins, but no human blood; we have the proletarian, uncontrollable, and beer-drinking "Pollack" (as Blanche so nobly titles him), who answers to the nice name Kowalski - easy to pronounce but unmistakably Polish; the lazy and always laughing Negro woman; and above all, the despotic-hysterical Southern belle Blanche, who must drive everyone crazy with her affectations. She is a typical protagonist for Williams, as we already know from "THE GLASS MENAGERIE" and causes the conflict between Southern glamour and Polish circumstances. If only Blanche had had the decency like Walser to lose her mind in time and take refuge in a sanatorium, then we would have been spared this drama.

Her sister Stella - "I want my baby!! Stel - laah!!", as Marlon, sorry Stanley, calls her so beautifully - is mainly concerned with being nice and pregnant and otherwise remains colorless like her accomplice.

Woodcut figures and woodcut conflicts: this could actually be on the screen at ten in the morning while Germany is eating its Knoppers. At least as unappetizing as the pathos processed in hospital portions, which doesn't work at all today. Whoever really wants to treat themselves should just read again what a misstep of a metaphor led to the title.

What an极其 disappointing reunion with a dramatist whose plays I used to like so much.

2 ½ lenient stars for the sake of old times.

A heady, claustrophobic play that delves deep into the realms of breakdowns and denial. It is a complex web of emotions and themes, with so many different layers of tension交织在一起. The play explores various aspects such as sex, class, storytelling, poetry, and gaudiness, creating a rich and multifaceted narrative.

The anticipation to watch the movie adaptation is palpable. It will be fascinating to see how the musical stage directions are translated onto the big screen. The director's vision and interpretation of these elements will surely add a new dimension to the story.

One can only imagine the visual and auditory盛宴 that awaits. The movie has the potential to bring the play to life in a whole new way, captivating audiences and leaving them on the edge of their seats.

Overall, this play and its upcoming movie adaptation promise to be a thrilling and thought-provoking experience.

Stell-lahhhhh!

I read this play back in the late 70s. At that time, to be honest, although I had a certain degree of enjoyment while reading it, I never truly and fully appreciated its depth and significance. It was just a good enough, short-read that served the purpose of a school assignment. There was nothing particularly outstanding about it back then.

However, everything changed when I saw the film adaptation. It instantly became one of my all-time favorite movies. Blanche Dubois, the main character, came to life in a way that made her one of the most fascinating and interesting characters I have ever encountered. Despite her vanity, manipulative behavior, the loss of her ancestral home, and her lies, as she said in the famous quote,

\\"I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it! – Don't turn the light on!\\"

I just couldn't stay angry at Blanche for a long time. Instead, I found myself pitying this sad and tragic character. I knew what was going to happen, yet I couldn't help but catch my breath (or rather, yelp) when she uttered her \\"kindness of strangers\\" line.

Hayleigh encouraged me to re-read the play, and I'm truly glad she did. Now, I have a completely newfound appreciation for this remarkable piece of work. The only little issue I had while reading this time was that I constantly had the images of Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh from the movie in my mind throughout the entire book.