A Streetcar Named Desire is a play written by Tennessee Williams which was first performed on Broadway on December 3, 1947. The play dramatizes the experiences of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her once-prosperous situation to move into a shabby apartment in the French Quarter of New Orleans rented by her younger sister Stella Kowalski and brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski.
A Streetcar Named Desire is one of Williams' most influential plays. It still ranks among his most performed and has inspired many adaptations in other forms, most notably a 1951 film adaptation directed by Elia Kazan.Production notes. December 3, 1947—December 17, 1949 IBDb.com
Name Blanche arrives at Stella's apartment by riding in a streetcar on the Desire streetcar line. Tennessee Williams was living in an apartment on Toulouse Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans when he wrote A Streetcar Named Desire. The Desire streetcar line ran only a half-block away.
Plot
After the loss of her family home to creditors, Blanche DuBois travels from Laurel, Mississippi, to the French Quarter of New Orleans to live with her younger married sister, Stella, and Stella's husband, Stanley Kowalski. She is in her thirties and, with no money, has nowhere else to go.
Blanche tells Stella that she has taken a leave of absence from her English-teaching position because of her nerves (which is later revealed to be a lie). Blanche laments the shabbiness of her sister's two-room flat. She finds Stanley loud and rough, eventually referring to him as "common." Stanley, in return, is suspicious of Blanche, does not care for her manners and resents her presence which is already interfering with his regimented but hedonistic lifestyle.
From the first scene, Blanche is nervous and jittery. She is reluctant to be seen in the glare of light and seems to have a drinking problem. She is also deceptive and is critical of her sister and brother-in-law.
Stanley later questions Blanche about her earlier marriage. Blanche had married when she was very young, but her husband committed suicide. Stanley, worried that he has been cheated out of an inheritance, demands to know what happened to Belle Reve, once a large plantation and the DuBois family home. He tells Stella about the Napoleonic Code, stating that with it a husband had control over his wife's financial affairs. Blanche hands over all the documents pertaining to Belle Reve. While looking at the papers, Stanley notices a bundle of letters that Blanche emotionally proclaims are personal love letters from her dead husband. For a moment, Stanley seems caught off guard over her proclaimed feelings. Afterwards, he informs Blanche that Stella is pregnant.
The night after Blanche's arrival, during one of Stanley's poker games, Blanche meets Mitch, one of Stanley's poker player buddies. His courteous manner sets him apart from the other men. Their chat becomes flirtatious and friendly, and Blanche easily charms him; they like each other. Suddenly becoming upset over repeated interruptions, Stanley explodes in a drunken rage and strikes Stella. Blanche and Stella take refuge with their upstairs neighbor, Eunice Hubbell. When Stanley recovers, he cries out from the courtyard below for Stella to come back until she comes down and allows herself to be carried off to bed. After Stella returns to Stanley, Blanche and Mitch sit at the bottom of the steps in the courtyard, where Mitch apologizes for Stanley's coarse behavior.
The next morning, Blanche rushes to Stella and describes Stanley as subhuman, though Stella assures Blanche that she and Stanley are fine. Stanley overhears the conversation but keeps silent. When Stanley comes in, Stella hugs and kisses him.
As the weeks pass, the friction between Blanche and Stanley continues to grow. Blanche has hope in Mitch, and tells Stella that she wants to go away with him and not be anyone's problem. During a meeting between the two, Blanche confesses to Mitch that once she was married to a young man, Allan Grey, whom she later discovered in a sexual encounter with an older man. Grey later killed himself when Blanche told him she was disgusted with him. The story touches Mitch, who tells Blanche that they need each other. Mitch also has lost someone and seems to have empathy with Blanche's situation.
Later, Stanley repeats gossip to Stella from a seedy salesman with contacts in Laurel that Blanche was fired from her teaching job for sleeping with an underage student and that she had lived at a hotel known for prostitution afterwards. Stella erupts in anger over Stanley's cruelty after he reveals he has already told Mitch. Later that evening, at Blanche's birthday party, there is an empty seat at the table for Mitch. Stanley gives Blanche a birthday "present", a one-way ticket back to Laurel by Greyhound bus. An argument ensues between Stella and Stanley, but is cut short as Stella goes into unexpected labor and is taken by her husband to the hospital.
As Blanche waits at home alone, Mitch arrives and confronts Blanche with the stories that Stanley has told him. She eventually confesses that the stories are true but pleads for forgiveness. An angry and humiliated Mitch rejects her. Nevertheless, he demands sex from her, suggesting that it is his right since he has waited for so long for nothing. Blanche threatens to cry fire and tells him to get out.
Stanley returns home to find Blanche alone in the apartment. She has descended into another fantasy about an old suitor coming to provide financial support and take her away from New Orleans. She falsely claims that Mitch had asked for her forgiveness, but she had rejected him. Stanley goes along with the act before scorning Blanche and calling out her lie about Mitch. He advances toward her; in response, she threatens to attack him with a broken bottle, but is overpowered. Blanche collapses on the floor and Stanley is last seen taking her unconscious into his bed.
Some time in the near future, during a poker game at the Kowalski apartment, Stella and Eunice are seen packing Blanche's meager belongings while Blanche takes a bath in a catatonic state, having suffered a mental breakdown. Although Blanche has told Stella about Stanley raping her (which he denies), Stella will not bring herself to believe her sister's story. When a doctor and a nurse arrive to take Blanche to a mental institution, she initially resists them and the nurse painfully restrains her. Mitch, present at the poker game, breaks down in tears. The doctor is far more gentle and she goes willingly with him, saying, "Whoever you are – I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." The poker game continues, uninterrupted.
Cast and characters Blanche DuBois - 27+ year old, loquacious and fragile woman who arrives at her sister's place in New Orleans destitute. Stanley Kowalski - 30s, The husband of Stella, a veteran, middle class working man who is passionate with his wife and cruel to Blanche. Stella Kowalski - 25 years old, Blanche's sister and wife to Stanley. Her loyalties are torn between her sister and her husband. Harold "Mitch" Mitchell - 30s, Stanley's army friend, coworker, and poker buddy, who courts Blanche
Notable productions Characters Broadway London Broadway Revival London Revival Broadway Revival Australia Revival London Revival 194719491988199220022005200920142023 Blanche DuBois Jessica Tandy Vivien Leigh Blythe Danner Jessica Lange Glenn Close Natasha Richardson Cate Blanchett Rachel Weisz Gillian Anderson Patsy Ferran Stanley Kowalski Marlon Brando Bonar Colleano Aidan Quinn Alec Baldwin Iain Glen John C. Reilly Joel Edgerton Elliot Cowan Ben Foster Paul Mescal Stella Kowalski Kim Hunter Renée Asherson Frances McDormand Amy Madigan Essie Davis Amy Ryan Robin McLeavy Ruth Wilson Vanessa Kirby Anjana Vasan "Mitch" Mitchell Karl Malden Bernard Braden Frank Converse Timothy Carhart Robert Pastorelli Chris Bauer Tim Richards Barnaby Kay Corey Johnson Dwane Walcott
Production history
Original Broadway production
The original Broadway production was produced by Irene Mayer Selznick and directed by Elia Kazan. It opened at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut in early November 1947, then played the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia before moving to the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on December 3, 1947. Selznick originally wanted to cast Margaret Sullavan and John Garfield, but settled on the less well-known Jessica Tandy and a virtual unknown at the time, Marlon Brando. The opening night cast also included Kim Hunter as Stella and Karl Malden as Mitch. Tandy was cast after Williams saw her performance in a West Coast production of his one-act play Portrait of a Madonna. Williams believed that casting Brando, who was young for the part as it was originally conceived, would evolve Kowalski from being a vicious older man to someone whose unintentional cruelty can be attributed to youthful ignorance. Despite its shocking scenes and gritty dialogue, the audience applauded the debut performance.December 3, This Day In History Calendar (2008), Sourcebooks, Inc. Brooks Atkinson, reviewing the opening in The New York Times, described Tandy's "superb performance" as "almost incredibly true", concluding that Williams "has spun a poignant and luminous story".
Later in the run, Uta Hagen succeeded Tandy, Carmelita Pope succeeded Hunter, and Anthony Quinn succeeded Brando. Hagen and Quinn took the show on a national tour directed by Harold Clurman, and then returned to Broadway for additional performances. Ralph Meeker also took on the part of Stanley both in the Broadway and touring companies. Tandy received a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 1948, sharing the honor with Judith Anderson and Katharine Cornell. The original Broadway production closed, after 855 performances, in 1949.
The original cast included, Jessica Tandy as Blanche DuBois, Karl Malden as Harold "Mitch" Mitchell, Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski, Kim Hunter as Stella Kowalski, Rudy Bond as Steve Hubbell, Nick Dennis as Pablo Gonzales, Peg Hillias as Eunice Hubbell, Vito Christi as Young Collector, Richard Garrick as Doctor, Ann Dere as Nurse (later called the Matron), Gee Gee James as Negro Woman and Edna Thomas as Mexican Woman.
The four stars of the original cast can be heard performing brief excerpts from the play on the WOR radio broadcast of the presentation of the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play.
Other early productions The first adaptation of Streetcar in Greece was performed in 1948 by Koun's Art Theater, two years before its film adaptation and one year before its London premiere, directed by Karolos Koun starring Melina Mercouri as Blanche and Vasilis Diamantopoulos as Stanley, with original music by Manos Hadjidakis.
The London production, directed by Laurence Olivier, opened at the Aldwych Theatre on October 12, 1949. It starred Bonar Colleano as Stanley, Vivien Leigh as Blanche, Renée Asherson as Stella and Bernard Braden as Mitch.
An Australian production with Viola Keats as Blanche and Arthur Franz as Stanley opened at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne in February 1950.
Revivals The first all-black production of Streetcar was likely performed by the Summer Theatre Company at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, in August 1953 and directed by one of Williams's former classmates at Iowa, Thomas D. Pawley, as noted in the Streetcar edition of the "Plays in Production" series published by Cambridge University Press.
Tallulah Bankhead, for whom Williams originally had written the role of Blanche, starred in a 1956 New York City Center Company production directed by Herbert Machiz.
In 1972, American composer Frances Ziffer set A Streetcar Named Desire to music.