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A Streetcar Named Desire (Modern Classics (Penguin))(Play edition) Paperback – 5 Mar. 2009
Tennessee Williams (Author) See search results for this author |
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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire is the tale of a catastrophic confrontation between fantasy and reality, embodied in the characters of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Arthur Miller.
'I have always depended on the kindness of strangers'
Fading southern belle Blanche DuBois is adrift in the modern world. When she arrives to stay with her sister Stella in a crowded, boisterous corner of New Orleans, her delusions of grandeur bring her into conflict with Stella's crude, brutish husband Stanley Kowalski. Eventually their violent collision course causes Blanche's fragile sense of identity to crumble, threatening to destroy her sanity and her one chance of happiness.
Tennessee Williams's steamy and shocking landmark drama, recreated as the immortal film starring Marlon Brando, is one of the most influential plays of the twentieth century.
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) was born in Columbus, Mississippi. When his father, a travelling salesman, moved with his family to St Louis some years later, both he and his sister found it impossible to settle down to city life. He entered college during the Depression and left after a couple of years to take a clerical job in a shoe company. He stayed there for two years, spending the evenings writing. He received a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1940 for his play Battle of Angels, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 and 1955. Among his many other plays Penguin have published The Glass Menagerie (1944), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), The Night of the Iguana (1961), and Small Craft Warnings (1972).
If you enjoyed A Streetcar Named Desire, you might like The Glass Menagerie, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.
'Lyrical and poetic and human and heartbreaking and memorable and funny'
Francis Ford Coppola, director of The Godfather
'One of the greatest American plays'
Observer
- Print length128 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin Classics
- Publication date5 Mar. 2009
- Dimensions12.2 x 0.8 x 19.3 cm
- ISBN-100141190272
- ISBN-13978-0141190273
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Product description
From the Inside Flap
'I have always depended on the kindness of strangers'
Fading southern belle Blanche DuBois is adrift in the modern world. When she arrives to stay with her sister Stella in a crowded, boisterous corner of New Orleans, her delusions of grandeur bring her into conflict with Stella's crude, brutish husband Stanley Kowalski. Eventually their violent collision course causes Blanche's fragile sense of identity to crumble, threatening to destroy her sanity and her one chance of happiness.
From the Back Cover
'I have always depended on the kindness of strangers'
Fading southern belle Blanche DuBois is adrift in the modern world. When she arrives to stay with her sister Stella in a crowded, boisterous corner of New Orleans, her delusions of grandeur bring her into conflict with Stella's crude, brutish husband Stanley Kowalski. Eventually their violent collision course causes Blanche's fragile sense of identity to crumble, threatening to destroy her sanity and her one chance of happiness.
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Product details
- Publisher : Penguin Classics; 1st edition (5 Mar. 2009)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 128 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0141190272
- ISBN-13 : 978-0141190273
- Dimensions : 12.2 x 0.8 x 19.3 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 298 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 1 in Antique & Collectable Cars
- 2 in Drama (Books)
- 3 in Literary Theory & Movements
- Customer reviews:
About the author

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), one of the 20th century's most superb writers, was also one of its most successful and prolific. His classic works include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, Summer and Smoke, Camino Real, Sweet Bird of Youth, Night of the Iguana, Orpheus Descending, and The Rose Tattoo.
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For the casual leisure reader or as a gift for someone to read, Please note it is a theatre stage play and not a novel. Make sure you want to read the stage play not a novel.
IMHO this material for leisure is not my cup of tea even though the writer is supremely talented. I much prefer more Biblical, happier, feelgood, just, happy, cosy reads. This stage play was brutally shocking in its day in the 1940s and still brutally shocking. Although I have taught English in UK schools and to over a hundred nationalities, I am not a fan of UK government and exam board set novels. But if your child has to study it, then it will help perform better in class and in exam.
I love the attention to detail in the set and costumes, clearly matching the visuals to the characters, as can be seen from the description of Stanley's and Stella's apartment at the beginning of Scene Three: "Over the yellow linoleum of the kitchen table hangs an electric bulb with a vivid green glass shade. The poker players – STANLEY, STEVE, MITCH, and PABLO – wear coloured shirts, solid blues, a purple, a red-and-white check, a light green, and they are men at the peak of their physical manhood, as coarse and direct and powerful as the primary colours." The menace of the sexual tension between Stanley and Blanche coming to fruition is as clear from the details of the set as it is in the dialogue; even the name Blanche contrasts with the vibrant colours in which Stanley likes to dress. When first performed in 1947 the play must have been startling in so many respects: musically, visually and in terms of content since it deals with class, domestic violence, alcohlism, homosexuality, prostitution, rape and mental illness. Any one of these on its own would have caused a stir in the late 1940s but to include elements of all these topics was an incredibly bold move on Williams' part.
The play has sufficient depth to benefit from a second reading to more fully appreciate the complexities of the plot and characters, particularly Blanche, Stanley, Stella and Mitch.
I liked the Penguin edition's preface by Arthur Miller, a contemporary of Tennessee Williams, which helped to demonstrate Williams's audacity in breaking the mould of the expected Broadway play and set it in the context of its time.
Full of anger, desire, tension, smouldering but risky sexuality, subtle critiques of class, race and gender stereotypes - and set against a vibrant New Orleans background, which also becomes the source of Blanche's hallucinations, this makes fantastic use of a closed set which foregrounds how dangerous domestic proximity may be.
Blanc is a wonderful character and must be a riot to play, her dialogue is just superb, putting a class barrier of extreme proportions, between her and the working class hero, Stanley, - who actually, is quite rough around the edges, though he does have some logic in the way he works things through?
Stella is loyal to all, happy, a little naïve and a bit of a brick all round. Mitch is a nice guy but eventually ends up heartbroken.
Great characters, great storyline, wonderfully descriptive writing and whilst we couldn't hear the music and see the graphics, it still comes over crystal clear - no wonder it's a classic. I loved it. Finally, just read through the lovely expressions in the glossary - bobby-soxer, red hots, monkey doings, turn the trick, epic fortifications! - just brilliant dialogue!