#18 - Streetcar Named Desire

Continuing this July reading blitz we come to A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams. This is the second Williams worth I've partaken in. A couple of years ago I watched a performance of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Kanata Theatre, my local community stage. In both I was struck by one thing above all else. Williams pours such energy into every one of his characters. Their movements are frantic, their dialogue is fast paced. Everyone is up and jumping and rushing and their sheer passion for everything is one of the most dominant things you will take away from it, whether you watch it or read it. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, we deal with Brick, a former football star who is just past his prime and verging on alcoholism. In Streetcar Named Desire, however, we deal with Blanche DuBois, a former Southern Belle who is...just past her prime and verging on alcoholism. Both deal with nervous breakdowns, undertones of sexuality both hetero- and homo-sexual, and some powerful themes. In Cat, it is suicide, whereas in Streetcar, it is rape. In Streetcar's climactic scene, the increasingly-crazed Blanche is confronted by the crude Stanley for her falsehoods. This leads to Stanley raping Blanche - though I'm not sure how the two are connected. This rape goes by without a word from Stanley's wife and Blanche's sister Stella, who instead corroborates with Stanley to send Blanche to an asylum - I don't argue that that's where she belonged - as opposed to, I don't know, getting mad at him for it.

Tennessee Williams is lauded as one of the best playwrights of the 20th century - his Big Three of Hot Tin Roof, Streetcar, and The Glass Menagerie are one of the greatest sets in American theatre - but I had a bitter taste in my mouth throughout this reading. Maybe it was the edition I had - the re-release from the 1982 TV movie starring Ann-Margret and Treat Williams - or its being placed after Scarlet Letter, a serious text, but it seemed as if it were much too commercial to be considered artistic. Williams did try to include imagery and symbolism, but it always felt heavy-handed. Blanche DuBois, "White of the Woods", being dressed in white and being a symbol of purity, and dressing in more colours as she goes more and more off-kilter. Their family home Belle Reve, or "Beautiful Dream". Perhaps I've just been reading too much literature lately, but it feels like it should take more than a bit of French naming to make something meaningful and deep. In the end, rape plots be-damned, the play read as a fairly quick and light work, and while I did love it as a story, I just wasn't impressed with it as being on the top 100 works of literature. It wasn't art, but it was a damn cool show.

7/10