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Tennessee Williams and
A Streetcar Named Desire
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Development of American Drama
Not an ambitious art form until 20th c.
Puritanical hostility, an Old World
pleasure, ondon companies performed!ha"espearean plays
Not a literary effort but a form of
enternainment
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ate #$th century% realism
!erious theatre be&ins in the late '('
)eflects the method of the realist American novel
No *uropean models +(bsen,!ha,-he"hov,Pirandello+
!usan laspell/s Trifles #$#1
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The #$203s% *4perimentation
American theatre influenced by *uropean
modernist e4perimentation
)ealism combines ith non+realist forms
Eugene O'Neill The Hairy Ape, #$225 Desire
Under the Elms, #$26
Dissatisfied ith limitations of realism in drama
Wants drama to e4press more than before, to &odeeper, to sho more
(mportance of *4pressionism
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*4pressionism
A erman avant+&arde movement Portrayal of the inner e4perience of reality
throu&h dreams, memories, fantasies, symbols,symbolic characters, music, sound, li&ht
The psychic condition of the character isperceivable
7ut by the audience, not by the other characters
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#$80+#$69% bac" to )ealism
The reat Depression
Turn to realism
Domestic realism emer&es as the dominant,
natural, native voice of American drama
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#$69+#$10% 7roaday Theater
7roaday+based
The &reatest plays of America/s &reatest
playri&hts% A. Miller and T. Williams
This &eneration uses the discoveries of theprevious theater
domestic realism :
e4perimentation;e4pressionsim
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Arthur
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Death of a Salesman #$6$%
The -ommon
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Tennessee Williams #$##+#$@8
and the !outh
=( rite out of love for the
!outh (t is out of a re&ret
for a !outh that no lon&er
e4ists that ( rite of the
forces that have destroyedit.once a ay of life that (
am unable to remember B
not a society based on
money ( rite about the!outh because ( thin" the
ar beteen romanticism
and the hostility to it is very
sharp there.>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usmO4v3ktTchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usmO4v3ktTc
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The !outh
o -hildhood in
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The !outh
Positive ?ualities%
F race, taste, ele&ance, decorum, poetic,
rootednes in soil, close family ties, stron&
omen Gsteel butterflies3, Giron ma&nolias3
Clas%
F (ntolerance, violence, hypocresy reli&ion,omen
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Art as a reflection
of the artist3s on tensions
Cran"ly there must be some
limitations in me as a
dramatist. ( can3t handle
people in routine situations. !must in" characters #ho
correspon" to my o#n
tensionsE
F ( be&an to find life
unsatisfactory as an
e4planation of itself and
as forced to adopt themethod of the artist of
not e4plainin& but
putting the bloc$s
together in some aythat seems more
si&nificant to himE
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-ommercial and critical success
F (n 7roaday and also Hollyood hits
The Glass Menagerie #$69
A Streetcar Named Desire #$6I
The Rose Tattoo #$90
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof #$99
The Night of the g!ana #$1#F Cre?uently revived no
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Williams and Hollyood
F -ollaboration commercialtheatre and film industry
F !tron&er in the postar America% competition from TJ,and artistic *uropean films
F The "icycle Thief #$6$%audiences ant artistic, adultfilms, featurin& se4
F -han&e in popular taste%reKection of didacticism and
prudishness of Hollyoodfilms, Production -ode Administration
F Holllyood turns to Williams3plays
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Williams and Hollyood
F (nterested in sellin& production ri&hts of this plays to thefilm industry
F Cilm version of A Streetcar Named Desire #$9#, by*lia LaMan, the first adult Hollyood film
F LaMan faces P-A censorshipF LaMan "eeps rape scene, playes don the rest
F 7rando plays !tanley a&ain, Jivien ei&h as 7lanche
F !uccess, film ma"ers compete for the production ri&hts
of
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-ontribution to Drama
F Psychose4ual focus
F #lastic theatre%
use of non+realistic techni?ues
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Psychose4ual focus
F -haracters/ stru&&leith their emotionaland se4ual drives
F *roticises the American sta&e
F Core&rounds topics ofse4uality and desire
F Desire leads to socialreKection andatonement
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!e4ual politics
F (nfluence of D. H. arence%
se4uality as a life force, restores balance flesh;spirit
“awrence felt the mystery and power of se# as the primal life urge and was the life$long adversary of those who wanted to %eep the sub&ect loc%ed away in the cellars of
prudery”
F )everses tendency in American literature to portray desire as male and asheterose4ual only
+ Cemale characters subKect of desire, their bodies not eroticised
+
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-haracters
F The individualistic, thee4centric,the outcast
F Difficulties in copin&
ith life, punished bysociety
=the ravishment of thetender, the sensitive,
the delicate, by thesava&e and brutalforces of modernsociety>
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Themes
F !e4uality and desire
F *scapism in art and fantasy
F Tenacity and endurance in the face ofdifficulties, social indictment
F (ndirectly, social issues in post+ar
America%the ar, the old versus the ne !outh,
multiculturalism
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The plastic theater
E$pressionism and all other !ncon%entional techni&!esin drama ha%e only one %alid aim 'When a playemploys unconventional techniques, it … shouldn'tbe trying to escape its responsibility of dealing withreality …but should be attempting to find a closerapproach, a more penetrating and vivid expressionof things as they are( E%eryone sho!ld no) no)adaysthe !nimportance of the photographic in art* ' thatreality is an organic thing )hich the poetic imaginationcan represent or s!ggest only thro!gh transformation'
These remar+s ha%e to do )ith a conception of a ne), plastic theatre )hich m!st ta+e the place of thee$ha!sted theatre of realistic con%entions if the theatre isto res!me %itality as a part of o!r c!lt!re(
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Plastic theater features
F Poetic lan&ua&e% vivid, visual, evocative
F *4pressionistic techni?ues%
+
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A Streetcar Named Desire #$6I
F -ompendium of Williams3 themes and techni?ues
F )an for @99 performances, innin& all maKor aards
F -entral characters represent opposin& forces
F 7ut they are comple4% flaed, divided natures 7lanche
F Trial titles underline 7lanche as prota&onist%
The #assion of the Moth, "lanches Chair in the Moon
F !outhern roots and *uropean (nfluences%
o !outhern iterature Gone )ith the -ind #$81, Caul"ner,
-arson , .ady Chatterley
o *uropean dramatists% Anton -he"hov3s The Cherry /rchard#$06
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!ettin&
F Crench Quarter, Ne Orleans
F
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!tructure
F *pisodic drama comprised of eleven scenes
F (n performance, three+act structure, brea"s after
scenes 6 and 1
F These points mar" shifts in the seasons%
scenes %&% to consecutive days in sprin&
scenes (&% a hot evenin&, summer
scenes *&%%% afternoon and ni&ht of7lanche/s birthday in !eptember, fall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqhXBSW0Znshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqhXBSW0Zns
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o(n addition to articulatin& Williams3 on conflicts,
and the dychotomy Old;Ne !outhoThe clash 7lanche;!tanley may be seen as the
clash beteen to myths% Dionysus and Orpheus
see )oche+aKtha 20## in -J
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=(f you ere &oin& to have a 7lanche Du7ois in the modern orld, a
oman ho is loo"in& for /a cleft in the roc" of the orld,/ as
7lanche does in the play>, ho ould she beR
F S( thin" that Woody pulls it off. ( thin" this feels li"e a very authentic
representation of ho 7lanche ould be if 7lanche as around no.S
Do you a&reeR + !tephen )ea, TN!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibsc7DiTBPMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibsc7DiTBPMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibsc7DiTBPM
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Cuther readin&
+o use stu"y materials suggeste" in
bibliography an" uploa"e" to ,-