A Streetcar Named Desire (Modern Classics (Penguin))(Play edition)

What a joy to read a play so brilliantly imagined and written so vividly that the characters and setting lift from the page. Tennessee Williams was an American playwright and screenwriter who lives long after his work. Many will know his plays from film adaptations that return frequently to our TV screens. I was fortunate to see Rosamund Pike in Summer and Smoke at the Nottingham Playhouse in September in 2006 before it was transferred to the Apollo Theatre in the West End. That it closed 10 weeks short of its planned 16-week run due to disappointing ticket sales, perhaps reflects the problem with theatre rather than the author himself. I am pleased to see “A Streetcar Named Desire” has prospered better. Gillian Anderson starred as Blanche DuBois in the 2014 National Theatre Live production of "A Streetcar Named Desire". This filmed performance is being shown again in movie complexes this year which perhaps brings a new and different audience to this play. The production, a collaboration between the Young Vic and Joshua Andrews, was filmed live during a sold-out run. For me, even after reading this play, nothing can beat live actors on the stage. But the staging of the play with the sound effects and directions are all here in this great book. The play works on the strength of the characters and the clarity of their words to carry and convey the emotions of life. We perhaps only hear Marlon Brando when a Stanley speaks, but the words of all the actors live long in our hearts when a play is so well etched and finished as this one is by Tennessee Williams. This book is a poor substitute to watching the play but worth all my time reading it and whets my appetite to watch it live sometime soon.

A good short story / play

A modern classic of southern gothic drama

What a vibrant strong play which conjures up the sights, sounds and atmosphere of New Orleans so vividly even when just reading it, rather than experiencing it in the theatre! 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.

A classic

i had to purchase this play for my a level english literature exam but it's really intriguing, the characters are all well-rounded and developed and the plot was really interesting! it sparked a lot of debates in my class over the morality of the characters

This book was required for A Level English Literature study work. There are other copies available a lot cheaper, but according to the College, this is the one you have to use for annotation etc. They must have some deal going on, or commission! Anyway, my daughter didn't enjoy the book and it's quite hard to annotate. They cannot be reused or passed on once used for 6th form

If this is a set part of your child's school syllabus for GCSE or A Level, then get this for them. It will help them. You may also want to get a set of notes for probable exam questions and model answers with character and theme analysis as well. York Notes are very reliable and available on amazon. 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.