American Drama, Tennessee Williams and Streetcar

8/19/2019 American Drama, Tennessee Williams and Streetcar

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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 ,-

Documents

American Drama, Tennessee Williams and Streetcar