A Streetcar Named Desire

Description

It is a very short list of 20th-century American plays that continue to have the same power and impact as when they first appeared—57 years after its Broadway premiere, Tennessee Williams’ is one of those plays. The story famously recounts how the faded and promiscuous Blanche DuBois is pushed over the edge by her sexy and brutal brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. launched the careers of Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden, and solidified the position of Tennessee Williams as one of the most important young playwrights of his generation, as well as that of Elia Kazan as the greatest American stage director of the ’40s and ’50s. Who better than America’s elder statesman of the theater, Williams’ contemporary Arthur Miller, to write as a witness to the lightning that struck American culture in the form of ? Miller’s rich perspective on Williams’ singular style of poetic dialogue, sensitive characters, and dramatic violence makes this a unique and valuable new edition of . This definitive new edition will also include Williams’ essay “The World I Live In,” and a brief chronology of the author’s life. The Pulitzer Prize and Drama Critics Circle Award winning play—reissued with an introduction by Arthur Miller ( and ), and Williams’ essay “The World I Live In.” In Williams found images and rhythms that are still part of the way we think and feel and move. Lyrical and poetic and human and heartbreaking and memorable and funny. The introductions, by playwrights as illustrious as Williams himself, are the gem of these new editions. Blanche is the Everest of modern American drama, a peak of psychological complexity and emotional range.