Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire is the tale of a catastrophic confrontation between fantasy and reality, embodied in the characters of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Arthur Miller.
Tennessee Williams (Author)
Tennessee Williams was born in 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi, where
his grandfather was the episcopal clergyman. When his father, a
travelling salesman, moved with his family to St Louis some years
later, both he and his sister found it impossible to settle down to
city life. He entered college during the Depression and left after
a couple of years to take a clerical job in a shoe company. He
stayed there for two years, spending the evenings writing. He
entered the University of Iowa in 1938 and completed his course, at
the same time holding a large number of part-time jobs of great
diversity. He received a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1940 for his
play Battle of Angels, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 and
1955. Among his many other plays Penguin have published The Glass
Menagerie (1944), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Summer and Smoke
(1948), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Camino Real(1953), Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof (1955), Orpheus Descending (1957), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959),
Period of Adjustment (1960), The Night of the Iguana (1961), The
Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963; revised 1964) and Small
Craft Warnings (1972). He died in 1983.
Arthur Miller (Introducer)
American dramatist Arthur Miller was born in New York City in 1915.
In 1938 Miller won awards for his comedy The Grass Still Grows. His
major achievement was Death of a Salesman, which won the 1949
Pulitzer Prize for drama and the 1949 New York Drama Critics'
Circle Award. The Crucible was aimed at the widespread
congressional investigation of subversive activities in the US; the
drama won the 1953 Tony Award. Miller's autobiography, Timebends- A
Life was published in 1987.
Blanche is the Everest of modern American drama, a peak of
psychological complexity and emotional range.--John Lahr
In Streetcar Williams found images and rhythms that are still part
of the way we think and feel and move.--Jack Kroll
Lyrical and poetic and human and heartbreaking and memorable and
funny.--Francis Ford Coppola
The introductions, by playwrights as illustrious as Williams
himself, are the gem of these new editions.--Ken Furtado
"In Streetcar Williams found images and rhythms that are still part
of the way we think and feel and move..."
Available for the first time on CD, this is a full-cast recording of Williams's famous play as performed at New York's Lincoln Center in 1973. The sound effects and music can overwhelm the production, which suffers somewhat from the lack of visuals (there is no sense of time passing, so listeners unfamiliar with the play might mistake all the action to take place over a brief period). Rosemary Harris's reading of Southern belle Blanche DuBois is excellent; her performance lends an airy, unreal quality to Blanche's follies. James Farentino plays mocking, brutal Stanley Kowalski aptly, and Patricia Connolly, too, plays Stella with suitable passivity. Better seen than heard, this is still an important recording to own. [Audio clip available through www.harperaudio.com.-Ed.]-B. Allison Gray, Santa Barbara P.L., Goleta Branch, CA Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
Blanche is the Everest of modern American drama, a peak of
psychological complexity and emotional range.--John Lahr
In Streetcar Williams found images and rhythms that are still part
of the way we think and feel and move.--Jack Kroll
Lyrical and poetic and human and heartbreaking and memorable and
funny.--Francis Ford Coppola
The introductions, by playwrights as illustrious as Williams
himself, are the gem of these new editions.--Ken Furtado
"In Streetcar Williams found images and rhythms that are still part
of the way we think and feel and move..."
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