Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire
Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

A Streetcar Named Desire

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

()

About this audiobook

Caedmon is proud to release this archival full-cast recording of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire on cd for the first time!

Blanche DuBois arrives at her sister Stella's New Orleans apartment seeking refuge from a troubled past—but her ethereal spirit irks Stella's husband, the loutish Stanley Kowalski. Crudely, relentlessly, he unmasks the lies and delusions that sustain Blanche, until her frail hold on reality is shockingly severed.

This atmospheric recording of Tennessee Williams's powerful classic stars Rosemary Harris and James Farentino as Blanche and Stanley—roles they performed to acclaim in a smash revival at New York's Lincoln Center.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherCaedmon
Release dateJan 6, 2009
ISBN9780061729836
A Streetcar Named Desire
Author

Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams, born Thomas Lanier Williams in 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi won Pulitzer Prizes for his dramas, A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Other plays include The Glass Menagerie, Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo, Camino Real, Suddenly Last Summer, Sweet Bird of Youth and Night of the Iguana. He also wrote a number of one-act plays, short stories, poems and two novels, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and Moishe and the Age of Reason. He died in 1983 at the age of 72.

More audiobooks from Tennessee Williams

Related to A Streetcar Named Desire

Performing Arts For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for A Streetcar Named Desire

Rating: 4.36 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

150 ratings50 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    another disappointing classic. I like the WAY this is written--so much, in fact, that by the middle of the book, I was ready to list it as one of my favorites. But then Blanche got dragged to the crazy house, and the story officially got me depressed. I don't generally love depressing books, and this one's no exception.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The story of a Southern belle who finds herself down on her luck and forced to live with her sister and her sister's working class husband. Blanche is a classic character, a troubled woman with a secret past who tries to make a new life for herself, but finds that she can't leave her old self behind. There's no escaping a reputation, especially when those you must rely on are scoundrels. This script manages to capture the sense of futility in life, and also provides a grim picture of the cost of pride, lust, anger, and prudery, especially when they meet heat on. It's difficult to find a truly sympathetic character among this lot, and Williams paints a clear picture of people who continue to destroy each other and themselves, and jump back into self-destruction with a relish. This script retains its power even all these decades after the fact because the characters and the situations are recognizable, perhaps even universal.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Depressing. A Classic worth one read and a little regret.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A formerly-rich Southern Belle spends a few weeks with her sister and her working-class husband. No-one can know she’s really poor and desperate, but her brother-in-law feels punched in the working class by her very presence and sets out to diminish her. Tensions simmer and are expressed through spite, violence and power games. I liked this one a lot better than Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which I read earlier this month. At least the characters in this one seem human, can be empathized with, show some characterization. And not just a little: they’re fully fleshed out and do not really feel like made-up people in made-up circumstances. I enjoyed not enjoying spending time with them. Very well done!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    “Physical beauty is passing - a transitory possession - but beauty of the mind, richness of the spirit, tenderness of the heart - I have all these things - aren't taken away but grow! Increase with the years!” When Blanche DuBois comes to stay with her sister Stella and her working class husband Stanley Kowalski she seems just an aristocrat who has fallen on hard times but it soon becomes clear that it is more about the battle between imagination and reality. Blanche is clothed in fading pastel dresses bedecked with costume jewellery refusing to give her true age or be seen in full light, covering a lamp with a paper shade and declining to go outside in daylight. She has had a number of passing sexual flings including being run out of town for having an affair with a 17 year old boy as she tries to cling onto her fading youth. Stanley in contrast is rooted in the present,physically handsome with a sort of animal magnetism, preferring beer,bowling and poker with his friends. He doesn't believe in Blanche's tales and it is he who unravels her past. They constantly clash culminating in Stanley's rape of Blanche.(The rape is not actually stated but is more implied as he throws her to the bed while the background music reaches a crescendo).Stella who has always stood up for Blanche refuses to believe in the rape sending Blanche into the final spiral of madness. It is also interesting that Stanley is of Polish extraction suggesting there is a transition in America from a society based on whites supremacy to a more multi-cultural one. Blanche represents the past whilst Stanley and his friends are the future.There is another statement on American society and women's dependence on men. Blanche and Mitch are alone which draws them together despite being different but whilst Mitch loves Blanche she is more pragmatic believing that a union will cement her future. Similarly in the very first scene Stanley throws some Stella some meat much to her and her neighbour Eunice's amusement it is suggestive of both sexual dominance and the old male hunter gatherer stereotype.I can see why it is regarded by many as a modern classic and studied fairly widely in schools and colleges.Overall this was a very enjoyable especially as it is not something that I would normally pick up.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Whew! What a ride. What a terrible ride into the lives of three sad, miserable lives. Blanche comes to stay with her sister, Stella, after Blanche's life deteriorates. Stella has married and is expecting a baby, but her life is anything but cozy and warm. Stella's husband, Stanley, beats his wife and drinks heavily. Everything in this story echoes, No Way Out, and You are Doomed to Misery.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Such a devastating play.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Read this one for ENC1102 with good ol' Professor Macia at MDC. I haven't read many plays aside from A Raisin in the Sun back in High school (i.e., in 3-4 years), but I thought this one was pretty great. This is mostly as a result of having fallen in love with the two main characters that are Stanley and Blanche - especially Blanche, who I believe depicts the idea of narcissism in a very interesting way with her magical thinking and the like. I did feel a bit bummed about some of the other characters, such as Stella, whom I believe were meant to represent the more dependent side of the co-dependent relationship when it comes to narcissistic and co-dependent relationships, and as a result were shown to be more characteristically naive and innocent, but this had the unfortunate effect of making them rather uninteresting at times. I do find the ultimate idea behind the book (or at least if my interpretation of it) of man and woman relationships being at their core narcissistic and co-dependent to be absolutely bonkers, but it's a fascinating idea to consider either way! I also loved the use of music to add to the different scenes and the way Tennessee Williams describes New Orleans - you can tell he really did love the place and the whole idea behind it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    As someone who doesn't depend on the kindness of strangers, I was out of my element.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It's been a long time since I read the Glass Menagerie, but I believe Williams' female characters may be very similar. I don't think that's a good thing, but I thought it worked for this play. It's gritty, it's groundbreaking and in my mind, it's obvious as to why it's such an enduring classic.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Read this in a safe place, and give yourself time to rest between scenes! It's wound so tight, and springs so hard, it can take the wind out of you. The main characters - Blanche and Stanley - will be imprinted in my memory for a long time. Blanche reminds me a lot of Laura in the Glass Managerie, but Williams develops the character type more in this play. She's just so broken and disconnected with reality that you can't help feeling deep sympathy and understanding, even when she's at her most fake and disgusting. On the other hand, Stanley is mainly just a one-dimensional brute. I guess you can justify his anger and vindictiveness a little if you consider the class context; Blanche really sets him off by acting so superior and denigrating him as a "Polack" when she is the one that's in desperate need. The fallen southern aristocrat who can't come to terms with her new position vs. the virile son of an immigrant who has married "class" but can't seem to live up to it. The other chartacters are mostly just spineless - Blanche's sister Stella and Stanley's friend Mitch. What a wonderful bunch Tennessee Williams comes up with! I've got to see the film version with Marlon Brando.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Blanche is a southern belle whose youth is beginning to fade. She goes to visit her younger sister Stella in New Orleans and quickly finds herself out of her element in the city. Stella is married to a Polish brute named Stanley who is none too pleased to have his waifish sister-in-law in his home. He’s determined to expose Blanche’s true nature and the problems she seems to be hiding. Blanche’s life fell apart when her young, sweet husband committed suicide. Since then she’s slowly lost control of things, but chooses to pretend that everything is going swimmingly; ignoring her problems in the hopes that they’ll disappear. She clings to her long absent aurora of virginal innocence in the hopes that ignorance really will provide bliss. Williams had such a brilliant way of painting the most vivid, broken characters. He creates stories built around life’s disappointments and heart-breaks and pulls you into the characters’ dysfunctions. Here’s the thing about reading plays, they’re not meant to be consumed that way so you really need to judge them by a different scale. Obviously you aren’t going to have three paragraphs describing the characters’ relationships and struggles; it’s all about the dialogue. You have to think about the way they would be staged and the emotions that would be conveyed when you saw it live. I’m especially reminded of this whenever I read Shakespeare. His work is brilliant, but so many innuendos or intense moments are missed when we skim a line of dialogue on the page. That being said, I really enjoyed Streetcar. I watched the movie years ago, but I really wish I could see it performed. There’s something so visceral about that infamous scene when a drunk Stanley (Marlon Brando in the film), stands in the street screaming for his wife, “Stel-lahhhhh!” BOTTOM LINE: I really liked it, but as it is with any play, I have no doubt that it’s better on stage than the page. “Oh you can’t describe someone you’re in love with.”  
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I didn't know much about this play before I started reading it. I had a vague notion of the character of Blanche DuBois and I knew that someone would yell "Stella!" at some point, but that's about it. I wasn't prepared for how dark the play was going to be. It deals with some pretty heavy issues. I agree with Kim that the stage directions were very well written and one of the best parts of the play. I would never have thought that stage directions would be so poetic, as I mainly think of them as bland physical descriptions. Williams does an excellent job describing the mood that should be created by the scenery.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is a very interesting play, specifically in terms of human morality (under certain circumstances). All of the characters show purity at one time, and then just how despicable they really are at another, which was honestly pretty clever, and it stops the reader from picking a side (though they ultimately do).One of the two sides is Blanche, a woman who came from a rich and generally sheltered life, who herself hides some dark secrets, and whose life has been touched by tragedy a few times before. She has fallen on hard times and so she visits Stella, her sister, in New Orleans, where she meets the second side. Stella’s husband Stanley antagonizes Blanche, basically trying to get her to leave. One can see his point, given that Blanche showed up at a not-so-good time and completely disrupted their world with her own contrasting one, but one can also note his foul cruelty and ignorance displayed in his crusade. Blanche is a fragile woman whom their world is attacking. But yet again one could note Blanche’s confessed breakdown of morals and generally poor job of taking care of herself and her property (or lack thereof). Blanche eventually loses and is taken away, still without making it entirely clear who the pro- and antagonists really are.The play is tragic. It is somewhat ambiguous at times, but primarily it’s tragic. It’s smart, though. Reading about a monster with a green silk bowling shirt and a dishonest woman with a rhinestone tiara is sad, and just... not fun to read about. But it’s really well done! That’s the problem with it, is that there’s nothing wrong with it, and yet it still is a drag to read because of the horrible things that happen to everyone. Which would imply that Streetcar’s style isn’t for everyone. Of course, whether I actually liked it or not shouldn’t factor into the rating, which is on how well it was written. Against my better will, I’ll give it 5 stars.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    ASCNDesire. A clever play in which Tennessee Williams demonstrates that sometimes, whichever door you enter from, if there are certain human elements present, everyone loses. Even the baby.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm really struggling between three and four stars for this. The dialogue is fantastic, and the atmosphere is really well evoked, but the implied rape ruined the whole thing for me in a lot of ways, but mostly because I feel it happened purely so something bad happened, if you know what I mean? It felt like it ruined any of the subtlety in the characterisation of either Blanche or Stanley. I struggled to feel any sympathy at all for Blanche up until that point, especially after it turned out that she had sexually exploited/assaulted one of her school pupils, and I felt that scene went too far in trying to reverse how I felt about her.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Tennessee Williams "A Streetcar Named Desire" is set in New Orleans, and begins with the character Stella with her upstairs neighbor Eunice sitting on the front porch as Stella's husband Stanley walks by on his way to go bowling, and yells out "Hey Stella" as he tosses her a package from the butcher. Stella goes with Stanley to watch him bowl as her sister Blanche DuBois comes to their house. Blanche puts on the airs of a southern belle who has been through more than she can handle, which her sister Stella takes with good nature. Stanley on the other hand doesn't dig this wilting flower routine and doesn't hide any of his blue collar roughness around Blanche.The famous "STELLA!!!" scene, made famous by Marlon Brando, happens a few scenes later when Blanche gets on Stanley's last nerve during one of his poker games and he ends up taking it out on Stella. So to get away from him, Stella runs upstairs to Eunice. Once over his fit a rage Stanley relizes what he has done and runs outside to the porch yelling "Stella!!! Hey Stella!!!" so she would come back down. Stella does eventually come down, and all is forgiven with a loving embrace.The rest of the play goes on with Stanley and Blanche's "delegect nature" butting heads. I am a little confused on what really was wrong with Blanche. At times she seemed to be honestly crazy when thinking about how her and Stella use to live in a big beautiful house with servants and everything, and other times it seemed like just an act. The story briefly goes into Blanche's past about losing her husband and then the bad name she ended up giving herself.Stanley was a little hard to figure out too. Whenever he was talking to Blanche his remarks were sarcastic and mean. But when it came to Stella his words were always kinder, more loving, and wanting to protect her. Maybe his relationship with Blanche was to show how tense relationships between in-laws can be, the husband has his way of living while the wife's family goes on about how her life should be.The story ends with Stella finally realizing that there is something really wrong with her sister, more than just her pain over losing their home Belle Reve. So it all ends with Blanche being carted away, (to a mental instituation I guess), with the famous line "I always depended on the kindness of strangers.""A Streetcar Named Desire" I thought was a good summer read. The version I had was 142 pages and had some pictures from its originally production. Tennessee Williams is one of the American writers I think anyone who enjoys literature should experience at least once.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This beautiful play is as wonderful to see as to read. It is interesting to have the staging descriptions as they are very detailed and sometimes abstract which is unusual for drama.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This play is a great work. Captures the typical scene of a woman bailing out her husband from jail the morning after a beating.

    Also captures a woman who had lost her youth... terrific in it's sadness, somehow thrilling in how you can feel joy afterward.

    I was near to tears with the very last scene.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I read this in college and had totally forgotten that I did that until recently, when I saw the movie for the first time. This play made me sad and angry, and watching the film, I was able to really sympathize with a woman who had no where to go. I've definitely felt trapped in my life, and my parents have almost always been an option, but without them - who is really always there for you?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    While I have read all the fiction which has won the Pulitzer prize, this is only the 5th book I have read of Drama Pulitzer prizewinners. (The other four I've read are Strange Interlude (read 24 Apr 1949), Death of a Salesman (read 28 July 2003), Alison's House (read 9 Apr 2007) and Harvey ((read 6 Dec 2009) I saw the movie A Streetcar Named Desire in 1952 in Norfolk, VA, but I found the reading of the play pretty interesting and it is the next best thing to seeing the play. I could not help but feel some sympathy for Blanche and some revulsion as to Stanley's brutalistic behavior even before his dastardly attack on Blanche while Stanley's wife was in the hospital to have a baby. Blanche was clearly sick and deserved better treatment than Stanley ladled out to her.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is my all time favorite play! This was another book I remember reading in high school, but unlike the rest, I couldn't put this one down. The tragedy is so beautifully written that you almost forget that what you're reading is sad. Blanche will probably be one of my all time literary characters for a very long time, which, unless you've read the play as many times as I have, you might not understand right away. After reading this play, I just couldn't stop myself from devouring every other Tennessee William's play I could get my hands on!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Somewhat depressing look at family relationships in the South. I would have liked it more if Stanley had not been so irredeemably awful!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very impressed with this. I very rarely read plays, so it is delightful for each Scene to be a clearly defined section of space and time, and Williams’ stage directions allow you to visualise the scenery and ambience.As the playwright Arthur Miller writes in his introduction to my Penguin edition, In Streetcar, however, the real and the lyrical were smoothly blended and emerged a unified voice.. When thinking back on the play I admire its language and structure, but when reading it, I marvelled at the seemingly simple and straightforward narrative, so well told.The story is Blanche DuBois’s tragedy and we pity her, her personality and circumstance, depending upon our experience and temperament.In Scene Five we understand that Blanche would like Mitch to marry her, so that she can rest and breathe quietly again. At this point she appears predatory and “depraved”, as she might put it, as she is willing to deceive Mitch to achieve marriage, and clearly does not love him, as explicitly shown by her treatment of the young man, who is a young, young, young, young - man, and who she describes as a child, envying his youth.But then we learn why she is how she is, from her one great love, whom she married, but who committed suicide and why. How mad this made her, and when, and how society deals with this. These questions determine how we respond.I would usually be impatient of such a passive “soft” character as Blanche, but Williams’ characterisation enabled me to get past this, so I could understand the tragedy of the famous line to the doctor Whoever you are – I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Mooi compact toneelstuk dat zich afspeelt in New Orleans. Gaat in essentie over de (lamentabele) vrouwelijke conditie. Hoofdfiguur Blance is het typevoorbeeld van de neurotische vrouw, Stanley van het alfamannetje.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Disturbind and depressing. I think I need some time to process it before I can say more.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    How I graduated from college without ever reading A Streetcar Named Desire (or even watching a dramatization of the play) is beyond me. When I finally settled down and read it, I was struck by how contemporary some of the issues remain (domestic abuse, alcohol abuse—including denial—mental illness and homosexuality). As a play, the dialog is powerful and the staging is very easily imagined. The weirdness of some relationships between sisters is reflected in the way Blanche and Stella relate to each other and could easily reflect a present day situation. The “cut to the chase”/no BS attitude of many working class people who simply have no patience for a lot of verbal gymnastics is perfectly realized in Stanley’s best lines. The play is also an effective vehicle for examining late 1940s American culture and also contemporary values and complicated family histories. At first I thought that it would seem very dated to a 21st century young adult reader, but with the right introduction and context, it remains a perfect choice for the study of American drama. Target audience 11th grade to adult.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I picked this one up because it's on the Rory Gilmore Book List. It's one of the many books Rory reads in "Gilmore Girls". I didn't know whether or not I would like it. I kind of did... but I can't really say why. It was frustrating because of the abusive relationships, but... it was interesting.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    There's a reason why this is a classic. It blew me away. WOW!!There's a reason why this is a classic. It blew me away. WOW!!In the forward to the 2004 edition of A Streetcar Named Desire, Arthur Miller wrote that he vividly remembered the first time he saw the play on stage, before it opened to the public on Broadway in December 1947. How could one forget when the original production featured all the players we have come to so strongly identify with the movie roles of popular culture (except that Jessica Tandy , rather than Vivien Leigh, played Blanch DuBois)?And yet, it wasn’t the players or their acting skills that Miller commented on, but the writing itself. “On first hearing Streetcar . . . the impression was . . . of language flowing from the soul . . . but remarkably, each character’s speech seemed at the same time uncannily his own.” Miller adds that, “What Streetcar’s first production did was to plant the flag of beauty on the shores of commercial theatre.”If you know A Streetcar Named Desire only from snatched clips or even just your friends’ impersonation of Brando’s “STELLL- AHHHHH!”, as I had, then you’ve missed the quality of this writing. But even if you can’t attend a live production of Streetcar, you can still access the beauty of this play in the written word – a slim 179-page volume that reads quickly and easily and, thanks to many school curricula, continues to be in print.But while the reading is quick and easy, the story that unfolds is anything but. Williams’ classic play begins with Blanche DuBois’s arrival in New Orleans to stay with her sister and brother-in-law, Stella and Stanley Kowalski. Blanche puts on airs of gentility and seems shocked and shaken by Stanley’s frequently aggressive behavior. But Blanche has a secret past that is catching up with her, and the knowledge of it in the hands of her brother-in-law wrecks her last chance at happiness. Not satisfied with that, Stanley also physically assaults Blanche, driving her over the edge of sanity.Look at the original cast list. Find photos of Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Jessica Tandy and Karl Malden in the 1940s. Then read the play and enjoy the language. You owe it to yourself.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Deception seems to be one of the most salient themes. As Goleman writes, "We are piloted in part by an ingenious capacity to deceive ourselves, whereby we sink in obliviousness rather than face threatening facts." Blanche buries her devious past with a new start in New Orleans and skirts questions with a swift wit in conversation. She waters down the pains and frustrations of the past with concealed drinking and shrouds her aging face from gentleman callers in a soft light. She delusionally and openly believes that a fictional Texas oil magnate will arrive to whisk her away from yet another prison she finds herself in. Blanche maintains a very interesting relationship with Stanley, the bane of her existence in the French Quarter. While Stanley is ostensibly boorish and untamed, Blanche poorly masks these same latent characteristics in her own personality with a ladylike charm, frequent bathing, and heavy perfume. Her attacks on Stanley are actually projections, effectively assaults on the qualities she hates most about herself. Her outward disdain for her sister's husband is likely an aggressive reaction to what is better known as jealousy. What's more, this behavior runs in the family (another universal Williams theme). Stella convinces herself that an abusive relationship is fit to raise a child in. And at one point, the sisters recall their mother's refusal to accept her own mortality and her imploration to her young daughters to participate in this shared collusion. In the final scenes of the story, as Stella is giving birth to their son, Stanley finishes what he started, defeating Blanche completely in a territorial act of rape. When Blanche finally does choose to embrace honesty and come clean with Stella about the crime, her sister refuses to believe her and locks her away with the truth in an asylum, in step with what we'd expect from the DuBois family. The play was originally to be named "The Poker Night" and like "The Glass Menagerie", this image is an appropriate symbol to help unify the piece. As Williams writes it, poker, a game of deception, is not just played by the men in this play.