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The Revival Of Desire : Tennessee William 's Masterpiece, A Streetcar Named Desire

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The Revival of Desire
Sixty-eight years ago yesterday, Tennessee William’s masterpiece, A Streetcar Named Desire, premiered at the Barrymore Theatre. Now, it returns to its home stage in an honest, gritty revival directed by Ana Kazan, the granddaughter of Streetcar’s original director.
Cecilia Sage December 4, 2015 ǀ This article appeared in the December 6, 2015 edition of The New York Times
I am blind. A blunt beginning, but I enjoy those. It is usually rather arduous to be a newspaper reviewer without the ability to see. Despite that, I sincerely love it. I have reviewed several Broadway productions, but I find them trying. Broadway shows so often focus on the “wow” factor that they forget to add any depth to the story. Viewers fall …show more content…

Ana Kazan, the director, used the original script that Tennessee Williams penned. His prose is so uniquely original that this story does not need to be seen. It can be heard and still be deeply felt.
Williams evokes in the text individual characters that peel off the page already nearing the three-dimensional, and all they need are brilliant actors to truly bring them to life. Fortunately for viewers this cast is truly superb, for they each completely abandoned their true personas and took up those of their characters. I cannot review the staging and the costumes, but even if those were horrid, this show would not lose its vivid virtuosity because those exceptional costumes and staging and sets are not needed. The story, the literature, is a performance in and of itself, and it speaks on its own.
A Streetcar Named Desire tells the story of fading Southern belle Blanche DuBois, and how after losing everything, she goes to live with her sister, Stella. While there, she attempts to keep her desperate situation under wraps but her violently lustful brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski sees through her fabrications and pushes her into a world of lost sanity.
Blanche DuBois is one of the most complex characters I have come across. She thinks she is an innocent, pure creation. Everything about her demeanor and the way her lines were written

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