The Playwright and the Play Week 5 [Part 1]

Transcript:The Playwright and the Play Week 5 [Part 1]:
The Playwright and the Play Week 5 [Part 1] Introduction to Theatre College of the Desert General Information about the Play A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams that received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play, set in contemporary times, describes the decline and fall of a fading Southern belle named Blanche DuBois. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was directed by Elia Kazan and starred Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, and Kim Hunter. The London production opened in 1949 with Bonar Colleano, Vivien Leigh, Renee Asherson and Bernard Braden and was directed by Laurence Olivier. The drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often regarded as among the finest plays of the 20th century and is considered by many to be Williams' greatest work. General Information about the Play In 1951, a film adaptation of the play, directed by Elia Kazan, with Malden, Brando, and Hunter reprising their Broadway roles, joined by Vivien Leigh from the London production for the part of Blanche. The movie won four Academy Awards, including three acting awards (Leigh for Best Actress, Malden for Best Supporting Actor and Hunter for Best Supporting Actress), the first time a film won three out of four acting awards (Brando was nominated for Best Actor but lost). Composer Alex North received an Academy Award nomination for this, his first film score. Jessica Tandy was the only lead actor from the original Broadway production not to appear in the 1951 film. References to Allan Grey's sexual orientation are essentially removed, due to Motion Picture Production Code restrictions. Instead, the reason for his suicide is changed to a general "weakness". The ending itself was also slightly altered. Stella does not remain with Stanley, as she does in the play. General Information about the Play Williams’ early plays also connected with the new American taste for realism that emerged following the Depression and World War II. The characters in A Streetcar Named Desire are trying to rebuild their lives in postwar America: Stanley and Mitch served in the military Blanche had affairs with young soldiers based near her home Williams set his plays in the South, but the compelling manner in which he rendered his themes made them universal, winning him an international audience