shifu (hiatus)'s Reviews > A Streetcar Named Desire

“What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.”

This is a despairing and lovely play that tells us that beauty is shipwrecked on the rock of the world's vulgarity. But this beauty is hidden in the play. We do not see it at first sight. What we do see is the suffering, doomed struggles of a lying, posing, half-demented, pathetic, fully drawn woman.

Desire is the central theme of the play. Blanche seeks to deny it, although we learn later in the play that desire is one of her driving motivations; her desires have caused her to be driven out of town. Physical desire, and not intellectual or spiritual intimacy, is the heart of Stella's and Stanley's relationship, but Williams makes it clear that this does not make their bond any weaker.

“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

P.S: Special mention to the movie because after reading this play i realized that the acting was spot-on and the characters were played perfectly.