Streetcar Flashcards
Scene 1- Intro to Stanley + New Orleans… precedent immediately set
Blanche comes to stay
‘This ‘blue piano’ expresses the spirit of life which goes on here’ SD
‘[mildly] Don’t holler at me like that.’
‘Meat!’
‘Her appearance was incongruous to this setting’ SD
‘That suggests a moth’ SD
‘This can this be- her home?’…. ‘Two rooms can be seen’ SD
‘Polacks?’
‘Only Poe! Only Mr Edgar Allan Poe!- could do it justice!’
‘I stayed and fought for it, bled for it, almost died for it!’
‘Funerals are pretty compared to deaths’
‘Where were you. In bed with your- Polak!’
‘He sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and determining the way he smiles at them.’ SD
‘Do you mind if I make myself comfortable?’
‘I’m- going to be sick!’
Scene 2
Stanley confronts Blanche about Belle Reve
Power struggle starts
‘She’s soaking in a hot tub to quiet her nerves.’
‘When you’re swindled under the Napoleonic code I’m swindled too.’
‘I was fishing for a compliment, Stanley’
‘I hurt him the way you would like to hurt me, but you can’t!’
‘How pretty the sky is! I ought to go there on a rocket that never comes down.’
Scene 3- The poker night
Blanche + Mitch meet
Stanley abuses Stella
‘The raw colours of childhood’s spectrum’ SD
‘This game is spit in the ocean’
‘Sorrow makes for sincerity, I think.’
‘I can’t stand a naked lightbulb any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.’
‘Dancing bear’ SD
‘Stanley stalks fiercely’ SD
‘Still shuddering with sobs’ SD
‘Stell-lahhhh’
‘Thank you for being so kind! I need kindness now.’
Scene 4- Stanley + Stella makeup… Blanche is disappointed
Stanley hears Blanche’s true thoughts about him
‘Stella is lying down in her bedroom. Here face is serene in the early morning sunlight.’ SD ‘With new maternity’ SD
‘She had spent a sleepless night and her appearance entirely contrasts with Stella’s’ SD
‘I was- sort of- thrilled by it.’
‘Now don’t say it was one of those mysterious electric things between people!’
‘What you are talking about is brutal desire- just- Desire!’
‘It brought me here.- Where I’m not wanted and where I’m ashamed to be…’
‘He acts like an animal, has an animals habits!’
‘Stanley hesitates, licking his lips’ SD
‘He laughs and clasps her head to him. Over her head he grins through the curtains at Blanche.’
Scene 5 Steve + Eunice, subordinate plot… highlights the true message of the play, places a new light on the main characters
Stanley uncovers Blanches past at the flamingo
Blanche declines but admits to Stella
Blanche kisses the young boy
‘You hit me! I’m going to call the police!’
‘They love to bang things around!’
‘Make a little- temporary magic just in order to pay for- one night’s shelter!’
‘People don’t see you- men don’t- don’t even admit your existence unless they are making love to you.’
‘Blanche do you want him?’ ‘I want to rest!’
‘The woman snaps his fingers before his belt’ SD
‘I’ve got to be good and keep my hands off of children.’
Scene 6- Blanche talks to Mitch after their date… makes sure he retains his gentlemanly standards
Tells him about her husband the killed himself
Mitch shows off his strength, plus asks Blanche to be w/ him
‘I don’t think I have ever tried so hard to be gay and made such a dismal mess of it.’
‘Je suits la Dame aux Camelilias’
‘And that is what I weigh stripped’
‘I said unhandled me, sir. [He fumblingly embraces her]’
‘We was together in the two-forty-first’
‘All at once and much too completely’
‘And never for one moment since has there been any light that’s stronger than this- kitchen- candle…’
‘Could it be- you and me, Blanche?’
Scene 7 Blanche’s birthday
Stanley tells Stella everything about Blanche’s past whilst she bathes and sings
‘Serve ‘em to her Majesty in the tub’
‘She had been washed up like poison’
‘Your sister’s one of the places called ‘Out-of-Bounds’
‘It’s only a paper moon’
‘Her future is mapped out for her.’
‘The distant piano goes into a hectic breakdown’ SD
Scene 8- Blanche’s birthday dinner
Mitch doesn’t show
Stanley gives Blanche her ticket
Stella goes to the hospital
‘Mr Kowalski is too busy making a pig of himself to think of anything else!’
‘He hurls a plate to the floor’ SD
‘Huey Long said- ‘Every Man is a King!’
‘It’s gonna be sweet when we can make noise in the night the way we used to.’
‘Candles burn out in little boys’ and girls’ eyes’
‘Electric bulbs go on and you see too plainly’
‘People like you abused her, and forced her to change’
‘I pulled you down off the columns and how you loved it, having them coloured lights going!’
Scene 9
Mitch confronts Blanche
Blanche tells the truth…. Mitch no longer wants her
Tries to get what he wants
‘Scarlet satin robe’ SD
‘The music in her mind; she is drinking to escape it and the sense of disaster closing in on her’ SD
‘What music?’ ‘The Varsouvlana? The polka tune they were playing when Allan- wait!’
‘She pretends suddenly to find a bottle.’ SD
‘The dark is comforting to me.’ ‘I don’t think I ever see you in the light.’
‘I don’t tell the truth. I tell what ought to be the truth.’
‘Lies, lies, inside and out, all lies.’ ‘Never inside, I didn’t lie in my heart…’
‘Flores para low muertos’
‘You’re not clean enough’
Scene 10 Blanche’s insanity is setting in
Blanche lies about Shep + Mitch
Stanley in wedding pyjamas assaults Blanche
‘She has decked herself out in a somewhat soiled and crumpled white satin evening gown’ SD
‘I thought it was Tiffany diamonds’
‘But when he came back. He returned w/ a box of roses to beg for my forgiveness!’
‘I want to get in touch with Mr Shep Huntleigh of Dallas’ ‘Get Western Union’
‘We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!’
Scene 11
Blanche is taken by the doctor and the matron
‘The atmosphere of the kitchen is now the same raw, lurid one of the disastrous poker night’ SD
‘I couldn’t believe her story and go on living with Stanley.’
‘I’m not sure I got the soap out.’
‘You look wonderful, Blanche. Doesn’t she look wonderful?’
‘I shall die of eating an unwashed grape one day out on the ocean.’
‘The unmistakable aura of state institution with its cynical detachment’ SD
‘She cries as if the lantern was herself’ SD
‘I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.’
‘Blanche! Blanche! Blanche!’
‘Places the child in her arms’ SD
‘Now, now, love. Now, love’
‘This game is seven-card stud.’
