Streetcar 3 Flashcards
‘There is a picture of…’
‘There is a picture of Van Gogh’s of a billiard-parlour at night.’ - SD
- discordant colours, off-putting, sickly
- vivid, primary colours - artificial
- lively surroundings but minimal movement
- lack of shadows apart from pool table is unsettling
‘The Poker Night’ SD
- another potential title of the play was ‘The Poker Night’
- Van Gogh’s of a billiard-parlour at night
- ‘I like an artist who paints in strong, bold colours, primary colours’ - Blanche
- ‘lurid nocturnal brilliance’ ‘raw colours of childhood’s spectrum’ ‘yellow’ ‘vivid green’ ‘coloured shirts’ ‘solid blues’ ‘red-and-white checks’ ‘they are men at the peak of their physical manhood, as coarse and direct and powerful as the primary colours’
- williams isn’t part of the scene
- clashing colours are sickly
‘The kitchen now suggests that…’
‘The kitchen now suggests that sort of lurid nocturnal brilliance, the raw colours of childhood’s spectrum.’ - SD
‘The poker players -…’
‘The poker players - Stanley, Steve, Mitch, and Pablo - wear coloured shirts, solid blues, a purple, a red-and-white check, a light green’ - SD
‘they are men at the…’
‘they are men at the peak of their physical manhood, as coarse and direct and powerful as the primary colours.’ - SD
- ‘I like an artist who paints in strong, bold colours, primary colours’ - Blanche
‘To express his universal truths Williams…’
‘To express his universal truths Williams created what he termed plastic theatre, a distinctive and new style of drama. He insisted that setting, properties, music, sound, and visual effects - all the elements of staging - must combine to reflect and enhance the action, theme, characters, and language.’ - Alice Griffin
‘[For a moment there is…’
‘[For a moment there is absorbed silence as a hand is dealt.]’ - SD
- tension is already building
‘When I’m losing you…’
‘When I’m losing you want to eat! Ante up! Openers? Openers! Get off the table, Mitch. Nothing belongs on a poker table but cards, chips, and whisky.’ - Stanley
- simmering resentment
- conflict between Stanley and Mitch
‘Kind of on…’
‘Kind of on your high horse, ain’t you?’ - Mitch
- stands up to Stanley, doesn’t allow him to dominate
sociolinguistics of Stanley and Mitch
Stanley speaks in monosyllables where Mitch speaks in longer, more formal sentences
Mitch’s character presentation
- there is more to his character than Stanley’s
- ‘I gotta sick mother.’ ‘I keep wondering how she is.’ ‘But I’ll be alone when she goes.’
‘She says to go out…’
‘She says to go out, so I go, but I don’t enjoy it. All the while I keep wondering how she is.’ - SD
- unlike Stanley, rejection of the rough masculinity
‘You are all…’
‘You are all married. But I’ll be alone when she goes.’ - Mitch
‘How much longer is this…’
‘Till we…’
‘How much longer is this game going to continue?’ - Stella
‘Till we get ready to quit.’ - Stanley
- asserting himself
Stanley hits Stella
‘Couldn’t you call it quits after one more hand?’ - Stella
‘[A chair scrapes, Stanley gives a loud whack of his hand on her thigh.]’ - SD
- making a point to his friends
- demeaning, intrusive, control, humiliate, possession
‘It makes me so mad…’
‘It makes me so mad when he does that in front of people.’ - Stella
- Stanley hits her at least semi-frequently
- Blanche’s reply ignores what Stella has just told her: ‘I think I will bathe.’ - B (wants to regain the attention)
‘About the same…’
‘[his mother is doing] About the same, thanks. She appreciated you sending over that custard. - Excuse me, please.’ - Mitch
- polite and refined unlike Stanley
Blanche trying to gain the attention in Scene 3
‘[She is unbuttoning her blouse.]’
‘[She takes off the blouse and stands in her pink silk brassiere […] in the light]’
‘[moves back into the streak of light. She raises her arms and stretches, as she moves indolently’
- ‘in the light’ links her to this moth/attention idea
- moves away from light when it is pointed out by Stella but we know this was a conscious choice as she returns to the light once S has left
‘[crosses leisurely to a small white radio and turns it on]’ - B draws attention, wants to be noticed
‘[He stops short…’
‘[He stops short at sight of Blanche in the chair. She returns his look without flinching.]’
- taken aback by how provocative she is
- him finding her like that was planned
Blanche is ‘an artist who…’
Blanche is ‘an artist who dramatizes herself as if she were a stage character’ - Felicia Hardison Londre
‘The bedroom is…’
‘The bedroom is relatively dim.’ - SD
- female world in the house, periphery
‘You could not…’
‘You could not. Why don’t you women go up and sit with Eunice?’ - Stanley
- the women are on the outskirts, different worlds
Mitch and Blanche’s first interaction
‘[He stares at her]’ - Mitch
- she gets the attention she wants from him
- Stella speaks on B’s behalf which is unusual
‘I thought he had a…’
‘I thought he had a sort of sensitive look’ - Blanche
- different to her normal male interests
- ‘paints in strong, bold colours’
‘I’ve looked…’
‘I’ve looked at him’ - B about Stanley
- provocative given this is her bro in law
‘[reading with…’
‘[reading with feigned difficulty]’ - Blanche
- playing dumb > vulnerability and innocence
- ‘artist who dramatizes’
- ‘favourite sonnet by Mrs Browning’ - juxtaposes this which shows her intelligence in literature
‘The girl’s…’
‘The girl’s dead now.’ - Mitch to B
- vulnerability and relatability
- ‘[in a tone of deep sympathy]’ - Blanche
Blanche lies during convo with stanley
- ‘she’s somewhat older than I’
- ‘Stella hasn’t been so well lately’
- ‘I’m an old maid school-teacher’
- trying to shape how he perceives her, not deliberately duplicitous
‘I call her that…’
‘I call her [little sister] in spite of the fact she’s somewhat older than I.’ - Blanche
- a lie
‘I can’t stand a naked…’
‘I can’t stand a naked light-bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.’ - Blanche to Mitch
- connects these two ideas
- pure, innocence
- cover the bright light so she looks better
- hide from reality
‘Stella hasn’t been so…’
‘Stella hasn’t been so well lately, and I cam down to help her for a while. She’s very run down.’ - Blanche to Mitch
- a second lie
‘I’m an old…’
‘I’m an old maid school-teacher!’ - Blanche to Mitch
- ‘old maid’ implies she hasn’t been married which isn’t true
‘Thank you, sir…’
‘Thank you, sir! I appreciate your gallantry!’ - Blanche
- sociolect, southern dialect
- he gives the compliments she fishes for
‘Of course, I could…’
‘Of course I could be wrong. You might teach arithmetic.’ - Mitch to B
- down to earth, real, recognises her layers
- no other character would say ‘I could be wrong’
- respectful of her
Blanche’s tone during convo with Mitch
- exclamatory
- she is excited about the conversation and the chance to be the southern belle
‘moves in awkward…’
‘[moves in awkward imitation like a dancing bear]’ - Mitch
- both him and Stanley (‘stalks fiercely’) are animalistic but are contrasting: savage v trained
- doesn’t know how to move (‘awkward’)
Stanley throws out the radio
- ‘stalks fiercely’ ‘snatches it off the table’ ‘tosses the instrument out of the window’ - SD
- anger, frustration at losing, reasserting dominance
- first time he is aggressive to blanche
- the radio would have been his
the reactions of other characters when Stanley ‘charges after Stella’
- Blanche is dramatic and concerned ‘[shrilly]’ ‘Lunacy’
- the men are flippant and ‘[feebly]’ try to get him to stop
Stanley’s character at the end of scene 3
- flips between aggressive and fired up to passive and worried
- ‘charges after Stella’
- ‘all at once he subsides’
- ‘What’s the matter; what’s happened?’
- ‘Let go of me, you sons of bitches!’
- ‘My baby doll’s left me!’
- ‘hurls the phone to floor’
‘Poker shouldn’t be…’
‘Poker shouldn’t be played in a house with women.’ - Mitch after the Stanley incident
- says this twice the second time: ‘[Sadly but firmly]’
‘[He breaks into…’
‘[He breaks into sobs. Then he goes to the phone and dials, still shuddering with sobs.]’
- Stanley
- regret, emotion, desperation
‘There he throws back his…’
‘There he throws back his head like a baying hound and bellows his wife’s name’
- Stanley
‘You can’t beat a…’
‘You can’t beat a woman an’ then call ‘er back! She won’t come! And her goin’ to’ have a baby!’ - Eunice
- except Stella does go (‘Stella slips down the rickety stairs in her robe’)
‘I hope they do haul…’
‘I hope they do haul you in and turn the fire hose on you, same as last time!’ - Eunice
- frequency of these events
‘[humbly]: Eunice, I want…’
‘[humbly]: Eunice, I want my girl to come down with me!’ - Stanley
- genuine emotion
- childlike
‘They stare at…’
‘[Stanley and Stella] stare at each other. Then they come together with low, animal moans. He falls on his knees on the steps.’ - SD
- primitive relationship - violence, forgiveness, reproduction
- animalistic representation of Stanley (‘baying hound’, ‘bears her’)
‘He falls on his…’
‘He falls on his knees on the steps and presses his face to her belly’ - SD
- ‘on his knees’ implies religion, prayer, humbling, submission (power dynamic)
‘Her eyes go blind…’
‘Her eyes go blind with tenderness as she catches his head and raises him level with her.’ - SD
- ‘raises him level with her’ is reminscent of Duchess and Antonio
‘He snatches…’
‘He snatches the screen door open and lifts her off her feet and bears her into the dark flat’ - SD
‘She ran downstairs…’
‘Sure…’
‘I’m…’
‘Ho-ho…’
‘She ran downstairs and went back in there with him.’ - Blanche
‘Sure she did.’ - Mitch
‘I’m terrified!’ - B
‘Ho-ho! There’s nothing to be scared of. They’re crazy about each other.’ - M
- Mitch downplays it and cuts Blanche off in an attempt to diffuse and comfort
class disparity shown in Mitch and Blanche’s conversation at the end of scene 3
‘Naw, it’s a shame this had to happen when you just got here. But don’t take it serious.’ - M
‘Violence! Is so-‘ - B
[…]
‘That don’t make no difference in the Quarter.’ - M
‘The men rush…’
‘Stanley is forced…’
‘The men rush forward’
‘Stanley is forced, pinioned by the two men’
- seems like a climax, everyone is acting and reacting (emotion)
- however, once emotions have calmed, they slip back into routine and forget the problem (class difference, domestic violence is normalised such as Steve-Eunice later)
‘They speak quietly…’
‘[the men] speak quietly and lovingly to [Stanley] and he leans his face on one of their shoulders.’ - SD
- genuinely do care for him
‘Thank you for being so…’
‘Thank you for being so kind! I need kindness now’ - B at the end of scene 3
- Willaims wants us to side w/ Blanche and therefore begin to pity her
- B is genuinely confiding in Mitch which allows us to empathise
National Theatre Production of Streetcar (scene 3)
- Dir. Rufus Norris (2014)
- Stanley is portrayed as very childlike with Mitch looking after him in the bathroom
= stays after the others (not in play) - Stella as more rejecting (‘let me go’ and pushing him away) - no ‘eyes go blind with tenderness’
