Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire creates one of the most unusual antagonists in American drama. Stanley Kowalski has the perfect, happy life before his sister-in-law shows up to disturb his masculine, dominated world. Audience members may well see Stanley as an attractive character at the play’s start. He is loyal toContinue Reading
Blanche DuBois, the fallen Southern belle at the center of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, has been a character so rich and so complex that bringing her to life is one of acting’s greatest challenges. Actresses talk of losing their voice, suffering bouts of depression or having anxiety attacks whileContinue Reading
In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois travels from the railroad station in New Orleans to a street named Elysian Fields, where her sister, Stella, pregnant and married to Stanley Kowalski, lives in a run-down apartment building in the old French Quarter. Having lost her husband, parents, teaching position, and oldContinue Reading
Tennessee Williams, born Thomas Lanier Williams in 1911 in Mississippi, was one of America’s most influential playwrights. His work vividly portrayed the fragility of human emotions, the decay of traditional Southern values, and the psychological complexities of his characters. Williams rose to prominence with The Glass Menagerie (1944), a semi-autobiographicalContinue Reading
A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) is one of Tennessee Williams’ most celebrated plays, a powerful exploration of desire, mental instability, and cultural conflict. Set in the working-class neighborhood of New Orleans, the play follows Blanche DuBois, a fading Southern belle who seeks refuge in the modest home of her sisterContinue Reading
In the Jacobean age tragedy mostly degenerated into melodrama. A melodrama lacks in subtlety and depth of characterization, and the dramatist depends for his effects on the exploitation of crude physical horrors. There is much in John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi that is merely melodramatic and sensational, lurid and gruesome. AllContinue Reading
Often ranked second only to Shakespeare among Jacobean tragedians, Webster is the author of two major works, The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1614), which are more frequently revived on stage than any plays of the period other than Shakespeare’s. Webster’s tragedies, while praised for their poetic language by some commentators,Continue Reading
The Duchess of Malfi, written by John Webster around 1612–1613, is a quintessential Jacobean tragedy renowned for its dark tone, psychological depth, and intricate exploration of power, corruption, and identity. Set in the court of Malfi in southern Italy, the play centers on the widowed Duchess who secretly marries herContinue Reading
John Webster (c. 1580 – c. 1634) was a significant Jacobean dramatist best known for his dark and complex tragedies. He flourished during the early 17th century, a period marked by political uncertainty and moral anxiety, which deeply influenced his writing. Webster’s most acclaimed plays, The Duchess of Malfi andContinue Reading
The play uses many elements of nacha – a chorus that provides commentary through song, and panthi tunes of the satnami religious sect are incorporated. The play begins with the song: Satyanam! Satyanam! Satyanam! Praise the truth, nothing better, Praise the guru, no one greater, The very first few lines clearly depicts the importance of truthContinue Reading
