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
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
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
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
The character of Charandas Chor is steeped in paradoxes. Here we have an immoral thief who is a man of noble principles and promises; and loved by none other than the queen! He took vows in a joking way and yet he adheres to them in a serious manner. HeContinue Reading
Charandas Chor (“Charandas the Thief”) stands as Habib Tanvir’s most celebrated work—a Chhattisgarhi folk-musical reimagining of a Rajasthani folktale by Vijaydan Detha, brought to stage in 1975 with Naya Theatre . 🎭 Plot & Paradox 🎶 Folk Form & Political Satire 👏 Recognition & Controversy 🎬 Adaptations & Legacy 🌟Continue Reading
Gaffer in Rabindranath Tagore’s play, The Post office, is a spiritual wanderer – a “fakir” who has shunned the worldly ways of a family life, and lives on public charity. Of all the characters in the play, it is Gaffer who has the complete understanding and sympathy for the young protagonist,Continue Reading
