Williams, Tennessee (Vol. 30) - Harold Clurman

HAROLD CLURMAN

A Streetcar Named Desire is still a beautiful play, the most fully achieved of Tennessee Williams' writings…. Its beauties are of several kinds. It is admirably constructed, its language is fluent, euphonious, delicate and sinewy. It possesses oblique humor and a romantic glow which occasionally verges on a sentimentality I do not find in the least objectionable. It is imbued with a theatrical atmosphere, a kind of magic spell which makes certain plays endure beyond our interest in their ideas, novelty or topical relevance.

It is just these qualities, plus the opportunity the play offers for fine acting and vivid staging, which may obscure its essential meaning. Its value in this regard was generally overlooked when it was first produced in 1948 and, judging by comments I have heard and read, it is still missed. The play is appreciated as a sort of superior sob story, but it is more significantly an American parable.

It is not,...

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