141-494: A Streetcar Named Desire is a play written by Tennessee Williams and first performed on Broadway on December 3, 1947. The play dramatizes the experiences of Blanche DuBois , a former Southern belle who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her once-prosperous situation to move into a shabby apartment in New Orleans rented by her younger sister Stella and brother-in-law Stanley. A Streetcar Named Desire
282-515: A Tony Award . Williams's work reached wider audiences in the early 1950s when The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire were adapted into motion pictures. Later plays also adapted for the screen included Cat on a Hot Tin Roof , The Rose Tattoo , Orpheus Descending , The Night of the Iguana , Sweet Bird of Youth , and Summer and Smoke . After the extraordinary successes of
423-1102: A 2014 review from Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews reported that there is evidence that "sex differences in empathy have phylogenetic and ontogenetic roots in biology and are not merely cultural byproducts driven by socialization." The review found sex differences in empathy from birth, growing larger with age, and consistent and stable across lifespan. Females, on average, had higher empathy than males, while children with higher empathy, regardless of gender, continue to be higher in empathy throughout development. Analysis of brain event-related potentials found that females who saw human suffering tended to have higher ERP waveforms than males. An investigation of N400 amplitudes found, on average, higher N400 in females in response to social situations, which positively correlated with self-reported empathy. Structural fMRI studies also found females to have larger grey matter volumes in posterior inferior frontal and anterior inferior parietal cortex areas which are correlated with mirror neurons in fMRI literature. Females also tended to have
564-704: A 50th Anniversary production, with music by the Marsalis family , starring Michael Arata and Shelly Poncy. In 2009, the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, where the original pre-Broadway tryout was held, staged a production of the play. In 1997, at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago IL, Gary Sinise as Stanley, John C Reilly as Mitch, Kathryn Erbe as Stella, and Laila Robins as Blanche. Glenn Close starred in Trevor Nunn 's 2002 production for
705-802: A B.A. in English in August 1938. He later studied at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York City. Speaking of his early days as a playwright and an early collaborative play called Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay! , Williams wrote, "The laughter ... enchanted me. Then and there the theatre and I found each other for better and for worse. I know it's the only thing that saved my life." Around 1939, he adopted Tennessee Williams as his professional name, in acknowledgement of his Southern accent and roots. Williams's writings reference some of
846-502: A Good Wife Be a Good Sport?" A year later, his short story " The Vengeance of Nitocris " was published (as by "Thomas Lanier Williams") in the August 1928 issue of the magazine Weird Tales . These early publications did not lead to any significant recognition or appreciation of Williams's talent, and he would struggle for more than a decade to establish his writing career. Later, in 1928, Williams first visited Europe with his maternal grandfather Dakin. From 1929 to 1931, Williams attended
987-575: A Madonna . Williams believed that casting Brando, who was young for the part as it was originally conceived, would evolve Kowalski from being a vicious older man to someone whose unintentional cruelty can be attributed to youthful ignorance. Despite its shocking scenes and gritty dialogue, the audience applauded the debut performance. Brooks Atkinson , reviewing the opening in The New York Times , described Tandy's "superb performance" as "almost incredibly true", concluding that Williams "has spun
1128-596: A Play in 1948, sharing the honor with Judith Anderson and Katharine Cornell . The original Broadway production closed, after 855 performances, in 1949. The first adaptation of Streetcar in Greece was performed in 1948 by Koun's Art Theater, two years before its film adaptation and one year before its London premiere, directed by Karolos Koun starring Melina Mercouri as Blanche and Vasilis Diamantopoulos as Stanley, with original music by Manos Hadjidakis . The London production, directed by Laurence Olivier , opened at
1269-430: A Spanish-language version of the play being performed by some of the supporting characters and the play plays an important role in the film. However, some of the film's dialogue is taken from the 1951 film version, not the original stage version. The 1973 Woody Allen film Sleeper includes a late scene in which Miles (Woody) and Luna ( Diane Keaton ) briefly take on the roles of Stanley (Luna) and Blanche (Miles). It
1410-441: A baby. The night after Blanche's arrival, during one of Stanley's poker games, Blanche meets Mitch, one of Stanley's poker player buddies. His courteous manner sets him apart from the other men. Their chat becomes flirtatious and friendly, and Blanche easily charms him; they like each other. Suddenly becoming upset over multiple interruptions, Stanley explodes in a drunken rage and strikes Stella. Blanche and Stella take refuge with
1551-404: A bath in a catatonic state, having suffered a mental breakdown . Although Blanche has told Stella about Stanley raping her (which he denies), Stella cannot bring herself to believe her sister's story. When a doctor and a matron arrive to take Blanche to the hospital, she initially resists them and the nurse painfully restrains her. Mitch, present at the poker game, breaks down in tears. The doctor
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#17327941650391692-422: A combination of "sweetness" and "beastliness". Because Carroll had a drug problem, as did Williams, friends including Maria Britneva saw the relationship as destructive. Williams wrote that Carroll played on his "acute loneliness" as an aging gay man. When the two men broke up in 1979, Williams called Carroll a "twerp", but they remained friends until Williams died four years later. On February 25, 1983, Williams
1833-450: A coping mechanism. Bonobos sought out more body contact after watching an event distress other bonobos than after their individually experienced stressful event. Mother-reared bonobos sought out more physical contact than orphaned bonobos after a stressful event happened to another. This finding shows the importance of mother-child attachment and bonding in successful socio-emotional development, such as empathic-like behaviors. De Waal suggests
1974-482: A descendant of East Tennessee pioneers, had a violent temper and was prone to use his fists. He regarded what he thought was his son's effeminacy with disdain. Edwina, locked in an unhappy marriage, focused her attention almost entirely on her frail young son. Critics and historians agree that Williams drew from his own dysfunctional family in much of his writing and that his desire to break free from his puritan upbringing propelled him towards writing. When Williams
2115-438: A full theory of mind until around the age of four. Theory of mind involves the ability to understand that other people may have beliefs that are different from one's own, and is thought to involve the cognitive component of empathy. Children usually can pass false-belief tasks (a test for a theory of mind) around the age of four. It is theorised that people with autism find using a theory of mind to be very difficult, but there
2256-655: A highly acclaimed revival of the play in London's West End at the Donmar Warehouse directed by Rob Ashford . In April 2012, Blair Underwood , Nicole Ari Parker , Daphne Rubin-Vega and Wood Harris starred in a multiracial adaptation at the Broadhurst Theatre . Theatre review aggregator Curtain Critic gave the production a score of 61 out of 100 based on the opinions of 17 critics. A production at
2397-403: A husband had control over his wife's financial affairs. Blanche hands over all the documents pertaining to Belle Reve. While looking at the papers, Stanley notices a bundle of letters that Blanche emotionally proclaims are personal love letters from her dead husband. For a moment, Stanley seems caught off guard over her proclaimed feelings. Afterwards, he informs Blanche that Stella is going to have
2538-434: A leave of absence from her English-teaching position because of her nerves (which is later revealed to be a lie). Blanche laments the shabbiness of her sister's two-room flat. She finds Stanley loud and rough, eventually referring to him as "common." Stanley, in return, is suspicious of Blanche, does not care for her manners and resents her presence which is already interfering with his regimented but hedonistic lifestyle. From
2679-506: A long Broadway run. Elia Kazan (who directed many of Williams's greatest successes) said of Williams: "Everything in his life is in his plays, and everything in his plays is in his life." The Glass Menagerie won the award for the best play of the season, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. The huge success of his next play, A Streetcar Named Desire , cemented his reputation as a great playwright in 1947. During
2820-403: A micro level. They measure empathy through facial and other non-verbally expressed reactions. Such changes are presumably underpinned by physiological changes brought about by some form of "emotional contagion" or mirroring. These reactions, while they appear to reflect the internal emotional state of the empathizer, could also, if the stimulus incident lasted more than the briefest period, reflect
2961-716: A modest house in Key West, Florida were Williams's happiest and most productive. Shortly after their breakup, Merlo was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Williams returned to him and cared for him until his death on September 20, 1963. In the years following Merlo's death, Williams descended into a period of nearly catatonic depression and increasing drug use, which resulted in several hospitalizations and commitments to mental health facilities. He submitted to injections by Dr. Max Jacobson , known popularly as Dr. Feelgood, who used increasing amounts of amphetamines to overcome his depression. Jacobson combined these with prescriptions for
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#17327941650393102-521: A more reliable assessment of empathy. Such measures are also vulnerable to measuring not empathy but the difference between a person's felt empathy and their standards for how much empathy is appropriate. For example, one researcher found that students scored themselves as less empathetic after taking her empathy class. After learning more about empathy, the students became more exacting in how they judged their own feelings and behavior, expected more from themselves, and so rated themselves more severely. In
3243-693: A new narrative. The show premiered at the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival. The show was recorded on CD and distributed by Ghostlight Records . In 2014 Williams was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk , a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields." In 2015, The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans
3384-404: A new style that did not appeal as widely to audiences. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century alongside Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman . Much of Williams's most acclaimed work has been adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays, and
3525-603: A play about rebellion against religious upbringing, he became the first freshman to receive honorable mention in a writing competition. At University of Missouri, Williams joined the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, but he did not fit in well with his fraternity brothers. After he failed a military training course in his junior year, his father pulled him out of school and put him to work at the International Shoe Company factory. Although Williams hated
3666-488: A poignant and luminous story". Later in the run, Uta Hagen succeeded Tandy, Carmelita Pope succeeded Hunter, and Anthony Quinn succeeded Brando. Hagen and Quinn took the show on a national tour directed by Harold Clurman , and then returned to Broadway for additional performances. Ralph Meeker also took on the part of Stanley both in the Broadway and touring companies. Tandy received a Tony Award for Best Actress in
3807-442: A precise definition of these constructs, but there is consensus about this distinction. Affective and cognitive empathy are also independent from one another; someone who strongly empathizes emotionally is not necessarily good in understanding another's perspective. Additional constructs that have been proposed include behavioral empathy (which governs how one chooses to respond to feelings of empathy), social empathy (in which
3948-542: A printed questionnaire that may have been designed to reveal the affective, cognitive-affective, or largely cognitive substrates of empathic functioning. Some questionnaires claim to reveal both cognitive and affective substrates. However, a 2019 meta analysis questions the validity of self-report measures of cognitive empathy, finding that such self-report measures have negligibly small correlations with corresponding behavioral measures. Balancing subjective self-perceptions along with observable behaviors can help to contribute to
4089-462: A seven-point smiley face scale and filmed facial reactions. In some experiments, subjects are required to watch video scenarios (either staged or authentic) and to make written responses which are then assessed for their levels of empathy; scenarios are sometimes also depicted in printed form. Measures of empathy also frequently require subjects to self-report upon their own ability or capacity for empathy, using Likert -style numerical responses to
4230-430: A single questionnaire to measure 13,737 college students between 1979 and 2009, and found that empathy scores fell substantially over that time. A critic noted these results could be because the wording of the questionnaire had become anachronistically quaint (it used idioms no longer in common use, like "tender feelings", "ill at ease", "quite touched", or "go to pieces" that today's students might not identify with). By
4371-408: A small female advantage in non-verbal emotional recognition. Some research theorizes that environmental factors, such as parenting style and relationships, affect the development of empathy in children. Empathy promotes pro-social relationships and helps mediate aggression. Caroline Tisot studied how environmental factors like parenting style, parent empathy, and prior social experiences affect
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4512-409: A stranger. When the participants were talking or humming, the dog showed no behavioral changes; however when the participants were pretending to cry, the dogs oriented their behavior toward the person in distress whether it be the owner or stranger. The dogs approached the participants when crying in a submissive fashion, by sniffing, licking, and nuzzling the distressed person. The dogs did not approach
4653-472: A stronger link between emotional and cognitive empathy. The researchers believe that the stability of these sex differences in development are unlikely to be explained by environmental influences but rather by human evolution and inheritance. Throughout prehistory, women were the primary nurturers and caretakers of children; so this might have led to an evolved neurological adaptation for women to be more aware and responsive to non-verbal expressions. According to
4794-500: A toxic level of Seconal . He wrote in his will in 1972: I, Thomas Lanier (Tennessee) Williams, being in sound mind upon this subject, and having declared this wish repeatedly to my close friends-do hereby state my desire to be buried at sea. More specifically, I wish to be buried at sea at as close a possible point as the American poet Hart Crane died by choice in the sea; this would be ascrnatible [sic], this geographic point, by
4935-569: A volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame . Thomas Lanier Williams III was born in Columbus, Mississippi , of English, Welsh, and Huguenot ancestry, the second child of Edwina Dakin (August 9, 1884 – June 1, 1980) and Cornelius Coffin "C. C." Williams (August 21, 1879 – March 27, 1957). His father was a traveling shoe salesman who became an alcoholic and
5076-436: A wide range of definitions and purported facets (which overlap with some definitions of empathy). Sympathy is a feeling of care and understanding for someone in need. Some include in sympathy an empathic concern for another person, and the wish to see them better off or happier. Empathy is also related to pity and emotional contagion . One feels pity towards others who might be in trouble or in need of help. This feeling
5217-674: A young woman. In 1943, as her behavior became increasingly disturbing, she was subjected to a lobotomy , requiring her to be institutionalised for the rest of her life. As soon as he was financially able, Williams moved Rose to a private institution just north of New York City , where he often visited her. He gave her a percentage interest in several of his most successful plays, the royalties from which were applied toward her care. The devastating effects of Rose's treatment may have contributed to Williams's alcoholism and his dependence on various combinations of amphetamines and barbiturates . After some early attempts at relationships with women, by
5358-436: Is a 30-item questionnaire that measures empathy from a phenomenological perspective on intersubjectivity , which provides a common basis for the perceptual experience (vicarious experience dimension) and a basic cognitive awareness (intuitive understanding dimension) of others' emotional states. It is difficult to make comparisons over time using such questionnaires because of how language changes. For example, one study used
5499-784: Is a meta-ethical theory of the moral structure of care. Adults who operate with level-III understanding synthesize systems of justice and care-based ethics. The Empathic Concern scale assesses other-oriented feelings of sympathy and concern and the Personal Distress scale measures self-oriented feelings of personal anxiety and unease. Researchers have used behavioral and neuroimaging data to analyze extraversion and agreeableness. Both are associated with empathic accuracy and increased brain activity in two brain regions that are important for empathic processing (medial prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction ). On average, females score higher than males on measures of empathy, such as
5640-401: Is a sophisticated process. However, the basic capacity to recognize emotions in others may be innate and may be achieved unconsciously. Empirical research supports a variety of interventions to improve empathy. Empathy is not all-or-nothing; rather, a person can be more or less empathic toward another. Paradigmatically, a person exhibits empathy when they communicate an accurate recognition of
5781-416: Is also found in humans, particularly in human infants. Another similarity found between chimpanzees and humans is that empathic-like responding was disproportionately provided to kin. Although comforting towards non-family chimpanzees was also observed, as with humans, chimpanzees showed the majority of comfort and concern to close/loved ones. Another similarity between chimpanzee and human expression of empathy
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5922-426: Is an empty seat at the table for Mitch. Stanley gives Blanche a birthday "present", a one-way ticket back to Laurel by Greyhound bus. An argument ensues between Stella and Stanley, but is cut short as Stella goes into unexpected labor and is taken by her husband to the hospital. As Blanche waits at home alone, Mitch arrives and confronts Blanche with the stories that Stanley has told him. She eventually confesses that
6063-749: Is buried. According to the New York Times , "most of his estate was left to the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., with the bulk of it to remain in trust for his sister during her lifetime." Rose Williams, Tennessee's sister, died in 1996 after many years in a mental institution in New York state; the university subsequently received about $ 7 million, which supports a creative writing program. From February 1 to July 21, 2011, to commemorate
6204-459: Is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama. At age 33, after years of obscurity, Williams suddenly became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). With his later work, Williams attempted
6345-602: Is considered to be a broad term, and broken down into more specific concepts and types that include cognitive empathy, emotional (or affective) empathy, somatic empathy, and spiritual empathy. Empathy is still a topic of research. The major areas of research include the development of empathy, the genetics and neuroscience of empathy, cross-species empathy, and the impairment of empathy. Some researchers have made efforts to quantify empathy through different methods, such as from questionnaires where participants can fill out and then be scored on their answers. The English word empathy
6486-665: Is derived from the Ancient Greek ἐμπάθεια ( empatheia , meaning "physical affection or passion"). That word derives from ἐν ( en , "in, at") and πάθος ( pathos , "passion" or "suffering"). Theodor Lipps adapted the German aesthetic term Einfühlung ("feeling into") to psychology in 1903, and Edward B. Titchener translated Einfühlung into English as "empathy" in 1909. In modern Greek εμπάθεια may mean, depending on context, prejudice , malevolence , malice , or hatred. Since its introduction into
6627-490: Is described as "feeling sorry" for someone. Emotional contagion is when a person (especially an infant or a member of a mob ) imitatively "catches" the emotions that others are showing without necessarily recognizing this is happening. Alexithymia describes a deficiency in understanding, processing, or describing one's own emotions (unlike empathy which is about someone else's emotions). Empathy has two major components: The scientific community has not coalesced around
6768-621: Is far more gentle and she goes willingly with him, saying, "Whoever you are – I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." The poker game continues, uninterrupted. The original Broadway production was produced by Irene Mayer Selznick and directed by Elia Kazan . It opened at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven , Connecticut in early November 1947, then played the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia before moving to
6909-578: Is gossamer with guts." Page's performance was described as displaying little of Leigh's hysteria or Tandy's forlorn helplessness. The spring 1988 revival at the Circle in the Square Theatre starred Aidan Quinn opposite Blythe Danner as Blanche and Frances McDormand as Stella. A highly publicized and acclaimed revival in 1992 starred Alec Baldwin as Stanley and Jessica Lange as Blanche. It
7050-444: Is hardwired and present early in life. The research found additional areas of the brain, associated with social and moral cognition, were activated when young people saw another person intentionally hurt by somebody, including regions involved in moral reasoning. Although children are capable of showing some signs of empathy, including attempting to comfort a crying baby, from as early as 18 months to two years, most do not demonstrate
7191-420: Is impaired if a lesion or stroke occurs on the right side of the brain. Damage to the frontal lobe , which is primarily responsible for emotional regulation, can profoundly impact a person's capacity to experience empathy. People with an acquired brain injury also show lower levels of empathy. More than half of those people with a traumatic brain injury self-report a deficit in their empathic capacity. There
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#17327941650397332-429: Is named for him. The Tennessee Williams Key West Exhibit on Truman Avenue houses rare Williams memorabilia, photographs, and pictures including his famous typewriter. At the time of his death, Williams had been working on a final play, In Masks Outrageous and Austere , which attempted to reconcile certain forces and facts of his own life. This was a continuing theme in his work. As of September 2007, author Gore Vidal
7473-538: Is not exclusive to humans, but that empathy has deep evolutionary, biochemical, and neurological underpinnings, and that even the most advanced forms of empathy in humans are built on more basic forms and remain connected to core mechanisms associated with affective communication, social attachment , and parental care . Neural circuits involved in empathy and caring include the brainstem , the amygdala , hypothalamus , basal ganglia , insula , and orbitofrontal cortex . Researchers Zanna Clay and Frans de Waal studied
7614-460: Is one of the most critically acclaimed plays of the 20th century and Williams's most popular work. It still ranks among his most performed plays, and has inspired many adaptations in other forms, notably a critically acclaimed film that was released in 1951. Blanche is mentioned in the play as arriving at Stella's apartment by riding in a streetcar on the Desire streetcar line. Tennessee Williams
7755-537: Is quite a bit of controversy on this subject. (e.g. the Sally–Anne test ). Empathic maturity is a cognitive-structural theory developed at the Yale University School of Nursing. It addresses how adults conceive or understand the personhood of patients. The theory, first applied to nurses and since applied to other professions, postulates three levels of cognitive structures. The third and highest level
7896-401: Is small to moderate, somewhat inconsistent, and is often influenced by the person's motivations or social environment. Bosson et al. say "physiological measures of emotion and studies that track people in their daily lives find no consistent sex differences in the experience of emotion", which "suggests that women may amplify certain emotional expressions, or men may suppress them". However,
8037-438: Is some evidence that empathy is a skill that one can improve in with training. Studies in animal behavior and neuroscience indicate that empathy is not restricted to humans (however the interpretation of such research depends in part on how expansive a definition of empathy researchers adopt ). Empathy-like behaviors have been observed in primates , both in captivity and in the wild, and in particular in bonobos , perhaps
8178-482: Is that females provided more comfort than males on average. The only exception to this discovery was that high-ranking males showed as much empathy-like behavior as their female counterparts. This is believed to be because of policing-like behavior and the authoritative status of high-ranking male chimpanzees. Dogs have been hypothesized to share empathic-like responding towards humans. Researchers Custance and Mayer put individual dogs in an enclosure with their owner and
8319-951: The Aldwych Theatre on October 12, 1949. It starred Bonar Colleano as Stanley, Vivien Leigh as Blanche, Renée Asherson as Stella and Bernard Braden as Mitch. An Australian production with Viola Keats as Blanche and Arthur Franz as Stanley opened at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne in February 1950. The first all-black production of Streetcar was likely performed by the Summer Theatre Company at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, in August 1953 and directed by one of Williams's former classmates at Iowa, Thomas D. Pawley, as noted in
8460-713: The Empathy Quotient (EQ), while males tend to score higher on the Systemizing Quotient (SQ). Both males and females with autistic spectrum disorders usually score lower on the EQ and higher on SQ ( see below for more detail on autism and empathy). Other studies show no significant sex differences, and instead suggest that gender differences are the result of motivational differences, such as upholding stereotypes. Gender stereotypes about men and women can affect how they express emotions. The sex difference
8601-503: The Ethel Barrymore Theatre on December 3, 1947. Selznick originally wanted to cast Margaret Sullavan and John Garfield , but settled on the less well-known Jessica Tandy and a virtual unknown at the time, Marlon Brando . The opening night cast also included Kim Hunter as Stella and Karl Malden as Mitch. Tandy was cast after Williams saw her performance in a West Coast production of his one-act play Portrait of
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#17327941650398742-534: The National Theatre at the Lyttleton Theatre, London. The 2005 Broadway revival was directed by Edward Hall and produced by The Roundabout Theater Company. It starred John C. Reilly as Stanley, Amy Ryan as Stella, and Natasha Richardson as Blanche. The production was Richardson's final appearance on Broadway; she died in 2009 following a skiing accident. Bette Bourne and Paul Shaw of
8883-666: The National Theatre Live project. Thus far, the production has been screened in over 2000 venues. From April 23, 2016, until June 4, 2016, the production was reprised at the new St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York City. In 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdowns, it was released for free on YouTube as part of the National Theatre At Home series. In 2016 Sarah Frankcom directed a production at
9024-664: The Royal Exchange in Manchester starring Maxine Peake , Ben Batt , Sharon Duncan Brewster and Youssef Kerkour . It opened on 8 September and closed on 15 October. It was well-received, and Peake's performance in particular received praise. In 2018, it headlined the third annual Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis at the Grandel Theatre. Carrie Houk, the Festival's Executive Artistic Director, and Tim Ocel,
9165-612: The Streetcar edition of the "Plays in Production" series published by Cambridge University Press. The black and cross-gendered productions of Streetcar since the mid-1950s are too numerous to list here. Tallulah Bankhead , for whom Williams originally had written the role of Blanche, starred in a 1956 New York City Center Company production directed by Herbert Machiz. In 1972, American composer Frances Ziffer set A Streetcar Named Desire to music. The first Broadway revival of
9306-596: The U.S. Navy during World War II . This was the enduring romantic relationship of Williams's life, and it lasted 14 years until infidelities and drug abuse on both sides ended it. Merlo, who had become Williams's personal secretary, took on most of the details of their domestic life. He provided a period of happiness and stability, acting as a balance to the playwright's frequent bouts with depression. Williams feared that, like his sister Rose, he would fall into insanity. His years with Merlo, in an apartment in Manhattan and
9447-577: The University of Missouri in Columbia , where he enrolled in journalism classes. He was bored by his classes and distracted by unrequited love for a girl. Soon he began entering his poetry, essays, stories, and plays in writing contests, hoping to earn extra income. His first submitted play was Beauty Is the Word (1930), followed by Hot Milk at Three in the Morning (1932). As recognition for Beauty,
9588-565: The Young Vic , London, opened on July 23, 2014, and closed on September 19, 2014. Directed by Benedict Andrews and starring Gillian Anderson , Ben Foster , Vanessa Kirby and Corey Johnson ; this production garnered critical acclaim and is the fastest-selling show produced by the Young Vic. On September 16, 2014, the performance was relayed live to over one thousand cinemas in the UK as part of
9729-645: The "Primary Caretaker Hypothesis", prehistoric men did not have such selective pressure as primary caretakers. This might explain modern day sex differences in emotion recognition and empathy. A review published in Neuropsychologia found that females tended to be better at recognizing facial affects, expression processing, and emotions in general. Males tended to be better at recognizing specific behaviors such as anger, aggression, and threatening cues. A 2014 meta-analysis, in Cognition and Emotion , found
9870-563: The 100th anniversary of his birth, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the home of Williams's archive, exhibited 250 of his personal items. The exhibit, titled "Becoming Tennessee Williams", included a collection of Williams manuscripts, correspondence, photographs and artwork. The Ransom Center holds the earliest and largest collections of Williams's papers, including all of his earliest manuscripts,
10011-410: The 1940s and 1950s, he had more personal turmoil and theatrical failures in the 1960s and 1970s. Although he continued to write every day, the quality of his work suffered from his increasing alcohol and drug consumption, as well as occasional poor choices of collaborators. In 1963, his partner Frank Merlo died. Consumed by depression over the loss, and in and out of treatment facilities while under
10152-456: The 1970s, when he was in his 60s, Williams had a lengthy relationship with Robert Carroll, a Vietnam War veteran and aspiring writer in his 20s. Williams had deep affection for Carroll and respect for what he saw as the younger man's talents. Along with Williams's sister Rose, Carroll was one of the two people who received a bequest in Williams's will. Williams described Carroll's behavior as
10293-842: The British gay theater company Bloolips, and Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver of the American lesbian theater company Split Britches, collaborated and performed a gender-bent adaptation titled Belle Reprieve . Blanche was played as "man in a dress", Stanley as a "butch lesbian", Mitch as a "fairy disguised as a man", and Stella as a "woman disguised as a woman". The Sydney Theatre Company production of A Streetcar Named Desire premiered on September 5 and ran until October 17, 2009. This production, directed by Liv Ullmann , starred Cate Blanchett as Blanche, Joel Edgerton as Stanley, Robin McLeavy as Stella and Tim Richards as Mitch. From July 2009 until October 2009, Rachel Weisz and Ruth Wilson starred in
10434-480: The City of Clarksdale, Mississippi. Empathy Empathy is generally described as the ability to take on other's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience. There are more (sometimes conflicting) definitions of empathy that include but are not limited to social, cognitive, and emotional processes primarily concerned with understanding others. Often times, empathy
10575-414: The English language, empathy has had a wide range of (sometimes conflicting) definitions among both researchers and laypeople. Empathy definitions encompass a broad range of phenomena, including caring for other people and having a desire to help them, experiencing emotions that match another person's, discerning what another person is thinking or feeling, and making less distinct the differences between
10716-667: The Rockefeller funds, Williams moved to New Orleans in 1939 to write for the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federally funded program of the New Deal era. Williams lived for a time in New Orleans' French Quarter , including 722 Toulouse Street, the setting of his 1977 play Vieux Carré . The building is now part of The Historic New Orleans Collection . The Rockefeller grant brought him to
10857-662: The Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival has been held annually in New Orleans, Louisiana, in commemoration of the playwright. The festival takes place at the end of March to coincide with Williams's birthday. The Tennessee Williams Songbook is a one woman show written and directed by David Kaplan, a Williams scholar and curator of Provincetown 's Tennessee Williams Festival, and starring Tony Award nominated actress Alison Fraser . The show features songs taken from plays of Williams's canon, woven together with text to create
10998-460: The University of the South , a liberal arts school that received much of Tennessee Williams' estate, revived the play, under the direction of James Crawford. The Tennessee Williams Center in Sewanee houses the university's theatre departments while the school owns the rights to Williams' works. With the show being sold out within days, the production received local acclaim from residents and the student body. A Pitlochry Festival Theatre production of
11139-528: The act before angrily scorning Blanche's lies, hypocrisy and behavior, and calling out her lie about Mitch. He advances toward her; in response, she threatens to attack him with a broken bottle, but is overpowered. Blanche collapses on the floor and Stanley is last seen taking her unconscious into his bed. Some time in the near future, during a poker game at the Kowalski apartment, Stella and Eunice are seen packing Blanche's meager belongings while Blanche takes
11280-632: The advantages provided to mothers who understand the needs of their children are the reason empathy evolved in the first place. Empathic-like behavior has been observed in chimpanzees in different aspects of their natural behaviors. For example, chimpanzees spontaneously contribute comforting behaviors to victims of aggressive behavior in both natural and unnatural settings, a behavior recognized as consolation. Researchers led by Teresa Romero observed these empathic and sympathetic-like behaviors in chimpanzees in two separate outdoor housed groups. Acts of consolation were observed in both groups. This behavior
11421-512: The age of two, children normally begin to exhibit fundamental behaviors of empathy by having an emotional response that corresponds with another person's emotional state. Even earlier, at one year of age, infants have some rudiments of empathy; they understand that, as with their own actions, other people's actions have goals. Toddlers sometimes comfort others or show concern for them. During their second year, they play games of falsehood or pretend in an effort to fool others. Such actions require that
11562-653: The attention of the Hollywood film industry and Williams received a six-month contract as a writer from the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio, earning $ 250 weekly. During the winter of 1944–45, his memory play The Glass Menagerie, developed from his 1943 short story "Portrait of a Girl in Glass", was produced in Chicago and garnered good reviews. It moved to New York where it became an instant hit and enjoyed
11703-490: The authorities to hire out a streetcar with the "Desire" name on it. After the loss of her family home to creditors, Blanche DuBois travels from Laurel, Mississippi , to the New Orleans French Quarter to live with her younger married sister, Stella , and Stella's husband, Stanley Kowalski . She is in her thirties and, with no money, has nowhere else to go. Blanche tells Stella that she has taken
11844-792: The bodily feelings of another is related to one's imitative capacities, and seems to be grounded in an innate capacity to associate the bodily movements and facial expressions one sees in another with the proprioceptive feelings of producing those corresponding movements or expressions oneself. Because empathy is rooted in our ability to imitate their painful experience, people with disorders that inhibit them from social understanding/connection may experience difficulty portraying empathy for others. These people could include individuals diagnosed with Asperger's or autism. Compassion and sympathy are terms associated with empathy. A person feels compassion when they notice others are in need, and this feeling motivates that person to help. Like empathy, compassion has
11985-432: The chick was susceptible to danger, the mother hen's heart rate increased, she sounded vocal alarms, she decreased her personal preening, and her body temperature increased. This responding happened whether or not the chick felt as if it were in danger. Mother hens experienced stress-induced hyperthermia only when the chick's behavior correlated with the perceived threat. Humans can empathize with other species. One study of
12126-557: The child knows what others believe in order that the child can manipulate those beliefs. According to researchers at the University of Chicago who used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), children between the ages of seven and twelve, when seeing others being injured, experience brain activity similar that which would occur if the child themself had been injured. Their findings are consistent with previous fMRI studies of pain empathy with adults, and previous findings that vicarious experiencing, particularly of others' distress,
12267-452: The child to imagine the perspectives of others and teaching the child to reflect on his or her own feelings. The development of empathy varied based on the gender of the child and parent. Paternal warmth was significantly positively related to empathy in children, especially boys. Maternal warmth was negatively related to empathy in children, especially girls. Empathy may be disrupted due to brain trauma such as stroke . In most cases, empathy
12408-509: The control of his mother and brother Dakin, Williams spiraled downward. His plays Kingdom of Earth (1967), In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel (1969), Small Craft Warnings (1973), The Two Character Play (also called Out Cry , 1973), The Red Devil Battery Sign (1976), Vieux Carré (1978), Clothes for a Summer Hotel (1980), and others were all box office failures. Negative press notices wore down his spirit. His last play, A House Not Meant to Stand,
12549-404: The courtyard, where Mitch apologizes for Stanley's coarse behavior. The next morning, Blanche rushes to Stella and describes Stanley as subhuman, though Stella assures Blanche that she and Stanley are fine. Stanley overhears the conversation but keeps silent. When Stanley comes in, Stella hugs and kisses him, letting Blanche know that her low opinion of Stanley does not matter. As the weeks pass,
12690-505: The development of empathy in young children. The children studied were asked to complete an effective empathy measure, while the children's parents completed a questionnaire to assess parenting style and the Balanced Emotional Empathy scale. The study found that certain parenting practices, as opposed to parenting style as a whole, contributed to the development of empathy in children. These practices include encouraging
12831-428: The director of the play, chose to cast the play with actors whose ages were close to Tennessee Williams' original intentions. (The birthday party is for Blanche's 30th birthday.) Sophia Brown starred as Blanche, with Nick Narcisi as Stanley, Lana Dvorak as Stella, and Spencer Sickmann as Mitch. Henry Polkes composed the original score, and James Wolk designed the set. The critics were unanimous in their praise. The play
12972-421: The drag." Between 1948 and 1959 Williams had seven of his plays produced on Broadway: Summer and Smoke (1948), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Camino Real (1953), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Orpheus Descending (1957), Garden District (1958), and Sweet Bird of Youth (1959). By 1959, he had earned two Pulitzer Prizes , three New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards, three Donaldson Awards , and
13113-422: The empathetic person integrates their understanding of broader social dynamics into their empathetic modeling), and ecological empathy (which encompasses empathy directed towards the natural world). In addition, Fritz Breithaupt emphasizes the importance of empathy suppression mechanisms in healthy empathy. Efforts to measure empathy go back to at least the mid-twentieth century. Researchers approach
13254-416: The experiment, as indirect ways of signaling their level of empathic functioning to the raters. Physiological responses tend to be captured by elaborate electronic equipment that has been physically connected to the subject's body. Researchers then draw inferences about that person's empathic reactions from the electronic readings produced. Bodily or "somatic" measures can be seen as behavioral measures at
13395-657: The festival produced A Streetcar Named Desire . The U.S. Postal Service honored Williams on a stamp issued on October 13, 1995 as part of its literary arts series. Williams is honored with a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame . He is also inducted into the Clarksdale Walk of Fame . On October 17, 2019, the Mississippi Writers Trail installed a historical marker commemorating William's literary contributions during his namesake festival produced by
13536-500: The field of medicine, a measurement tool for carers is the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy, Health Professional Version (JSPE-HP) . The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) is among the oldest published measurement tools still in frequent use (first published in 1983) that provides a multi-dimensional assessment of empathy. It comprises a self-report questionnaire of 28 items, divided into four seven-item scales covering
13677-443: The first scene, Blanche is nervous and jittery. She is reluctant to be seen in the glare of light and seems to have a drinking problem. She is also deceptive and is critical of her sister and brother-in-law. Stanley later questions Blanche about her earlier marriage. Blanche had married when she was very young, but her husband died by suicide. This memory causes her obvious distress. The reader later learns she suffers from guilt due to
13818-489: The first time a film won three out of four acting awards (Brando was nominated for Best Actor but lost). Composer Alex North received an Academy Award nomination for this, his first film score. Jessica Tandy was the only lead actor from the original Broadway production not to appear in the 1951 film. The ending was slightly altered. Stella does not remain with Stanley as she does in the play. Pedro Almodóvar 's 1999 Academy Award -winning film All About My Mother features
13959-453: The friction between Blanche and Stanley continues to grow. Blanche has hope in Mitch, and tells Stella that she wants to go away with him and not be anyone's problem. During a meeting between the two, Blanche confesses to Mitch that once she was married to a young man, Allan Grey, whom she later discovered in a sexual encounter with an older man. Grey later killed himself when Blanche told him she
14100-475: The late 1930s, Williams began exploring his homosexuality. In New York City, he joined a gay social circle that included fellow writer and close friend Donald Windham (1920–2010) and Windham's then-boyfriend Fred Melton. In the summer of 1940, Williams initiated a relationship with Kip Kiernan (1918–1944), a young dancer he met in Provincetown, Massachusetts . When Kiernan left him to marry a woman, Williams
14241-585: The late 1930s, he worked at a string of menial jobs that included a stint as caretaker on a chicken ranch in Laguna Beach , California. In 1939, with the help of his agent Audrey Wood , Williams was awarded a $ 1,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in recognition of his play Battle of Angels . It was produced in Boston , Massachusetts in 1940 and was poorly received. Using some of
14382-462: The late 1940s and 1950s, Williams began to travel widely with his partner Frank Merlo (1922 – September 21, 1963), often spending summers in Europe. He moved often to stimulate his writing, living in New York, New Orleans, Key West , Rome, Barcelona , and London. Williams wrote, "Only some radical change can divert the downward course of my spirit, some startling new place or people to arrest the drift,
14523-404: The measurement of empathy from a number of perspectives. Behavioral measures normally involve raters assessing the presence or absence of certain behaviors in the subjects they are monitoring. Both verbal and non-verbal behaviors have been captured on video by experimenters. Other experimenters required subjects to comment upon their own feelings and behaviors, or those of other people involved in
14664-558: The mid-1930s his mother separated from his father due to his worsening alcoholism and abusive temper. They agreed to a legal separation in 1946 but never divorced. In 1936, Williams enrolled at Washington University in St. Louis where he wrote the play Me, Vashya (1937). After not winning the school's poetry prize, he decided to drop out. In the autumn of 1937, he transferred to the University of Iowa in Iowa City , where he graduated with
14805-404: The monotony, the job forced him out of the gentility of his upbringing. His dislike of his new 9-to-5 routine drove Williams to write prodigiously. He set a goal of writing one story a week. Williams often worked on weekends and late into the night. His mother recalled his intensity: Tom would go to his room with black coffee and cigarettes and I would hear the typewriter clicking away at night in
14946-507: The most empathic primate. One study demonstrated prosocial behavior elicited by empathy in rodents. Rodents demonstrate empathy for cagemates (but not strangers) in pain. An influential study on the evolution of empathy by Stephanie Preston and Frans de Waal discusses a neural perception-action mechanism and postulates a bottom-up model of empathy that ties together all levels, from state matching to perspective-taking. University of Chicago neurobiologist Jean Decety agrees that empathy
15087-556: The music of Alex North , who had composed the music for the 1951 film. Another ballet production was staged by John Neumeier in Frankfurt in 1983. Music included Visions fugitives by Prokofiev and Alfred Schnittke 's First Symphony . Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams , was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller , he
15228-610: The papers of his mother Edwina Williams, and those of his long-time agent Audrey Wood . In late 2009, Williams was inducted into the Poets' Corner at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York. Performers and artists who took part in his induction included Vanessa Redgrave , playwright John Guare , Eli Wallach , Sylvia Miles , Gregory Mosher , and Ben (Griessmeyer) Berry. The Tennessee Williams Theatre in Key West, Florida,
15369-655: The participants in the usual form of excitement, tail wagging, or panting. Since the dogs did not direct their empathic-like responses only towards their owner, it is hypothesized that dogs generally seek out humans showing distressing body behavior. Although this could suggest that dogs have the cognitive capacity for empathy, it could also mean that domesticated dogs have learned to comfort distressed humans through generations of being rewarded for that specific behavior. When witnessing chicks in distress, domesticated hens ( Gallus gallus domesticus ) show emotional and physiological responding. Researchers found that in conditions where
15510-630: The play was in 1973. It was produced by the Lincoln Center , at the Vivian Beaumont Theater , and starred Rosemary Harris as Blanche, James Farentino as Stanley and Patricia Conolly as Stella. in 1976, Rip Torn enlisted director Jack Gelber to helm a revival at the once celebrated Academy Festival Theatre in Lake Forest, Illinois starring himself as Stanley and his wife Geraldine Page as Blanche. The production
15651-704: The play, directed by Elizabeth Newman and with Kirsty Stuart in the role of Blanche DuBois, was staged at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh in October and November 2024. In 1951, Warner Bros. released a film adaptation of the play , directed by Elia Kazan . Malden, Brando, Dennis, and Hunter reprised their Broadway roles. They were joined by Vivien Leigh from the London production in the part of Blanche. The movie won four Academy Awards , including three acting awards (Leigh for Best Actress , Malden for Best Supporting Actor and Hunter for Best Supporting Actress ),
15792-434: The poets and writers he most admired in his early years: Hart Crane , Arthur Rimbaud , Anton Chekhov , William Shakespeare , Clarence Darrow , D. H. Lawrence , Katherine Mansfield , August Strindberg , William Faulkner , Thomas Wolfe , Emily Dickinson , William Inge , James Joyce , and, according to some, Ernest Hemingway . As Williams was struggling to gain production and an audience for his work in
15933-603: The relationship. Rodríguez and Williams remained friends, however, and were in contact as late as the 1970s. Williams spent the spring and summer of 1948 in Rome in the company of a young man named "Rafaello" in Williams' Memoirs . He provided financial assistance to the younger man for several years afterward. Williams drew from this for his first novel, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone . When he returned to New York City, Williams met and fell in love with Frank Merlo (1921–1963). An occasional actor of Sicilian ancestry, he had served in
16074-432: The results of emotional reactions based on cognitions associated with role-taking ("if I were him I would feel..."). Picture or puppet-story indices for empathy have been adopted to enable even very young, pre-school subjects to respond without needing to read questions and write answers. Dependent variables (variables that are monitored for any change by the experimenter) for younger subjects have included self reporting on
16215-486: The second. In [his] stories and in those plays, Tennessee validated with his genius our common ticket of transfer."—Biographer and critic Gore Vidal in the Introduction to Tennessee Williams: Collected Stories (1985) Since 2016, St. Louis, Missouri has held an annual Tennessee Williams Festival, featuring a main production and related events such as literary discussions and new plays inspired by his work. In 2018
16356-545: The sedative Seconal to relieve his insomnia. During this time, influenced by his brother, a Roman Catholic convert, Williams joined the Catholic Church, however he never attributed much significance to religion in his personal life. He was never truly able to recoup his earlier success, or to entirely overcome his dependence on prescription drugs. As Williams grew older, he felt increasingly alone; he feared old age and losing his sexual appeal to younger gay men. In
16497-549: The self and the other. Since empathy involves understanding the emotional states of other people, the way it is characterized derives from the way emotions are characterized. For example, if emotions are characterized by bodily feelings, then understanding the bodily feelings of another will be considered central to empathy. On the other hand, if emotions are characterized by a combination of beliefs and desires, then understanding those beliefs and desires will be more essential to empathy. The ability to imagine oneself as another person
16638-459: The significance of another person's ongoing intentional actions, associated emotional states, and personal characteristics in a manner that seems accurate and tolerable to the recognized person. This is a nuanced perspective on empathy which assists in the understanding of complex human emotions and interactions. Acknowledging subjective experiences highlights the need for balance and understanding when engaging in empathy. One's ability to recognize
16779-461: The silent house. Some mornings when I walked in to wake him for work, I would find him sprawled fully dressed across the bed, too tired to remove his clothes. Overworked, unhappy, and lacking further success with his writing, by his 24th birthday Williams had suffered a nervous breakdown and left his job. Memories of this period and of a particular factory co-worker would contribute to the character Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire . By
16920-409: The socio-emotional development of the bonobo chimpanzee. They focused on the interplay of numerous skills such as empathy-related responding, and how different rearing backgrounds of the juvenile bonobo affected their response to stressful events—events related to themselves (e.g. loss of a fight) as well as stressful events of others. They found that bonobos sought out body contact with one another as
17061-569: The stories are true. She pleads for forgiveness. An angry and humiliated Mitch rejects her. Nevertheless, he demands sex from her, suggesting that it is his right since he has waited for so long for nothing. Blanche threatens to cry fire and tells him to get out. Stanley returns home to find Blanche alone in the apartment. She has descended into another fantasy about an old suitor coming to provide financial support and take her away from New Orleans. She falsely claims that Mitch had asked for her forgiveness, but she had rejected him. Stanley goes along with
17202-463: The subdivisions of affective and cognitive empathy described above. More recent self-report tools include The Empathy Quotient (EQ) created by Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright which comprises a self-report questionnaire consisting of 60 items. Another multi-dimensional scale is the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE, first published in 2011). The Empathic Experience Scale
17343-405: The upstairs neighbor, Eunice Hubbell. When Stanley recovers, he cries out from the courtyard below for Stella to come back by repeatedly calling her name until she comes down and allows herself to be carried off to bed. Blanche is shocked to see that her sister has returned to her husband right after he assaulted her. After Stella returns to Stanley, Blanche and Mitch sit at the bottom of the steps in
17484-535: The various books (biographical) upon his life and death. I wish to be sewn up in a canvas sack and dropped overboard, as stated above, as close as possible to where Hart Crane was given by himself to the great mother of life which is the sea: the Caribbean, specifically, if that fits the geography of his death. Otherwise—whereever fits it [sic]. However, his brother Dakin Williams arranged for him to be buried at Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, where his mother
17625-672: The way she had reacted to finding out her husband's homosexuality and his fatal reaction. Stanley, worried that he has been cheated out of an inheritance, demands to know what happened to Belle Reve, once a large plantation and the DuBois family home. He tells Stella about the Napoleonic Code (the author shared the widespread, but mistaken belief that the Napoleonic Code was in operation in Louisiana), stating that with it
17766-546: Was completing the play, and Peter Bogdanovich was slated to direct its Broadway debut. The play received its world premiere in New York City in April 2012, directed by David Schweizer and starring Shirley Knight as Babe. The rectory of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Columbus, Mississippi, where Williams's grandfather Dakin was rector at the time of Williams's birth, was moved to another location in 1993 for preservation. It
17907-604: Was disgusted with him. The story touches Mitch, who tells Blanche that they need each other. Mitch also has lost someone and seems to have empathy with Blanche's situation. Later, Stanley repeats gossip to Stella from a seedy salesman with contacts in Laurel that Blanche was fired from her teaching job for involvement with an under-age student and that she lived at a hotel known for prostitution . Stella erupts in anger over Stanley's cruelty after he reveals he has already told Mitch. Later that evening, at Blanche's birthday party, there
18048-465: Was distraught. Kiernan's death four years later at age 26 was another heavy blow. On a 1945 visit to Taos, New Mexico , Williams met Pancho Rodríguez y González, a hotel clerk of Mexican heritage. Rodríguez was prone to jealous rages and excessive drinking, and their relationship was tempestuous. In February 1946, Rodríguez left New Mexico to join Williams in his New Orleans apartment. They lived and traveled together until late 1947, when Williams ended
18189-683: Was eight years old, his father was promoted to a job at the home office of the International Shoe Company in St. Louis . His mother's continual search for a more appropriate home, as well as his father's heavy drinking and loudly turbulent behavior, caused them to move numerous times around St. Louis. Williams attended Soldan High School , a setting he referred to in his play The Glass Menagerie . Later he studied at University City High School . At age 16, Williams won third prize for an essay published in Smart Set , titled "Can
18330-582: Was found dead at age 71 in his suite at the Hotel Elysée in New York City . Chief Medical Examiner of New York City Elliot M. Gross reported that Williams had choked to death from inhaling the plastic cap of a bottle of the type used on bottles of nasal spray or eye solution. The report was later corrected on August 14, 1983, to state that Williams had been using the plastic cap found in his mouth to ingest barbiturates and had actually died from
18471-405: Was founded by Co-Artistic Directors Nick Shackleford and Augustin J Correro. The New Orleans–based non-profit theatre company is the first year-round professional theatre company that focuses exclusively on the works of Williams. "[T]here used to be two streetcars in New Orleans. One was named Desire and the other was called Cemeteries . To get where you were going, you changed from the first to
18612-549: Was frequently away from home. His mother, Edwina, was the daughter of Rose O. Dakin, a music teacher, and the Reverend Walter Dakin, an Episcopal priest from Illinois who was assigned to a parish in Clarksdale, Mississippi , shortly after Williams's birth. Williams lived in his grandfather's Episcopal rectory with his family for much of his early childhood and was close to his grandparents. Among his ancestors
18753-471: Was living in an apartment on Toulouse Street in New Orleans’ French Quarter when he wrote A Streetcar Named Desire . The old Desire streetcar line ran only a half-block away. In the 1951 film Blanche is shown riding the car. In the interim between writing the play and shooting the film, though, the line was converted into a bus service (1948), and the production team had to seek permission from
18894-423: Was musician and poet Sidney Lanier . He had two siblings, older sister Rose Isabel Williams (1909–1996) and younger brother Walter Dakin Williams (1919 –2008). As a young child, Williams nearly died from a case of diphtheria that left him frail and virtually confined to his house during a year of recuperation. At least partly due to his illness, he was considered a weak child by his father. Cornelius Williams,
19035-529: Was newly renovated in 2010 for use by the City of Columbus as the Tennessee Williams Welcome Center. Williams's literary legacy is represented by the literary agency headed by Georges Borchardt . In 1985, French author-composer Michel Berger wrote a song dedicated to Tennessee Williams, " Quelque chose de Tennessee " (Something of Tennessee), for Johnny Hallyday . It became one of the singer's more famous songs. Since 1986,
19176-423: Was noted by many critics that the 2013 Academy Award-winning Woody Allen film Blue Jasmine had much in common with Streetcar and is most likely a loose adaptation. It shares a very similar plot and characters, although it has been suitably updated for modern film audiences. In 2014, Gillian Anderson directed and starred in a short prequel to A Streetcar Named Desire , titled The Departure . The short film
19317-520: Was produced in Chicago in 1982. Despite largely positive reviews, it ran for only 40 performances. In 1974, Williams received the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates. In 1979, four years before his death, he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame . Throughout his life, Williams remained close to his sister, Rose, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia as
19458-563: Was revived again in 2022 at London's Almeida Theatre under the direction of Rebecca Frecknall , with Patsy Ferran taking the role of Blanche opposite Paul Mescal as Stanley, and Anjana Vasan as Stella. The play received widespread critical acclaim and its West End transfer became the fastest-selling production to date in any Ambassador Theatre Group venue. The revival received 6 Laurence Olivier Awards nominations, winning 3; Best Revival, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress for Mescal and Vasan respectively. In February 2024, Sewanee:
19599-408: Was staged at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre , where the original production was staged. This production proved so successful that it was filmed for television. It featured Timothy Carhart as Mitch and Amy Madigan as Stella, as well as future Sopranos stars James Gandolfini and Aida Turturro . Gandolfini was Carhart's understudy. In 1997, Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré in New Orleans mounted
19740-534: Was threateningly realistic, projecting a brightly lit, garbage-filled stage reflecting a hostile, predatory world and immersing the audience in a total theatre experience. Gelber's Streetcar was troubling for the critics because it was raw, even dangerous. It pushed the Streetcar script to the farthest reaches of urban violence and unabated naturalism. One review said "This is not the Blanche of butterfly wings. This
19881-743: Was written by the novelist Andrew O'Hagan and is part of Young Vic 's short film series, which was produced in collaboration with The Guardian . In 1995, an opera was adapted and composed by André Previn with a libretto by Philip Littell. It had its premiere at the San Francisco Opera during the 1998–1999 season, and featured Renée Fleming as Blanche. A 1952 ballet production with choreography by Valerie Bettis , which Mia Slavenska and Frederic Franklin 's Slavenska-Franklin Ballet debuted at Her Majesty's Theatre in Montreal , featured
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