Tag: Marc A. Fajer

No Way to Treat a Lady: The Violence is Over the Top in the TAS Production of “A Streetcar Named Desire”

Tennessee Williams meant for Stanley be a crude, lower-class, but upward-aspiring American ethnic of Polish descent and for his and Stella’s apartment to be a pressure cooker, but I seriously doubt if he meant for Stanley to explode into physical violence — smashing crockery, manhandling Stella, throttling and eventually raping Blanche — as often as he does in the current Theater of the American South presentation of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Indeed, the violence that Hurricane Stanley inflicts on his sister-in-law and wife and their meager possessions necessitates lengthy scene changes that dissipate dramatic tension.