Stella!

The first play on the list I made for myself of plays I've never read but should is A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams.  If you googled lists of plays everyone should read, I'd bet Streetcar would be on most all of them, but for some reason it always slipped by me.  I'm not completely ignorant to Williams' work, but I might as well be.  The only thing I've read by Tennessee Williams is Glass Menagerie which is one of the best plays ever written, and I'd say definitely better than Streetcar but there's a lot of good stuff in this piece too.  I guess I just think Glass Menagerie has more interesting characters, more compelling relationships, and the story's more effectively constructed.

Streetcar Named Desire is about two sisters, Stella and Blanche, and Stella's husband Stanley.  Stanley's a drunk and a gambler and at his worst he can get really abusive.  Stella being the weak, submissive little girl she is can't bring herself to leave Stanley, but when Blanche comes into town, she ends up being a capable foil for Stanley.  This understandably drives Stanley to hate Blanche, and the longer she stays with the couple, the more Stanley is driven insane.

Honestly, through a lot of the reading of this, I couldn't help but picture The Simpsons' musical version of the play, where Marge plays Blanche and uses her fights with Homer to help her get into character.  Seriously, how good was The Simpsons before it got terrible?  Epic.

Anyway, Tennessee Williams is a master of realism, and maybe one of the best playwrights out there for creating rich and interesting characters.  Throughout the entirety of Streetcar all of the characters' actions feel completely grounded in reality; believable to where the character is at that specific moment in the play.

I put A Streetcar Named Desire on this list because I should have read it years ago, but I also wanted to read this play specifically because I'm going to be getting to the film version with Marlon Brando (Like I have to specify...) soon on my AFI Top 100 Blog.  So, keep a look out for my reactions to the film soon.