A Streetcar Named Desire Movie Vs Play

A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams, debuted in New York as a Broadway play on December 3, 1947. The success of this play established Williams among the most respected and influencing playwrights in modern theater. Only four years after its Broadway debut, Williams’ play was adapted into a film; Williams worked hands on with director Elia Kazan to create the 1951 film adaptation A Streetcar Named Desire. Though the two adaptations have similar literary elements, and Kazan worked collaboratively with Williams the audiences still see stark differences between the two.
Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire stays as close to the original production as possible, while still adhering to censorship. The movie takes viewers to places
Williams’ Broadway play opens with Stanley “heaving up a blood-stained package to Stella” (Holland 1); “Stanley carries his bowling jacket and a red-stained package from a butcher’s … he heaves the package at her” (Williams 2(stage directions)). Holland claims that the blood-stained package alludes to the primitive hunter, with visible blood this suggests “passions close to the surface [and] provides the audience with a condensed impression of Stanley’s character” (Holland 1). In contrast movie audiences are first introduced to Stanley at the bowling, only mentioned in the script. Stanley is first shown at the center of a violent uproar, Williams cleverly sets this commotion in the context of the bowling alley “thus linking Stanley’s aggression to his highly competitive nature” (Holland 1). Sequentially in scene two of A Streetcar Named Desire, audiences see the first resentment between Stanley and Blanch over the loss of Belle Reve. In attempt to restore his compromised dignity he, according to stage directions “[becomes] somewhat sheepish” (Williams 38(stage directions), when resorting to tell Blanche about the baby he and Stella are having. In the 1951 film version Stanley is shown to be overly confident, “asserting his