Rep talk: A Streetcar Named Desire is older than you might think

The play takes place in New Orleans and while the names of the streetcar lines may seem strange to us, they actually refer to two New Orleans neighbourhoods - Desire and Cemeteries. Photo / Unsplash

I was surprised to find that A Streetcar Named Desire premiered in 1947, because I didn't realise that it was that old.

It's probably the best known of Tennessee Williams' plays, having been made into a movie in the early 1950s starring Marlon Brando as Stanley Kawlowski. Brando, only 23 at the time, had also starred in the stage version, a role that ensured his subsequent fame.

Stanley Kawlowski is married to Stella, younger sister to Blanche du Bois who has arrived at their small New Orleans apartment. Penniless, she simply has nowhere else she can go. The bank has foreclosed on her family home, the grand plantation mansion
Belle Reve (beautiful dream) and the days of the pampered Southern Belle are in the past.

Post-war America was a new age, an age of egalitarian principles, but the reality fell far short of egalitarianism. Both Stella and Blanche are dependent on a man, Stanley, who is uneducated and lacking the refinement the somewhat deluded Blanche feels is her due.

When Stanley beats Stella, Blanche urges Stella to leave him, telling her, within Stanley's hearing, that her husband is just an animal. Stella opts to stay with her husband because she has little choice. She loves him.

Stanley exacts revenge on Blanche by raping her, an act of dominance rather than sex, proving her lowly estimation of him correct. Again, the message is of male power and female vulnerability.

Blanche's grandiose dreams have been stripped from her. Her delusions shattered, Blanche sinks into a state of despair and confusion that prompts Stella to have her committed into a state mental hospital.

It's a really sad play about powerlessness that I think is still relevant today.