Theatrical Terms

Theatrical Terms (Streetcar Named Desire)

Actor/Actress: The performer who takes role of a character.

Director: The person responsible for interpreting and bringing the text of a play to life on stage. 

Artistic Director: This is the person who, in a non­profit professional theatre, chooses the plays and generally the people—director, designer, actors

Protagonist: The leading character

Antagonist: Oppose to what the protagonist is trying to accomplish.

Backstage: Area behind and to either side of a stage where actors and technicians, unseen, perform tasks or await entrances and make exits now also denotes behind-the-scenes activities, especially ones that are secretive because of their unsavory nature.

Cue: A signal, as for an actor to go onstage or undertake some audible activity offstage that is part of the script, or for a technician to perform a task. “hint”

Cast: The complement of actors in a play.

Prop: A property, also known as a prop, is any handheld item actually used by an actor, as opposed to something that could conceivably be handled

Cue Lights: A special lighting system to signal stage personnel to make an entrance or shift a scene.

Curtain Line: An imaginary line across the stage behind the proscenium which marks the position of the front curtain when it is closed.

Dialogue: Conversation in a play.

Scenery: The various flats, drops, etc. that are used to create a particular visual setting for a play

Set: The scenery for a scene or entire production.

Stage Manager: This is a very important person who gives instructions or “calls” for just abouteverything that happens on stage.

Sources: 
1)http://www.barlowandassociates.com/THEATRE%20TERMS.htm
2)http://www.lagunaplayhouse.com/downloads/GLOSSARYOFTHEATRETERMS.pdf

A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire

• Stella’s older sister

• Around 30 years old

• High School English teacher in Laurel

• She looses Belle Reve and arrive at New Orleans where her sister is

• She decides to live with her sister and her husband for a while 

• Avoids reality and lives in her imagination

• Her age and appearance is of great importance for her, she is scared that soon she will loose all her beauty and get old

• Blanche is very unstable

• Her first marriage was a disaster since her husband ended up shooting himself

• She fears being alone so when she meets Mitch she tries to make things work out

• Blanche says Stanley rapes her but her sister Stella never believes it and sends her to a mental institution

• Blanche is trapped between reality and illusion

• Our first impression of Stanley of him is as a aggressive, dominant and very sexual character.

• He is Polish

• Around 30 years old

• Fought in World War II, now works as an auto-parts salesman

• Married to Stella Kowalski

• He enjoys maintaining stereotypical gender roles in his home

• He like him to be the respected head of the household

• He enjoys time with his friends and bowling

• Very quick-tempered, in many occasions breaks or throws things and hits Stella one, he also is accused by Blanche saying he raped her.

• He believes that the presence of Blanche is the reason the relationship between him and Stella is not working

• All he want is for Blanche to leave.

• Blanches younger sister

• Around 25 years old

• Married to Stanley Kowalski (Lower Class)\

• Blanche (her sister) Visits her and she is torn between her husband and sister

• Stanley is very aggressive and with all of his negative things Stella remains inlove

• Gives birth to a child with Stanley

• Has always been on her sisters side, she has always been loyal and kind but finally refuses to believe that Stanley raped Blanche and arranges for Blanche to be committed to a mental institution

• Around 30 years of age

• Stanley’s army friend, coworker, and poker buddy,

• He lives with his mom who is ill.

• He is very sensitive and gentlemanly

• Mitch and Blanche are an example of a co-dependent relationship that is founded on mutual loneliness and the desire to be with someone – anyone – to distract themselves from previously suffered emotional damage.The only reason these two are together at all is out of mutual need.

• Mitch and Blanche bond over their lost loves

• He courts Blanche until he finds out that she lied to him about her sordid past.

Themes

• Shows a sharp critique of the way the institutions and attitudes of postwar America placed restrictions on women’s lives

• Blanche and Stella both show dependence on men, both Blanche and Stella see male companions as their only means to achieve happiness, and they depend on men for both their sustenance and their self-image. 

• Evidence of this could be when Stella chooses to remain with Stanley, she chooses to trust, love, and believe in a man instead of her sister.

• Stella- it is quite clear that Stanley represents a much more secure future than Blanche does and this is why Stella chooses him.

• Men’s exploitation of Blanche’s sexuality has left her with a poor reputation. This reputation makes Blanche an unattractive marriage prospect, but, because she is destitute, Blanche sees marriage as her only possibility for survival. 

• Mitch rejects Blanche because of Stanley’s gossip about her reputation, Blanche immediately thinks of another man—the millionaire Shep Huntleigh—who might rescue her.

•  Blanche cannot see around her dependence on men, she has no realistic conception of how to rescue herself and does not realize that her dependence on men will lead to her downfall rather than her salvation. 

• Blanche puts her fate in the hands of others.

• Blanche explains to Mitch that she fibs because she refuses to accept the hand fate has dealt her. Lying to herself and to others allows her to make life appear as it should be rather than as it is.

• Blanche’s final, deluded happiness suggests that, to some extent, fantasy is a vital force at play in every individual’s experience, despite reality’s inevitable triumph.

• Blanche’s fear of death manifests itself in her fears of aging and of lost beauty

• Refuses to tell anyone her true age

• She seems to believe that by continually asserting her sexuality, especially toward men younger than herself, she will be able to avoid death and return to the world of teenage bliss she experienced before her husband’s suicide.

Important Quotes Source: http://www.novelguide.com/Streetcar/toptenquotes.html
SymbolsShadows and Cries

• Blanche & Stanley begin to quarrel in (Scene 10) - various oddly shaped shadows begin to appear on the wall behind her. 

• Discordant noises and jungle cries also occur as Blanche begins to descend into madness. 

• effects combine to dramatize Blanche’s final breakdown and departure from reality in the face of Stanley’s physical threat. 

• Blanche retreats entirely into her own world. Whereas she originally colors her perception of reality according to her wishes, she ignores reality altogether.

• Tune to which Blanche and her young husband, Allen Grey, were dancing when she last saw him alive. Earlier that day, she had walked in on him in bed with an older male friend.\

•  The three of them then went out dancing together, pretending that nothing had happened.

•  In the middle of the Varsouviana, Blanche turned to Allen and told him that he “disgusted” her. He ran away and shot himself in the head.

• The polka music plays 

• when Blanche is feeling remorse for Allen’s death. 

• Stanley meets Blanche and asks her about her husband

• Blanche tells Mitch the story of Allen Grey. 

•  always drives Blanche to distraction. 

• She tells Mitch that it ends only after she hears the sound of a gunshot in her head.

• The polka and the moment it evokes represent Blanche’s loss of innocence. 

• Blanche hears the Varsouviana whenever she panics and loses her grip on reality

• Scene 7- Blanche sings this popular ballad while she bathes. 

• song’s lyrics describe the way love turns the world into a “phony” fantasy. 

• The speaker in the song says that if both lovers believe in their imagined reality, then it’s no longer “make-believe.” These lyrics sum up Blanche’s approach to life. 

• Scene 1 -  Stanley throws a package of meat at his adoring Stella for her to catch. 

• Action sends Eunice and the Negro woman into peals of laughter. 

• In hurling the meat at Stella, Stanley states the sexual proprietorship he holds over her. 

• Stella’s delight in catching Stanley’s meat signifies her sexual infatuation with him.

• Jealousy & Possessiveness

• Control

• Superiority

• Manipulation

• Mood Swings

• Punishment

• His Actions don't match his words

• Unwilling to seek help

• Disrespectful to women

• Use violence and emotional abuse to control

• Believe that they have the right to behave in whatever way they choose

• Think that a ‘real’ man should be tough, powerful and head of the household

• Make excuses for their violence

• Report ‘losing control’ when angry and ask for forgiveness later

• Grown up in an abusive environment themselves, and/or have problems with alcohol

Title: A Streetcar Named Desire

Author: Tennessee Williams

Date of Publication: 1947

Genre: Tradegy

Type of Work: Play

Language: English

Time & Place Written: Late 1940s, New Orleans

Publisher: New Directions

Tone: Ironic & Sympathetic Realism

Setting (Time): 1940s

Setting (Place): New Orleans, Louisiana

Character Profiles

Protagonist - Blanche DuBois

Loquiacious, Fragile, unstable, aristocratic

Antagonist - Stanley kowalski

Crude, Violent. Bitter

Stella Kowalski

Mild, Soft- spoken, artisocratic

Harold "Mitch" Mitchell

a) Dependence on Men

b) Fantasy’s Inability to Overcome Reality

c) The Relationship between Sex and Death

• Sex and death are intricately and fatally linked in Blanche’s experience.

“I’m not young and vulnerable any more.”
Blanche speaking to Stanley, Scene 2

“He acts like an animal, has an animal’s habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one!
Blanche speaking about Stanley, Scene 4.

“In some kinds of people some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning! That we have to make grow! And cling to, and hold as our flag!”
Blanche speaking to Stella, Scene 4

 “And men don’t want anything they get too easy. But on the other hand, men lose interest quickly.”
Blanche speaking to Stella, Scene 5

“And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that’s stronger than this—kitchen—candle.”
Blanche speaking about the effect on her of her husband’s suicide, Scene 6

“I don’t want realism. I want magic!”
Blanche speaking to Mitch, Scene 9

“Never inside, I didn’t lie in my heart.”
Blanche speaking to Mitch, Scene 9

“You’re not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother.”
Mitch speaking to Blanche, Scene 9

“We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!”
Stanley speaking to Blanche as he carries her to the bed, Scene 10

“Whoever you are—I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."
Blanche speaking to the Doctor, Scene 11

The Varsouviana Polka

The Varsouviana Polka - Scene 6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoj2ywRLJRw

“It’s Only a Paper Moon”

"It's Only a Paper Moon" - Scene 7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gapCK5_rMuY


Meat




Psychology of Men who are Abusive?

Reasons for men to be abusive:

Sources:

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/streetcar/context.html
http://www.novelguide.com/Streetcar/novelsummary.html

Scene 2

Stanley, Stella

Bellaa stole stellas rights

Stanley starts looking at blanches trnk

Stanley believes Blanche has stole things

Stanley sarcastically tells her 

Chapter reveals that beauty is everything for blanche

Scene 3

Stella and Stanley are crazy for each other

Scene 4

Scene 5

Blance writes a letter to 

Pretends she has been around

she is lying to him

Eunice calls the police

Blanche - Virgin

Stanley - Capricorn

Paper boy

Desire for a husband back

Scene 6

Scene 7

Banches birthday

Stanley tells stella abot Blanches past

Mitch does not want to marry blanche anymore

Its only a paper moon - Folk Song ( Emphasizes blanches hope in the future)

Blanche scared of aging

Stellaa does not believe stanley 

Desire overcomes reality

Blanche was telling a bath, she wants to remain clean

Amount of candles - 25 (does not want to age)

Scene 8

As the birthday dinner is coming to an end

Blooming atmosphere 

Blanche asks Stanley to tell a funny story - he declains

Stanley is mean towards Blanche because he knows about her past

Blanche makes a bad comment about Stanley

Blanche makes ignorant comment about Stanleys polish ethnicity

Stanley did not like being polack

Blanche tries to call Mitch and when he does not answer she acts liek she dosent care abot him anymore 

Scene 9 - Sugarcoat Reality/ Past Catching Up

Tense Mood

Mitch does not show up for supper

The Varsouviana Polka - Blanches Insanity / altered state of mind- Her past is reflected, she cant escape

Mitch is mad at Blanche because she has lied about her past

Blanche does not want realism, she wants magic (does not want to be seen at light)

Mexican Women shows up which announces "flores para los muertes" --> Scares Blanche (Death)

Blanche is startled, she starts regretting

Scene 10 -

Rape - (Stanley,Blanche)

Scene 11-

Characters - Blanche, Stanley, Stella, Mitch, Eunice, Doctor, Nurse

Stanley and buddies playing poker 

Mitch still cares about Blanche

Written Task Outline

Written Task Outline

Topic: “The true impact the media has on our lives”

Subject:  Child Obesity caused by Advertisements

Text Type: Online Newspaper Article

Audience: Educated audience; middle-class; conservative (The Guardian)

Purpose: Inform ( Realize that sometimes advertisements can also affect us in a negative way - How Advertisements are the main cause of child obesity)

Title: - 

(Child obesity due to Advertisements)

Rationale: Identify the way media affects our opinions and how advertisements can have a negative impact on us.

Technology Taking Over

Technology Taking Over

Technology is taking over. Time with our friends, family and the things which we used to do or the people we interacted with in our daily life, has decreased as the advance in technology advances. 

Without us even recognizing this we spend most of our time on social networks such as Facebook and twitter and text messaging using blackberry messenger or whatsapp.

This has not happened just to me but you have also probably noticed that maybe when you are with  group a friends you start talking less to them and more to other friends who are not present there but are one of your contacts or friends through Facebook. This could be very annoying for the people surrounding you and if not stopped could lead you to loosing your real friends with some time.

It's not late yet and we can still do something, we must make sure that we don't let the technology take over and that we take everything else more importantly than this, we must not let media impact us in a bad way by taking over of everything.

Facebook?

Facebook Bullying

Facebook, one of the biggest and most popular social networks which connects us all, has brought us many good things as well as bad. Bullying is the new thing, It's now just not in person but we now have cyberbullying which is basically the same thing but over the internet.

A 15 year old  Irish girl Phoeba Prince was a victim of cyberbullying over facebook which caused her to commit suicide 3 months later after all of this bullying started. They called her Suicide "the culmination of a nearly three-month campaign of verbally assaultive behavior and threats of physical harm." 

They say that he commited suicide because she could not stand any more bullying through the social network Facebook and text messages, it became intolerable for her and lead her to hang herself in her home.

Facebook, the social network which we must be aware of

Facebook is one of the biggest social networks that we have today, Facebook has had a great impact on most of us. We can use it to communicate with everyone no matter where they are in no more than a few seconds. As good as Facebook can be, we should always be careful with what things we share on this social network because of it's great popularity and since it could be very easy for almost anyone to access your personal information like where you live, who your friends are and could even end up knowing which school you go to that could lead to bigger consequences as we can see in the article "When the most personal secrets get outed on Facebook." 

This article shows us how we should be careful about everything we mention on there because anyone could find  way of reading your things as it happened to Taylor McCormick who was added into a group letting her dad see what she  least wanted him to know and unfortunately in less than minutes her dad found out that she was lesbian leaving her with nothing to do. Taylor and another student were "casualties of a privacy loophole on Facebook." 

"In the era of social networks like Facebook and Google Inc.'s Google+, companies that catalog people's activities for a profit routinely share, store and broadcast everyday details of people's lives. This creates a challenge for individuals navigating the personal-data economy: how to keep anything private in an era when it is difficult to predict where your information will end up." 

We have to be careful with the information we share on the internet because things could go wrong, especially when sharing information in a social network like Facebook which like in this case was not good but could have been worst because of how public your information is anyone could really use your personal information to harm you in any way they can. Facebook is a social network which we need  to be aware of.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10000872396390444165804578008740578200224-lMyQjAxMTAyMDEwMjAxODI3Wj.html

Child Obesity Caused by Advertisements

Child Obesity is a very big problem occurring these days and as the time goes on this problem increases because of the media. 

As it appears in the graph above we can see how TV advertisements about candy and snacks,sugared cereals,sodas, soft drinks and fast foods are the most targeted for small children and teens and as the food gets healthier the percentage decreases making the unhealthy foods have the biggest percentage. The media itself has caused obesity in children of small ages because of how common it is to show unhealthy snacks in advertisements which are targeted for them and because of how easy is to convince and influence them to consume "bad" food.

The Perception of Beauty Distorted

Media has had a really big impact on our lives, one example of this is the perception of beauty. Our perception of beauty has been distorted as mentioned in the Dove evolution video. This has occurred because of the changes media has done with us.

Have you never wondered why models in advertisements are so perfect?

We think that models are what we should be like and if we are not like them we are considered ugly or fat but if we are ever able to look exactly like them we will reach perfection and what we don't take into account is that all of the models we see everyday in advertisements, posters and images which are everywhere have been changed in some way with the use of photoshop making them be what we think is perfect.

 Because of the media is is now impossible for us humans to ever be perfect, and since we do not know that what we see is most likely false we do what we think will make us look like them leading to depression which could cause anorexia or other eating disorders when trying to be skinny or it could even make someone a greater damage because of not thinking they are beautiful enough between other things. 

Media does truly have a great impact on our lives and in this case it has a very big negative impact because beauty is nothing specific, our perception of beauty could really be different for everyone and it could be anything.