A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE Dramatic Tension Trail

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Exploring dramatic tension

Many of the following Streetcar Named Desire resources are tweaked from tried and true materials and ideas mainly from Teachit and Julie Blake’s Full English. The idea is to give students five ‘ways in’ – imaginative, cognitive, emotional, visual, tactile – to that elusive topic dramatic tension, by identifying and tracking how and what playwrights manipulate within a scene and across the play as a whole.

FOR STARTERS: A TENSE ROLE-PLAY
Using imagination, developing perception and building an emotional vocabulary from experience.

· A fun starter is a teacher role-play. Tell students you are going to role-play and ask them to play along. With a newish AS group, I pretended that I was fed up with their lack of homework and uninventive excuses (message writ large!).

· You need to use lots of facial expressions, threatening body language (tower over, get in their face), variations in tone (bellowing fine here but sinisterly soft can be even better), variations in language and syntax –rapid fire questions that you don’t give them time to answer, slow deliberate declarations, rhetorical questions …

· When it’s over, tell the group the purpose and get them to feed back on how they felt, making sure they identify exactly what you did that made them feel that way. Students have to use as many different words as possible that can go into an ‘emotional vocabulary glossary’.

AN EXAM QUESTION GRID: THE FOCUS THAT ALWAYS GRABS ATTENTION
Close reading and thinking ahead.

· Dramatic tension exam question grid: start off with discussion of the question’s key words – what do we have to explore to start building an answer? These words then become ‘key words of the day’. Plan for five minute ‘breathers’ so students can fill in their grid as you go.

· Ongoing revision: because the questions draw on different scenes, the grid provides a helpful continuity across the play. For example, the first question uses Scene 1 as a focal point – but students will also have to discuss two other scenes. So, as you cover new scenes you can return to relevant questions, add new information, think about dramatic links between scenes, and consolidate earlier work.

· Exam questions as a starting point are indispensible for helping students move away from the characters-as-people syndrome. Plus, by the time the unit is over, you’ll have a ready-made revision pack on key ideas, form, structure and language, and students will have learned some exam skills, not least – how to read a question. Hopefully.

HOW DO DRAMATISTS PRODUCE TENSION – QUOTE QUEST ON WHAT ISN’T SAID
Close reading and oblique angles.

· Use the quote quest grid to draw attention to what characters don’t say as well as how the playwright manipulates language to project tension when they do talk, say, by using easily spotted exclamatory sentences – then you can elicit more subtle effects like ellipses.

PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER: IN THE DIRECTOR’S CHAIR
Imagination, acting and close reading.

· Use the ‘Director’s chair’ handout to direct Blanche’s ‘death’ speech –a nice exercise in annotation too!

· Students plan in groups of four: one group member will act out the speech as the team has decided it should be played, another will explain the directions, while a third annotates speech on the IWB. The fourth answers questions from the floor. It takes too long for every group to perform so we have a draw at the end and winning team gets to perform for whole class.

PLOTTING DRAMATIC TENSION ACROSS A SCENE: CAN YOU FEEL IT? SEE IT?

Concepts before words, analytical work – comparisons – visual, tactile.

· This is my favourite. First, students chronologically order the scene’s key moments then they plot them on a dramatic tension grid.

· Discuss/debate possibilities – get them using the IWB – agree a class version.

· Print out page, laminate and stick up on wall until whole play is plotted, (very handy when it comes to revision). Hint: use different coloured boxes for each scene.

· Variation: as students become more adept get them to come up with more of their own key moment boxes.

· Works brilliantly on the IWB and computers.

NOW TO PEE
Planning, writing.

· Back to question: discuss, bung some thought bubbles on the IWB and start planning as a class. For homework, students write up answer to exam question for this scene only – later on develop in at least two more scenes.

Dramatic tension: Scene 1 quote quest

Dramatic tension

To create tension, playwrights use various devices such as plot, character, action, props, language, body movements, music etc.

KEY POINT

A playwright’s objective in creating dramatic tension is to make the audience feel that tension.
We are going to explore how, from the very first scene, Williams presents Blanche and Stella’s relationship as dramatically tense, looking at the section that starts with the stage direction: ‘Stella comes quickly around the corner of the building’ to ‘Stella goes into the bathroom’. (Lines 120-127)
In groups, fill in grids by searching the text from p.120 to p.125 stage direction ‘her face turns anxious’.

Character development/plot

Blanche seems to want to hide … / Quotation / Why?
her reaction to Elysian Fields

her drinking

the reason she left her job
Blanche is worried about … / Quotation / Why?
her appearance
whether she is welcome to stay
her health
Stella doesn’t want to talk about … / Quotation / Why?
where she lives
when she left Belle Reve

Stage directions: Williams makes sure that actors will communicate tension by giving precise directions about how he wants them to perform the lines.

Character / Quotations

Blanche

Stella

Language: Williams also develops the tension by using grammar and punctuation!

Find the best examples of…

/ Quotation / What is the effect?

exclamation marks

ellipses

Despite all the obstacles that come between them, Stella and Blanche seem to care about each other. Do you agree or disagree? Why? Two reasons please!

Director’s chair – dramatic tension

Imagine that your group has been asked to direct Blanche’s ‘death’ speech for a school production. You need to work through how you want the actor to deliver her lines in order to communicate both Williams’ ideas and the character’s strong feelings.

Blanche’s ‘death’ speech is very important in this play, for a number of reasons:

· it reveals some of the background of the sisters’ relationship.

· it explains one more reason for the tension between Blanche and Stella.

· it helps us to understand Blanche’s current mental state.

· it gives us more information about how Stella deals with difficult issues.

· it initiates Williams’ death theme.

You need to make sure those reasons will be understood by your audience, so begin by finding the line (or lines) that:

1. Use images to show the brutal reality of death.

2. Indicate that Blanche was deeply affected by her experience.

3. Tell us how Stella dealt with the crises.

4. Explain why Belle Reve was lost.

5. Suggest that Blanche is feeling defensive about losing Belle Reve.

6. Suggest that Blanche is angry with Stella.

Now annotate the script to show how you want it performed.

I, I, I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard! Father, mother! Margaret, that dreadful way! So big with it, it couldn’t be put in a coffin! But had to be burned like rubbish! You just came home in time for the funerals, Stella. And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths – not always. Sometimes their breathing is hoarse, and sometimes it rattles, and sometimes they even cry out to you, ‘Don’t let me go!’ Even the old, sometimes, say, ‘Don’t let me go.’ As if you were able to stop them! But funerals are quiet, with pretty flowers. And, oh, what gorgeous boxes they pack them away in! Unless you were there at the bed when they cried out, ‘Hold me!’ you’d never suspect there was the struggle for breath and bleeding. You didn’t dream, but I saw! Saw! Saw! And now you sit there telling me with your eyes that I let the place go! How in hell do you think all that sickness and dying was paid for? Death is expensive, Miss Stella! And old Cousin Jessie’s right after Margaret’s, hers! Why the Grim Reaper had put up his tent on our doorstep! … Stella. Belle Reve was his headquarters! Honey – that’s how it slipped through my fingers! Which of them left us a fortune? Which of them left a cent of insurance even? Only poor Jessie – one hundred to pay for her coffin. That was all, Stella! And I with my pitiful salary at the school. Yes, accuse me! Sit there and stare at me, thinking I let the place go! I let the place go? Where were you. In bed with your – Polak!

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Exploring dramatic tension

Dramatic tension – key points

/ Quotations/line references

SCENE 1

SCENE 3
SCENE 4

Dramatic tension – key points

/ Quotations/line references

SCENE 7

SCENE 10
SCENE 11