Streetcar Named Desire, A, is a famous drama by American playwright Tennessee Williams. The show opened on Broadway in 1947 and won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for drama. The play has established itself as one of the classics of American drama.
A Streetcar Named Desire takes place in a poor neighborhood of New Orleans. The setting is the small apartment of a coarse, blunt salesman named Stanley Kowalski and Stella, his wife. Stella’s sister, Blanche DuBois, comes to visit, and a tense relationship immediately develops between the neurotic and genteel Blanche and the brutal and cynical Stanley.
Blanche is an alcoholic who has been fired from a teaching position for immorality and comes to Stella as a last resort. Blanche sustains herself with illusions of her glamorous life as a Southern belle when she was younger. But she is no match for the animalistic Stanley, who scorns her airs of gentility. At the end of the play, Blanche has a breakdown after being raped by Stanley, and is removed to a mental institution.
Elia Kazan directed the Broadway production. A young, little-known actor named Marlon Brando played Stanley. The power and raw sensuality of his performance made Brando a star. The British actress Jessica Tandy also received high praise as the tragic and vulnerable Blanche. Brando repeated the role of Stanley in the 1951 motion-picture version, which won four Academy Awards, including best actress for Vivien Leigh, who played Blanche. 
