Streetcar+-+Expressionism

“**Expressionism and all other unconventional techniques in drama have only one valid aim, and that is a closer approach to truth. When a play employs unconventional techniques, it is … attempting to find a closer approach, a more penetrating and vivid expression of things as they are.”**
 * // Some useful dramatic terms: __NATURALISM__ and __EXPRESSIONISM__ //**
 * a. **** NATURALISM. **
 * This is the idea that plays should be as realistic as possible. Sets, lighting, costume, speech and action should all be used to make the play mirror reality as much as possible. An example is __Ghosts__ by Ibsen. **
 * b. **** EXPRESSIONISM. **
 * This more modern idea says that drama does not have to simply mirror life, and that expressing one’s meaning is more important than being ‘realistic’. This means that lighting, speech, costume, imagery or whatever need __not__ resemble real life if the author feels he or she can make a point more clearly in another way. Expressionistic devices are generally used to make the inner life (the psychological state) of the characters clear to the audience. **
 * Williams often used expressionistic devices, although __Streetcar__ is not the most obvious example (try reading __The Glass Menagerie__ instead.) For example, he incorporates non – realistic lighting in scene X to reflect Blanche’s tortured state of mind. Likewise, the use of various sounds is used to make aspects of a character’s personality or psychological state clear to the audience – the train sound associated with Stanley, the polka for Blanche or the ‘blue piano’ for New Orleans. Even some of the more melodramatic, stylised passages of dialogue appear to be deliberately unrealistic (expressionistic) in order to emphasise aspects of a character’s personality or situation. See, for example, scene VII (p. 196) when Blanche talks about birthday candles: **
 * “His auntie knows candles aren’t safe, that candles burn out in little boys’ and little girls’ eyes, or wind blows them out and after that happens, electric light bulbs go on and you see too plainly…” **
 * This is not really a realistic thing to say; but it highlights the melodramatic, poetic, romantic side of Blanche as well as showing how she yearns for her own lost innocence through the use of ‘light’ imagery. **
 * Finally, Williams’ own thoughts on expressionism, taken from his production notes for __The Glass Menagerie__: **

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