Music in ASND

Initial stage directions - immediately establishing a link between jazz music and New Orleans

The ‘blue piano’ expresses the spirit of life which goes on here

Stage direction for the music when Stanley is about to rape Stella. Reflective of the twisted victory of New America over the Old South as well as B’s panic

The barely audible ‘blue piano’ begins to drum up louder

Stage direction when Stanley enters in Scene 2 (i.e. when he is just about to meet Blanche) and then the stage direction at the end of the scene, the climax of the music, with its loudness and inescapability foreshadowing the rising conflict between B and S. Also establishes the link between Stanley and jazz and therefore New Orleans as a whole

“leaving the door open on the perpetual ‘blue piano’...” and “the ‘blue piano’ and the hot trumpet sound louder.”

What does the blue piano represent?

New Orleans, the inescapability of B’s past, S and her conflict with him

What does the polka music/Varsouviana represent?

Blanche’s dead husband as that was the song they were dancing to before she confronted him. It plays whenever she thinks of/speaks of her husband, but only she can hear it.

The polka music starting to play as Blanche is detailing how Allan died

Polka music sounds, in a minor key faint in the distance

This is the stage direction for the polka music as M is kissing and comforting B after she told him the story of her husband. Evidence to show that Mitch and the affection she receives is enough to block out her past (or at least she thinks it is), hence why she relies on Mitch as her hope for redemption.

He kisses her forehead and her eyes and finally her lips. The polka tune fades out.

This is the way that the polka music is described at the end of scene 8, reflecting how B is particularly vulnerable as Mitch didn’t come to her birthday dinner, Stanley just gave her the ticket to Laurel

its music rising with sinister rapidity

Varsouviana at the start of scene 9, B in a vulnerable place (scene after the birthday dinner)

the rapid, feverish polka tune, the ‘varsouviana’, is heard; she is drinking to escape it and the disaster closing in on her.

Towards the end of the final scene, description of the Varsouviana that reflect how simultaneously her past has placed her in a position of vulnerability but it was the cruelty of Stanley and New Orleans that ultimately led to her end

The ‘varsouviana’ is filtered into a weird distortion, accompanied by the cries and noises of the jungle