stella streetcar qoutes

The sky that shows around the dim white building is a

peculiarly tender blue, almost a turquoise, which invests the scene with a kind of lyricism and

gracefully attenuates the atmosphere of decay.

This "Blue Piano" expresses the spirit of the life which goes on here.

New

Orleans is a cosmopolitan city where there is a relatively warm and easy intermingling of races

in the old part of town.

THE POKER NIGHT. There is a picture of Van Gogh's of a billiard-parlor at night. The kitchen

now suggests that sort of lurid nocturnal brilliance, the raw colors of childhood's spectrum. Over

the yellow linoleum of the kitchen table hangs an electric bulb with a vivid green glass shade.

The poker players--Stanley, Steve, Mitch and Pablo--wear colored shirts, solid blues, a purple, a

red-and-white check, a light green, and they are men at the peak of their physical manhood, as

coarse and direct and powerful as the primary colors. There are vivid slices of watermelon on the

STANLEY:

Meat!

[Be heaves the package at her. She cries out in protest but manages to catch it; then she laughes

breathlessly. Her husband and his companion have already started back around the comer.]

Oh, my baby! Stella! Stella for Star!

Precious lamb!

Open your pretty mouth and talk while I look around for some liquor! I

know you must have some liquor on the place! Where could it be, I wonder? Oh, I spy, I spy!

[She rushes to the closet and removes the bottle; she is shaking all over and panting for breath as

she tries to laugh. The bottle nearly slips from her grasp.]

TELLA:

You never did give me a chance to say much, Blanche. So I just got in the habit of being quiet

around you.

STELLA [half to herself]:

I can hardly stand it when he is away for a night...

BLANCHE:

Why, Stella!

STELLA:

When he's away for a week I nearly go wild

And when he comes back I cry on his lap like a baby...

[She smiles to herself.]

BLANCHE:

I guess that is what is meant by being in love....

The best I could do was make my own living, Blanche.

STELLA:

I'm going into the bathroom to wash my face.

BLANCHE:

Oh, Stella, Stella, you're crying!

STELLA:

Does that surprise you?

When she comes in be sure to say something nice about her appearance. And, oh! Don't mention

the baby. I haven't said anything yet, I'm waiting until she gets in a quieter condition.

STELLA:

Why no. You are as fresh as a daisy.

BLANCHE:

One that's been picked a few days.

STELLA [in a high, unnatural voice, out of sight]:

I want to go away, I want to go away!

It is early the following morning. There is a confusion of street cries like a choral chant. Stella is

lying down in the bedroom. Her face is serene in the early morning sunlight. One hand rests on

her belly, rounding slightly with new maternity. From the other dangles a book of colored

comics. Her eyes and lips have that almost narcotized tranquility that is the faces of Eastern

idols. The table is sloppy with remains of breakfast and the debris of the preceding night, and

Stanley's gaudy pyjamas lie across the threshold of the bathroom. The outside door is slightly ajar on a sky of summer brilliance. Blanche appears at this door. She has spent a sleepless night

and her appearance entirely contrasts with Stella's.

STELLA:

Yes, you are, Blanche. I know how it must have seemed to you and I'm awful sorry it had to

happen, but it wasn't anything as serious as you seem to take it. In the first place, when men are

drinking and playing poker anything can happen. It's always a powder-keg. He

didn't know what he was doing.... He was as good as a lamb when I came back and he's really

very, very ashamed of himself.

STELLA:

No, it isn't all right for anybody to make such a terrible row, but--people do sometimes. Stanley's

always smashed things. Why, on our wedding night--soon as we came in here--he snatched off

one of my slippers and rushed about the place amashing the light bulbs with it.

STELLA:

I was--sort of--thrilled by it.

STELLA:

I was--sort of--thrilled by it.

STELLA:

I said I am not in anything that I have a desire to get out of. Look at the mess in this room! And

those empty bottles! They went through two cases last night! He promised this morning that he

was going to quit having these poker parties, but you know how long such a promise is going to

keep. Oh, well, it's his pleasure, like mine is movies and bridge. People have got to tolerate each

other's habits, I guess.

STELLA:

But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark--that sort of make

everything else seem--unimportan

[Stella has embraced him--with both arms, fiercely, and full in the view of Blanche. He laughs

and clasps her head to him. Over her head he grins through the curtains at Blanche.]

STELLA; But when she was young, very young, she married a boy who wrote poetry.... He was

extremely good-looking. I think Blanche didn't just love him but worshipped the

ground he walked on! Adored him and thought him almost too fine to be human! But then she

found out--

STELLA:

This beautiful and talented young man was a degenerate. Didn't your supply-man give you that

information?

STELLA:

I don't know if I did the right thing.

EUNICE:

What else could you do?

STELLA:

I couldn't believe her story and go on living with Stanley.

EUNICE:

Don't ever believe it. Life has got to go on. No matter what happens, you've got to keep on going.

\

[Blanche appears in the amber tight of the door. She has a tragic radiance in her red satin robe

following the sculptural lines of her body. The "Varsouviana" rises audibly as Blanche enters the

bedroom.]