THE OTHER SIDE OF DESIRE:  TENNESSEE WILLIAMS ON LIFE, LOVE, AND DEATH

When Blanche DuBois arrives in the French Quarter of New Orleans in the first scene of A Streetcar Named Desire, she tells Eunice, “They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at—Elysian Fields!” So, from the very beginning of the play, we are reminded that death and desire have a symbiotic relationship. Whether dramas, comedies, full-length, or one-acts, death is present in all of Williams’ plays, both onstage and off, and so is life. For Williams, sexual desire is part of the life force, the urge to live, and so a counterbalance to the inevitability of death. This panel will explore the many ways Williams deals with death and life in his work. Scenes and characters that will be examined come from plays including A Streetcar Named Desire, The Rose Tattoo, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, Vieux Carré, A House Not Meant to Stand, Kingdom of Earth, I Can’t Imagine Tomorrow, The Mutilated, The Day on Which a Man Dies, and Something Cloudy, Something Clear, to name just a few. Panelists include Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Pope, Augustin J Correro, Margit Longbrake, and Annette Saddik, moderated by Thomas Keith.