There is already a lot of things to take in for the audience, even though it can be broken down quite simply, they soon realise the contrasting opposites of Blanche and Stanley and the current and future rifts it is likely to cause between Stanley and Stella. We see that Stella is becoming the middle-link between these two characters.
On top of the contrast between Stanley and Stella there is now an extra aspect of Blanche’s true deception. This is first shown when Blanche, who is offered whiskey from Stanley, comments that she does not like to touch a glass, even though the audience have clearly seen her drink a glass alone while Stanley is not in the room. They realise her misleading self – I say this as because I know that Stanley has realised her deceit. She herself, does not know of his knowing and is still trying to mislead him from the truth by trying to get to him using her feminine charm. She thinks this will work, but luckily Stanley can see right through her.
The impressions and feelings of Stanley are not too long introduced as his passionate and crude sides as soon shown and in the open to the audience as he was beginningly secretive about his emotions. Meaning this as in that he does not like to share his feelings with others if they are not what a real man’s feelings should be. His denial of Blanche’s beauty is significant because it shows that Blanche does not display Stanley’s type of desire. Stanley’s features, his brutality, his animality and his lust for life lead him into an unrelenting assault on Blanche’s dream world.
The main symbolic presences come to life in this first scene. Stanley taking off his shirt, and in front of Blanche, is certainly a recurrence, showing his masculine presence and true animal attraction, Blanche using a lot of her free time to clean herself, as seemingly done to wipe away her past and reassure herself of her beauty and femininity.
I feel names like Blanche and Stella are used to sound feminine but for Blanche I feel this name makes me think of an older person(but the play was set many years ago so this will be the reason I think that) and surely the audience to for when she was coming to stay for a while. It sounds as if it is an older woman’s name but somebody trying to act younger than the grandma like name which I feel the audience will pick up on. The full name Blanche De Bois makes you think of the meaning ‘white woods’ (white for purity and innocence and woods as in natural)which sounds old but pretty and growing true beauty the older it gets but is the opposite of Blanche. Also we hear a lot about the Elysian Fields and Belle Reve both described as heavenly beings and places from distant beautiful dreams.
The name of the street in which the Kowalski’s live outlines the unique opposition that Stanley and Blanche represent. Elysian Fields is the name for the ancient Greek version of afterlife. Stanley and all his masculinity but who is in touch with his inner-self is at home in the Elysian Fields, but this neighbourhood is clearly not Blanche’s idea of heaven. Blanche’s health and vitality are draining as a result of this.
For the costume side of the play I feel the clothes have been cleverly set into Blanche’s character saying how she never has a penny to spend and Stanley finding about all her ‘marvellous threads’ which shows to lead into her deceptive character. She is often seen wearing white which I think symbolises her hopefulness and reassurance soft fabricated beauty of the delicate fabrics of somebody hiding behind a something she wants others to see that she is. Stanley is shown to be wearing always jeans and sometimes a change between his tight t-shirts to show his muscular upper body and his bright colourful bowling shirts maybe unmeaning to show his love for a man’s sport. But the brightness and colour of the shirts could be used to stand out and be noticed in a bird like image.
The sound effects are slightly used to add the striking effect of droning noise for such incidents as a cat screeching in a sudden change of mood to help the audience understand the current mood feelings. While lighting intervened into the adjustment of the themes and moods to help the audience understand the link-up of contrast and music.
There are many themes of life throughout scene one that the audience are hooked upon – the main one being death and sexuality, such as when Blanche is stating the loss of “Belle Reve”, so contrasting her hurt of having to deal with the death of her husband for her experience of the funeral. There are a few sex-death combining references such as Blanche asking Stella “Where were you? In bed with your Polack!” this a sense of racism towards the polish and describing them seemingly in a dirty fashion which introduces violence and a slight essence of reality versus illusion. From which we and the audience detect the important role of light in the play. Light not used in the context of actual light but in the contest of feelings for example using bright light for the context of a merciless glare. I think the audience will see from Blanche’s insult to Stella about Stanley that Blanche is actually jealous and holds resentment of Stella. We see that Blanche seems to have an obsession with light – being moth like as to always want to be in the center of attention by starting needless arguments with Stanley and picking things at Stella “In bed with your Polack!”
The use of violence in Scene 1 is certainly one of the main themes. The thing that becomes clear in this scene are the highly established patterns of abuse and strange happenings in the Kowalski partnership, when the audience suddenly realises that Stanley’s temperamental behaviour had been witnessed in public. While not being classed as much violence, Stanley often takes fits of rage towards Stella and mainly because of Blanche. Through the strong first clash between Blanche and Stanley everything points to their being a class conflict is the means of an argument – while Blanche proclaiming she is middle class her fine threads clearly lead away from this while Stanley bringing up such things like pointing to ‘am I not good enough’ in many situations to get his point across.
Stanley’s middle-scene entrance with meat underlines his primitive qualities as if he were taking it back to his cave fresh from the kill. It also displays a strong sexual bond between him and Stella which is also shown as noticeable by other characters. Stanley shouts “Catch!” as he throws the meat to the negro woman who yells “Catch What?”. The negro woman and Eunice see this as sexual and hysterical in his act of tossing the meat to a delighted Stella.
This is a very cleverly thought out & structured first scene as this certainly prepares the audience for what is to come. Many class conflicts and clashes with high tempo drama from all sides of the story are certainly expected to remain throughout while a classic twist could and hopefully will be to carry on the great start could be on the cards.
