Music in The Play

Music, in A Streetcar Named Desire, plays a very important role. It serves as allusion, character analysis, and displays the characters' thoughts as well as what they think. (No wonder Streetcar was adapted into an opera!) Here are some examples of how music accentuates the play...

The Blue Piano

The Blue Piano- not a literal blue piano, but rather a piano that plays the blues- can be heard in moments of the play that invoke great passion. Blues are, as the name would suggest, sad and mournful melodies that are often about hardships. According to the script, this piano represents "the spirit of the life which goes on here", and it is played in many of the play's most dramatic moments, making the audience associate this music with a sense of dread.

"Only A Paper Moon"

Blanche sings quite a bit throughout the show. One of the songs she sings is "It's Only A Paper Moon", a song popular in the 1930s that entered a revival in popularity after World War Two. It's about a pair of lovers describing a bunch of make-believe, obviously fake things- a paper moon, a cardboard sea, a canvas sky- that can become true if they really love one another. The fact the song waned in popularity and became popular once more can suggest Blanche's rather washed-up status, while the subject matter shows Blanche's rather naive worldview- it's okay to lie about what is real and what isn't if it leads to happiness, and if someone loves her all can be forgiven.

The Varsouviana Polka

(Warning: Discussion of suicide and homophobia) The Varsouviana Polka was the music that Blanche and her husband danced to the last time she saw him alive. She explains later on that she had seen him in bed with another, older man earlier that day, and when they danced she communicated her disgust with him- both for cheating on her, and for having sex with another man. Afterward, he killed himself, and Blanche has since felt a great deal of regret over his death. This music plays any time her remorse is particularly risible, and it evokes the loss of Blanche's innocence despite her attempts to grasp onto it.

"My Rosenkavalier!"

(Warning: Discussion of grooming/pedophilic relationships.) When Blanche flirts with the teenage Young Collector, she calls him her "Rosenkavalier". This might seem like an odd word choice to a standard audience, but it is in fact another- very pointed- music reference. Der Rosenkavalier is a 1911 opera by Richard Strauss concerning a love triangle between the rich but neglected Marschallin, her lover Octavian, and the young and eager girl Sophie. However, the Marschallin is a woman in her thirties while Octavian and Sophie are teenagers. The opera does not seem to acknowledge the inherent abuse of the Marschallin and Octavian's relationship, instead pitying the Marschallin for being so very lonely and for feeling like she is aging out of the teenager she is grooming. This can be directly compared to Blanche's own past of having groomed a teenager she was teaching, her actions with the Young Collector, and also how she often only appears to pity herself.