Olivier to Williams: An Introduction

FOUND TEXT SERIES: SIR LAURENCE OLIVIER A Letter from Sir Laurence Olivier to Tennesse Williams OLIVIER TO WILLIAMS: An Introduction / Philip C. Kolin "Affectionate and mighty regards from Vivien and from me" Sir Laurence Olivier's Letter to Tennesse Williams on the London Premiere of A Streetcar Named Desire LATE IN ITS SECOND successful year on Broadway, A Streetcar Named Desire made its British premiere in one of the most celebrated yet controversial productions of the post-war theatre. After tryouts at the Manchester Opera House from September 27 until October 7, 1949, Streetcar opened in London on October 12th at the Aldwych Theatre where it played to fuU and appreciative audiences until August 19, 1950, for a total of 326 performances. Opening night audiences queued up for 24 hours arid rioted when they could not all get into the Aldwych; the play was booked soUd for the year. Yet despite such popularity the PubUc Morality CouncU condemned Streetcar for its "abominable" content; and the play and its producers were the subject of rancorous inquiry in the House of Commons which had questioned why, under the sponsorship of the British Arts CouncU, Streetcar was exempt from paying entertainment tax as a "non-profit, partly educational work." The Tory MP from Brighton, Mr. A. Marlowe, remarked: "The play is only educational to those who are ignorant of the facts of Ufe."1 Speaking for those who found Streetcar objectionable, J.C. Trewin complained, "AU we saw, as the night wore on, was a squalid anecdote of a nymphomaniac's decay in a New Orleans slum."2 Harold Hobson, on the other hand, cautioned that Streetcar was "strictly, and even puritanicaUy" a valuable play: "In its basic assumptions Mr. Tennessee WilUams's play, far from being daring, is rigidly, even timidly conventional. It never departs by a hair's breadth from its text, which is that the consequence of sin is spiritual death."3 Two of England's greatest stars contributed to the success of Streetcar. Vivien Leigh, who was 35 at the time, played Blanche, a decade after her role as Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the Wind and two years before making the Warner Brothers film of Streetcar. When producer Hugh "Binkie" Beaumont asked Leigh early in Philip C Kolin The Missouri Review · 243 1949 to play Blanche for London audiences, her "only condition" was that her husband, recently knighted Sir Laurence OUvier, direct her.4 OUvier also became co-producer of the first British Streetcar. Joining the Oliviers were Bonar CoUeano as Stanley, Renee Asherson as SteUa, Bernard Braden as Mitch, and a very saturnine-looking Theodore Bikel as Pablo. Though Sir Laurence and his cast did not see the Broadway Streetcar with Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy, they did have the benefit of Jo Mielziner's sets for their production. In this previously unpubUshed letter from OUvier to Tennessee WilUams, written shortly before the London opening, OUvier teUs his dear friend WilUams that directing Streetcar was not aU "beer and skittles" for him. As FeUx Barker points out, Streetcar was "the most painful undertaking" of OUvier's career.5 OUvier was determined not to offer London audiences a dupUcate of EUa Kazan's Broadway production, yet he reaUzed that it "was impossible to avoid adopting a great deal of what Kazan had in mind." As OUvier admits, he pored over Kazan's annotated promptbooks in an attempt to be true to WiUiams's meaning and found that Kazan had done an enviable job. Fortuitously, Kazan was in England at the time preparing to direct Death of a Salesman, and Olivier spoke with him on the phone about Streetcar, apologizing for taking so much from the Broadway production. Kazan reassured Olivier that his London Streetcar would be completely different. Olivier, however, scrupulously acknowledged his debt to Kazan by indicating in the program that the London Streetcar was "Directed by Laurence Olivier from the New York production." OUvier's conscientiousness notwithstanding, Phihp Hope-WaUace concluded that "Sir Laurence OUvier's painstaking copy of the New York production, by that tormented genius EUa Kazan, is perhaps not the kindest sort. It gets in the way of our seeing the play...