It started with the seeds of acts I have been performing for years—first, a reverse striptease that seemed fairly straightforward to start, and ending with a sadness not usually presented within burlesque but all too familiar for Tennessee’s women. And later on, my Straight Jacket Striptease, which gives Blanche’s end in the play a triumphant twist. David was also struck with the idea that I’d do a classic vaudeville Spider hand puppet act, giving a showgirl wink to the hotel Blanche finds herself in on the road to New Orleans—”The Tarantula Hotel” (later misremembered or misdirected in Williams’ classic as “The Flamingo”). And so, for months, I spent time developing these acts and getting to know Blanche. And learning to sympathize with her; hell, even empathize in ways. For the first time in my life, I was seeing Blanche from Blanche’s perspective.

So when David, months before the festival, assigned Sandi Holloway to direct me, I realized I wasn’t just doing a little something extra; I was writing a whole-ass burlesque play. And Blanche needed me to. I am wholly disappointed with the short shrift Blanche is given by critics, in acting classes, and in our collective memory. No wonder I’ve avoided the work for nearly a lifetime—Just the fact that so many of us think of Blanche in less than compassionate terms should tell you everything. Just the fact that when you say “Streetcar Named Desire”, most think of Marlon Brando and not it’s two starring sisters should be enough to tell us that we haven’t let Blanche be the lead of her own story. Instead, we dance around the fact that Stanley rapes Blanche while Stella gives birth to his baby, and instead we focus on how Blanche was a whore. On how Blanche was a liar. On how Blanche was “crazy”. There’s always this unspoken implication that somehow, Blanche deserves to suffer because she tries to survive.

But if you look at the work, and you consider the realities of Blanche’s life and time, this is a misinformed and cold read on one of Williams most famous characters; the one he himself identified the most with. And the only one whom he wouldn’t let fail. Years after the play had been written, the actress playing Blanche in the UK premiere asked dear Tenn what happens to our heroine after curtain. Williams’, it’s said, took a moment, thought, and replied that she would have seduced a number of the orderlies in the asylum, got herself out, and opened a shop in the French Quarter—just as she had tried to recruit Stella to do during the play. While I think New Orleans is too small a town and she would have opened up shop perhaps in Atlanta instead, this perspective on Blanche as a survivor breathed a new life into the work for me. That even Tennessee didn’t see Blanche as succumbing but surviving triumphantly made me reassess everything I thought I knew about her. About the “lies”, about the “crazy”.  You see, in diving into this character I’d avoided because I assumed I abhorred her, it turns out, in many ways, I am her. For the first time, I considered “what if” Blanche isn’t a monster, but a human woman trying to survive, perhaps even THRIVE, in a world that has been structured for her independence to fail. As I write in my play:

In getting to know Blanche, I ended up doing some major dismantling of my own internalized misogyny and patriarchal priorities. As a traveling showgirl myself, I’m familiar with the realities of the road. Blanche’s trip from Belle Reve in Mississippi to New Orleans couldn’t have been a glamorous one, especially with no money left and literally only what she can carry, but she still arrives to New Orleans as if it was a breeze. Her beauty, her “50% illusion,” is her armor for survival. Those “lies” she’s accused of are part of that arsenal, and only exist because the rules of a patriarchal culture demands it. She’s a woman, so it’s undignified to be single, it’s undignified to work, and it’s undignified to age. She seeks to find the socially acceptable comfort of a man, she struggles to make ends meet as a teacher and eventually (likely) a prostitute, and she sticks to the shadows to mask her shame of aging. But it’s undignified to be able to survive, so the mere act of trying offends the status quo, namely: Stanley. She’s damned, either way.

When I look at A Streetcar Named Desire now, I see it as an allegory outlining how these systems of oppression harm us all. I see that fulfilling what the world expects of femininity harms Blanche as much as performative masculinity harms Stanley. Tennessee Williams, as a gay man, couldn’t even express himself in his world to the point that he iwas able to pour the most of himself into a White Southern Debutante. These social roles and rules are impossible marks for anyone to hit, and in trying to find happiness in balance with survival, we create conflict. Now, when I look at Blanche, I see her struggle and I understand just how much each and everyone of us relies, daily, on the kindness of strangers. I no longer hold it against her that she struggles to be her authentic self in a world unwilling to make room and one where she is unable to simply just take it.