Desire to Cemetery and Ride Six Blocks

Allow me to be a complete literary geek for a  moment.

Richmond is having a Tennessee Williams Centennial Celebration until October 22! Right here in River City!

Over a month devoted to one of our greatest playwrights with a schedule of plays, movies and staged readings will provide a host of field trips to complement my recent completion of  "Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams" about the early life shaping events of this seminal Southerner.

Today's treat was a screening of "A Streetcar Named Desire" at the Byrd Theater, but presented by Firehouse.

New Orleans in 1951 didn't much resemble New Orleans in 2006 (the last time I visited), at least as portrayed by Hollywood.

Besides the obvious, like the streetcars being gone and air conditioning replacing fans and open windows, it was the scenes of the offbeat street life that stood out.

I got a kick from the hot dog man, pushing his wooden cart down the narrow streets and yelling "Red hots!"

Likewise the street vendor selling flowers for the dead (in French) by knocking on doors and offering them up.

One constant was booze, which isn't too surprising given Willimas' weakness for it.

Blanche DuBois perhaps put it best, "A shot never did a Coke any harm."

And then there was the language of wooing, always a soft spot for me.

"I like you exactly the way you are, because in all my experience, I have never known anyone like you," Mitch tells Blanche on a starry night.

What female wouldn't want to hear that?

"Believe me, honey, I feel more than I tell you."  True that.

Like all of Williams' work, there are references to homosexuality, characters with mental illness and always a longing for a better world.

"An hour isn't an hour but a little piece of eternity dropped in our hands."

Sigh.

Between those kind of lines and a ridiculously young Marlon Brando in a sweaty form-fitting t-shirt, I couldn't think of a better kick-off to the Tennessee Williams Celebration.

As Blanche said, "I don't want realism, I want magic."

I want to live in a city that celebrates the intersection of reality and magic.

Oh, wait. I already do.

Lucky me, lucky Richmond.