From
the moment an impeccably dressed Gillian Anderson teeters across the stage as
Blanche, designer luggage in tow and giant sunglasses covering most of her
face, you know you’re in safe hands. If anything, she looks even more out of
place than Vivien Leigh in Elia Kazan’s 1951 film rendition.
Benedict
Andrews’ A Streetcar Named Desire still channels the sultry heat of New Orleans,
where the French Quarter is home to a riotous cacophony of folk. However, this
new stage version at the Young Vic uses modern trappings. Eunice (Clare Burt)
is pure American white trash in frayed denim mini-skirt, leggings and open toed
cork mules. It’s a laidback world where people drink late and rise late, and
Stella (Vanessa Kirby) slips into it easily, ditching the airs of Belle Reve
for midriff baring halter tops and skin-tight jeans. But it’s a risky world
too. What looks like an old bruise on Stella’s back hints at her husband’s
violence (or it’s simply a bruise. As Freud didn’t say, sometimes a banana is
just a banana).
Anderson
brings out the contradictions in Blanche—the moth-like destructibility but also
an inner hardness. I like this Blanche – and I don’t like her. She’s catty,
harsh, but also needy. She deals in fantasies but also understands the world
better than her sister. Blanche’s attempts to cling to her old life and money,
by wearing her armour of designer labels, barely disguise her fragility – shaky
ankles that look like they might snap at any moment and neurotic nervousness as
she explores the cramped apartment, looking for liquor. Anderson is funny too—she
cranks up the humour of Blanche’s snobbish tendencies.
Ben
Foster as Stanley is a slow-burner. At first I worried he didn’t have the
presence (alas – Marlon Brando has forever set the bar ridiculously high) but soon
you start to see his menace. Quiet, explosive, quiet, explosive, and there are
some great touches in his mounting viciousness towards Blanche. At one point he
offers her the phone as she waits, teetering on the brink of insanity for a
call from Mitch, before pulling it back from her. A total psych.
The weak
link for me is Stella. Vanessa Kirby plays Stella as a girly, floaty young
thing, caught in a permanent post-coital glow. Well, that’s okay, but her
accent kept slipping out of the American south and into something distinctly British
(and possibly northern) in the showing we saw.
The staging
turns us all into voyeurs. As anyone familiar with Streetcar knows, the action
only takes place in Stanley and Stella’s tiny apartment. Kazan famously played out the
growing claustrophobia, and literal and metaphorical entrapment of Blanche by
moving the walls of the set in closer and closer throughout the scenes.
The design
here is similarly effective. The whole stage is a raised rectangle with the
“rooms” of the apartment, however no walls. We can see through each room and
the action going on in different parts simultaneously. The stage also rotates
continuously – sometimes changing direction, mirroring Blanche’s tumultuous state
of mind. The effect is fascinating. You see everything from different angles—sometimes
your view is obscured, sometimes you’re forced to focus on Stanley in the
living space while Stella and Blanche are talking in the bathroom at the other
end. You’re an outsider looking in or a rubbernecker on the sidelines, watching
the car wreck play out. It reminds us there are no simple answers with this play.
Benedict
Andrews’ take on Tennessee Williams is captivating. It’s edgy, stifling, and simultaneously
modern and retro (we get blasts of P J Harvey and Chris Isaak). Anderson is
definitely the glue holding it all together though. She’s absolutely mesmerising, right up to the tragic mess she becomes, complete with red lipstick all over her face and then finally the broken, lost woman who has always depended on the kindness of strangers. Watch it if you can—it’s being shown in a live stream in UK cinemas.
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