The particular brand of emotional devastation that comes at the end of viewing a great production of either of Tennessee Williams’s two best plays, The Glass Menagerie or A Streetcar Named Desire, depends on the audience developing a sympathetic bond with the female lead. In The Glass Menagerie, we watch fragile innocent Laura Wingfield on the verge of romance with her high school crush. In A Streetcar Named Desire, we hope that Blanche Dubois can escape her past and find salvation and a husband in the sturdy and seemingly kind Harold ‘Mitch’ Mitchell. We look on as Blanche and Laura come so close to having their prayers answered and then we must watch in terror as all hope is taken away.
“Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable,” says Blanche in Streetcar, “It is the one unforgivable thing in my opinion and it is the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty.” But, of course, she has been guilty of deliberate cruelty. As she reports, Blanche found her young husband with another man and publicly humiliated him for it, leading to his suicide. This act of cruelty is paralleled by Stanley’s later deed, when he exposes Blanche for having been the town floozy of Laurel, Mississipi. Both Blanche and her deceased husband are victims of the prejudices of a chauvinistic society, and both Blanche and Stanley are envoys, enforcing that society’s ideals. These circumstances account for the heartbreak we experience at the end of a great production of Streetcar—we watch an individual, however flawed she may be, destroyed by the society in which she lives.
Part of the reason for Streetcar’s enduring status as a classic—and there are many, many reasons—is that it provides two of the juiciest roles available in contemporary theater: Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski. Cate Blanchett seems born to play Blanche Dubois. Her high cheekbones signal noble origins and feminine grace; her voice is rich, husky, and almost regal; her svelte physique is the perfect embodiment of a woman who both believes absolutely in maintaining appearances and seems to exist on a liquid diet. Blanchett gives a stellar performance and captures with particular acuteness the superiority and sensuality inherent in the role. As Blanche Dubois, Blanchett owns the stage, alternately fretting, bossing around her sister and seducing every man in sight..
Joel Edgerton, as Stanley Kowalski, is also perfectly cast. With his massive arms and chest, Edgerton exudes a sense of bravado and menace. When Edgerton’s Stanley ‘clears’ the dinner table by whipping his plate against the wall, we shrink in our seats just as Blanche and Stella do. The Australian film star adds a wonderful flourish to this scene by spitting a mouthful of food onto the table in defiance of Blanche and Stella’s manners. And when Stella and Stanley paw at one another in bed, Stanley rubs his hand on Stella’s crotch. Edgerton’s Stanley is also something of a dolt. I didn’t know that there was comedy in Stanley’s ranting about Louisiana’s Napoleonic Code, but this performance makes these lines funny. Edgerton’s vulnerability allows us to see Stanley as a character not quite as intelligent as he thinks.
The sexual chemistry between Blanche and Stanley drives much of the play’s first half and accounts for the finest scene of the evening—the poker night. In Ullmann’s hands, Stanley’s drunken tantrum seems the result of jealousy over Blanche. The poker crew stops playing, and Stanley watches Blanche, Stella and Mitch listen to music. He rushes into the bedroom where Blanche sits in her slip, staring at him provocatively as she blocks the radio. It is a stunning, unforgettable image.
The melodramatic tone of much of the production’s second half, though, overpowers the play’s more subtle naturalistic elements. When Mitch unbuttons his clothes to get from Blanche what he’s ‘been missing all summer,’ the attention-grabbing gesture is striking but cartoonish. The grandiosity of the production’s more eventful incidents makes the less action-oriented ones—conversations between Blanche and Stella, for example–seem dull. Ultimately, the emphasis on creating a spectacle lessens our sympathetic bond with Blanche.
The production’s visual and sonic elements, however, are triumphant. The second floor of the apartment building features a long windowless stretch of grey façade, more reminiscent of the communist block than the French Quarter. This is a strong and interesting choice by set designer Ralph Myers as it helps to convey the squalid conditions in which the Kowalskis live, as well as Blanche’s sense of imprisonment.
No contemporary playwright makes more use of weather than Tennessee Williams—consider how many times the characters comment on the heat in Streetcar—and the sense of the outside elements here is presented with a tender poetic quality. “Don’t you just love these long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn’t just an hour—but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands—and who knows what to do with it?” Blanche asks. Lighting designer Nick Schlieper captures just the right shade of the moon’s blue glow coming through the Kowalskis’ windows. Through these windows we also see the occasional jagged bouncing shine of the streetcar named Desire’s headlight passing by.
Similarly, during the final showdown between Blanche and Stanley, a loud beating of jazz drums transforms into the rumbling sounds of the streetcar, then changes back to the original rhythmic percussions. In these details, director Liv Ullmann and sound designer Paul Charlier innovatively capture a startling combination of magic and reality.
A Streetcar Named Desire is at the Brooklyn Academy of Music until December 20th. It is written by Tennessee Williams and staged by the Sydney Theatre Company. This production is directed by Liv Ullmann.
