Never really clicked with Tennessee Williams but Cate Blanchett is strong enough a reason for me to go to the theatre to see Sydney Theatre Company’s “A Streetcar Named Desire”.
It’s Cate Blanchett, so of course the house is full…except the two seats next to me. I sat right in front of the sound control box, which I thought was quite cool. The sound guy found me funny too as I looked so fascinated by the sound panel in front of him. The best thing of having two empty seats next to you is that you can then have all three seats to yourself when people around you are too uptight to free themselves up. So that’s what I did. I had the three wholes seats to me and could sit in whatever position I liked J
Back to the play. The set itself was quite different from my imagination. It is nothing like white washed or grey washed kind of structure but a two-level (which was indicated in the script) motel kind of structure. The lower level is where all the major actions took place. The major tone of the set is old wrapping paper kind of yellow with of course broken tiles and unmatched haphazard furniture to indicate the living condition of our main characters. On the far stage left is an iron staircase leading up to the Hubbells. However, the steps are so steep and narrow that every time they moved up and down, especially when Blanche was in her nightgown, I felt that one of them might trip over. It looked more like a potential health hazard than that damn radio that Joel accidentally threw at Cate.
Tess Schofield had done a brilliant job on Blanche du Bois’ wardrobe. It told the fall from grace story of her owner exactly the way it should. From the classic stylish suit in the first scene to the last scene where Blanche got nothing but a plain under-dress on, the status change of the character was more than obvious. As for Stan, it was just a set of beefcake outfit to show off the muscles to demonstrate the animalistic instinct of the character - really not much to do or say with that.
Performance wise, Cate demonstrated why she is one of the most sought after actresses in her generation. She basically lived the character in front of the audience. There was not much of Cate left on the stage. Every word she uttered just jumped out of the page in the exact way you would imagine the character to say it. The good part was that she was not over theatrical during the psychotic scenes, which made it a lot more believable. The way she tried to hold herself together while breaking down bit by bit through every single scene was brilliantly precise that you just wanted to see more of what’s going to happen next. Joel Edgerton as Stan had big shoes to fill. He was obviously buffed up for the role and he did have a few moments that he grabbed the essence of the character. However, it was really hard to match the now immortalised version by Brando. I am not saying that he is not good, but I just couldn’t see that kind of charm that came through from Brando’s version. That kind of baby innocent and “straight forward believe” charm that got Stella going back for more. Joel’s Stan is just rough edges all over the place, which worked really well most of the time, but then when he needed to woo Stella, he just didn’t really have it all. And in my opinion, this is extremely important to have that kind of baby charm with Robin McLeavy’s Stella. Basically Stella worked on maternity instincts. It was not an accident that Stella was pregnant in the play. When she described about Stan, it was his baby or childish side that attracted her – not just the animalistic features of her husband. Also when Blanche described about Stella to Mitch, she mentioned that Stella was older than she was, which I could be reading too much into it, but to me was also a hint of magnifying the maternity instinct of Stella. She thrived on maintaining the balance of the two kids in the house who were competing for her attention. And that was why when she went into labour, the balance broke and disaster struck. McLeavy’s performance was not bad, but maybe lacked the hint of maturity and maternity that I was looking for in this character. I always think that Stella was a really overlooked and difficult character as Blanche and Stan were such out there – and they have to be because they were competing with each other throughout the play. Tim Richards did a great job as Mitch. His yearning for Blanche and eventually heartbreaks were well portrait without over doing it. They were two lonely souls trying to seek refuge in each other, only to find out that the stake was much higher than Mitch could take. His dilemma between affection and ration was displayed skilfully by Tim Richard’s interpretation.
Liv Ullmann’s direction was on the whole precise and exactly what you would expect from a Tennessee Williams’ play. With such a bunch of good actors to work with I am sure work will have been easier. The good part was you don’t feel the performers competing with each other. That’s what’s essential for an ensemble cast.
In all, Sydney Theatre Company’s “Streetcar” was a great value for money production. You did think that the money is well spent and despite its length you didn’t really realised that time is a factor because you would be completely absorbed into their world.
My last line for the play will be: “Man I want to be that “Young Collector” guy. At least I got to kiss Cate while nobody did!”
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