until 19 Sep 14 (ticketed)
This is a play that though now a classic, in the 40s was deemed pornographic and shameful, proving exactly the point the play was trying to make.
It is a play of exposing pretences - the pretence of theatre itself, the pretence that domestic violence is a form of passionate love, the pretence of the fragile heroine to hold on to a never existent grandeur, the pretence of the alpha males of being strong, the pretence of a society that still often forces homosexuality to the shadows and honest men to deception. The pretences fall, and the broken heroine stands in the end destroyed but triumphant, she has the audience affection. The strong, on the contrary, stand despised.
It is such a thin line to write, direct and produce a play or a film where extreme violence towards women is not portrayed in a way that is actually voyeuristic or even misogynistic in effect. It is a very thin line, as well, to write or play the character of a broken alcoholic, delusional lost soul stumbling all over in their free fall, without presenting a caricature.
Maybe it needs a writer that writes out of care for someone they love, like Tennessee Williams did, having as it is said, never forgiven his family for his sister’s failed lobotomy.
Maybe it needs a ‘degenerate’, like himself, to write about the tragedy of other degenerates and their betrayals.
Someone that maybe has loved abusive men to write about abuse.
Someone alcoholic, to write about alcoholism stripped of moral judgement.
Maybe, in the end, it takes a writer that writes out of love for other souls, not out of pity, to write Blanche DuBois.
But it definitely also takes a most insightful casting decision and an outstanding, remarkable performance by Gillian Anderson to make Blanche breathe again, her sweet alcoholic breath of sadness and pain onto us, reaffirming her right to never be forgotten, her and all those other lost souls, standing and dancing, unrepentant, under a discobole while we only see a cheap, flat, kitchen light.
more info:
http://www.youngvic.org/whats-on/a-streetcar-named-desire
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/a-streetcar-named-desire-young-vic-review-gillian-anderson-gives-shatteringly-powerful-performance-9634804.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Williams
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