A Streetcar Named Desire

theatre: Young Vic, London
author: Tennesse Williams
director: Benedict Andrews

seen at cinema in October during one of the NT live screenings

plot: Faded Southern belle Blanche DuBois comes to visit her pregnant sister in a seedy section of New Orleans. Stella's boorish husband, Stanley Kowalski, not only regards Blanche's aristocratic affectations as a royal pain but also thinks she's holding out on inheritance money that rightfully belongs to Stella. On the fringes of sanity, Blanche is trying to forget her checkered past and start life anew. Attracted to Stanley's friend Mitch, she glosses over the less savory incidents in her past, but she soon discovers that she cannot outrun that past, and the stage is set for her final, brutal confrontation with her brother-in-law.

what I liked: I´m not usually a fan of seeing theatre on stage but as I couldn´t get a ticket for the real thing this was the best option. All actors were good and through the contantly revolving stage in the middle of the audience you were pulled in the action from the very beginning and fortunately the characters didn´t get overpowered by the set design. Gillian Anderson was the perfect Blanche - childish, annoying, seductive, out of touch with reality and needy - a Carrie Bradshaw who has lost grip of her life.

what I didn´t like: Gillian Anderson surely was terrific but her high pitched whiny Southern singsong got a little bit annoying after a while.

verdict: Although it is quite a long and exhausting play I never drifted away and enjoyed it a lot. Brilliant evening in cinema that could have only be topped by an evening in theatre.