Reviewed by Malcolm Calder
A Streetcar Named Desire
Based on the play by Tennesee Williams
Scottish National Ballet
Dir: Nancy Meckler
Chor: Annabelle Lopez Ochoa
Scenario: Nancy Meckler and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa
Music & Sound Des: Peter Salem
Orch: Robert Baxter, Auckland Phimharmonia
Des: Nicola Turner
LX Des: Tim Mitchel
Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre
Until 23 March
Reviewed by Malcolm Calder
Founder Peter Darrell relocated his Bristol-based company to Glasgow in 1957 promising to entertain the widest possible public and to introduce both contemporary themes and the influence of other theatrical skills to dance as the Scottish Ballet.
With A Streetcar Named Desire and fifty years later The Scottish Ballet continues to do so. In spades.
Streetcar draws many facets together. Firstly, it takes a well-known stage drama, fiddles a bit with Williams’s original opening scenes on the demise of the Du Bois family and Blanche’s descent from pure white chiffon to her arrival in a comparatively down-market New Orleans. And then it takes off – becoming the Tragedy of Blanche Du Bois.
Nicola Turner’s set combines cinematic suggestions mixed with minimalist theatrical staging, costumes and snatches of dialogue as well as music straight from the 1940s, Streetcar uses simple beer crates to evolve magically into a streetcar, a brothel, a market, a bedroom or a bowling alley. Scenes slide into other scenes, then unfold, merge and reverse. I suspect Williams would have been quietly smiling – wholeheartedly and very contentedly.
His is the tale of a Blanche who denies her past, who is dismissive of well-meaning sister Stella, and who is irresistibly drawn to both alcohol and to men – Stella’s husband Stanley in particular – as she tries to gain attention to make herself feel better about herself. And all the while she clutches for that unattainable paper moon.
Today Blanche would quite probably be diagnosed with severe depression and even mental illness. But Streetcar is set 80 years ago and even prozac did not exist. A gradual descent into severe depression is the inevitable result.
Underpinning everything are the symbols around which the story unfolds. The outsized splotch of blood on Alan’s shirt whenever he re-enters Blanche’s both conscious and unconscious minds, the redness of flowers suggesting death and that omnipresent paper moon hovering – a forever an unattainable dream.
Tim Mitchell’s lighting sets moods, isolates space and reflects Blanche’s descent while Peter Salem’s cinematic score is sympathetically handled by a mix of touring principals and the Auckland Philharmonia under Robert Baxter. Intriguingly, it is a smooth and remarkably strong mix of pre-recorded sounds — trains, church bells, malicious whispers — and a wide ranging fusion from wedding waltzes to the brassy world of 1940s New Orleans jazz.
Roseanna Leney gives us a remarkably multi-faceted Blanche, her pas de deux with Evan Loudon (the would-be macho strong-man Stanley) a study in character development. Yes, he does rape her, but it is Blanche who appears very much in control. In contrast, her passive and even dismissive handling of the earnest Mitch reveals further dimension to her Blanche. And, even though a minor role, I enjoyed Bruno Micchiardi’s bumbling and almost Chaplinesque creation of Mitch. However, as her eventual spiral and demise grow and take hold, so does her strength dissipate and Stanley is allowed revealed to be the cad that he is during the final sickening showdown.
The corp are busy throughout with pair work prevalent, quite possibly echoing Blanche’s predilections about others.
This Streetcar can only be described as finessed to fluidic perfection.
Wellington audiences enjoy two different works and it is great to see RNZB featuring cooperatively on this program as well.
New Zealand Arts Review 