Friday, August 2, 2024

Theatre Review: A Streetcar Named Desire

 The Production: A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

The Company: Melbourne Theatre Company

The Theatre: The Playhouse at The Arts Centre

Stars: 3

Until: 17 August


If you get a full subscription to the Melbourne Theatre Company you know that the season will track like this:

  • One play that will stay with you forever (37 and Julia)
  • Three plays which you really like and rave about (Seventeen and the Almighty Sometimes)
  • Four play which you'll find redeeming features with and will leave you scratching your head
  • One which you'll stay for, but only to find out what happens. 
  • And one which you'll walk out at interval.
We walked out of A Streetcar Named Desire, at interval, after an hour and forty-five minutes of the first act, so we did get our money's worth.

And it's not the acting. Nikki Shiels is a very, very good Blanche DuBois, an aging Southern Belle down her luck. The rest of the cast are good. 

I loved the set, which was set on a turntable, showing different parts of Stanley and Stella's shabby flat. 

But the play is boring. Blanche is annoying. The attitudes to domestic violence have changed so that seeing Stanley go ape a Stella early in the first act is no long acceptable. 

If I'm really honest, I spent the first half checking my watch wandering when I could get out.

Jay made comment that she really doesn't like these mid-20th century "big plays" and made the remark that everybody in these plays are drunk. After seeing the superlative Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf a few weeks ago, I know what can be done with these plays to make them excellent.

This production missed the mark for me. I did not care one iota about what was happening to the characters. I didn't need to go back in for the last hour of the play, which is a pity. If there was a bit more narrative drive to the play, I might have enjoyed it more. 

As I said, we got our money's worth with the hour and forty-five minutes first act. 

It wasn't my cup of tea. 

Next.


Today's song: 




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