Street Car Named Desire Review

Very QTC

Tennessee Williams’s masterpiece ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ is one of theatres most renowned realism plays. Dealing with issues of sexism, violence against women and the segregation of different socio-economic classes. The play itself has stood the test of time with over nearly sixty years on the play is still being performed to audiences all over the world. However some, like the Queensland Theatre Company are unable to make the play live up to the reputation it has grown to receive.

Act 1 of the production quickly becomes un-eventful and lacks tension. Through the actors development of there characters emotional depth as well as an improvement in the believability of accents. This along with the more effective use of space provided for a more engaging performance in the second act.

Much of the performances tension is derived from the clash in personalities of Blanche Du Bois and Stanley Kowalski. The most prominent difference between Blanche and Stanley is their heritage. Blanche coming from an old, highly respected Southern family where she was raised to be a social elite. Stanley on the other hand comes from an immigrant family and is a proud, boisterous member of the working class. Melinda Butel did not do her character Blanche justice in the first act. Blanche seemed to have no real hate toward Stanley and her anger towards him seemed much too scripted and fake. This may have been caused from Melinda Butel not asking herself enough of stanislavski’s fundamental questions, to gather and grasp fully the depth of her characters emotions. The emotions showed on screen were feeling built up over years of neglect not from a couple weeks in rehearsal. Although nothing in comparison to Marlon Brando’s performance Jason Klarwein played the role of Stanley Kowalski to his best ability but was obviously not suited for the role. From an audience point of view his bitterness and hate towards Blanche seemed very genuine. This authenticity came not from rehearsals but “from a volatility already ingrained within the actor.”№

Like nails scraping down a blackboard the southern drawl put on by the actors out right abuses ones gift of hearing. Instantly dividing the audience members into those who liked it, and those who hated it. The accents along with certain aspects of the staging made sure everyone knew that we were watching a scene set in the southern state of New Orleans. The accents however also detracted from the plays believability. Poorly done, the accents impaired speech making it difficult to understand at times and annoyed many in the audience who were not used to this style of speech. This could have been improved