A Streetcar Named Desire
Eden Court Theatre, Inverness
Mary Brennan
FIVE STARS
When Tennessee Williams dramatised Blanche DuBois's fall from Southern Belle grace into ravaged madness, his words made tainted poetry of her home, family, self respect and hoped-for love, being stripped away in the heat of conflicting desires. When director Nancy Meckler and choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa rose to the challenge (in 2102) of creating a dance-drama version of his play for Scottish Ballet, their collaboration drew on body language, symbolic details within the staging and a mood-setting score by Peter Salem - but, most of all, on the dancers. They were asked to extend their performances beyond delivering the steps, to flesh out character and narrative with an expressiveness that - with the one exception of Stanley's visceral outcry of "Stella! Stella!" - would never rely on Williams's text.
Last week, the company revived what has become one of their most deservedly acclaimed productions as part of a short UK tour - Edinburgh later this week, London at the end of the month - that you could say is a warm up for this Streetcar's eagerly awaited return to America. Warm up? It's already hot and smokin' - members of the original cast are now well under the skin of Williams's intentions, while newcomers are already up to speed with the Meckler-Ochoa concept of company-as-chorus (and stage-hands who conjure basic beer crates into every context from bedroom to bowling alley).
Eve Mutso's Blanche is, if anything, even more harrowing: if her gloriously pure classicism of line, always on pointe, marks her out as rooted in a bygone era, her clinging on to the hallmarks of fading elegance - the little hat, the lampshade on a bare bulb, the girly coquettishness - is like a perfumed snub to her working-class brother-in-law, Stanley. Erik Cavallari's Stanley is brute force made unnervingly complex - to the once-demure Stella (a lissomely sensual Sophie Martin), he's the swaggering bit of rough that liberates her own sexual energy, to Blanche he's the last straw. His degrading rape breaks her mentally and physically, and yes, it shocks. The whole company are in blisteringly fierce form: it's a triumph to leave you speechless.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article