Theatre
A Streetcar Named Desire
Pitlochry Festival Theatre
Neil Cooper
Four stars
A hothouse atmosphere prevails from the start in Elizabeth Newman’s revival of Tennessee Williams’ Deep South 1947 pot-boiler.
You can see the effects of the stifling humidity on the array of plants dotted about designer Emily James’s revolving stage, drooped and wilting as we chase the play’s psychodrama from room to room.
The heat is on in a different way for Blanche DuBois, the woman on the run who blows into the cramped New Orleans home of her sister Stella and her husband Stanley. With the DuBois family fortune having seemingly disappeared along with the lost youth Blanche so desperately clings to, all Blanche can do inbetween bath times is hide in the shadows lest her brittleness be exposed to the glare of Jeanine Byrne’s lighting design and she break into a million pieces and turn to dust.
There is nevertheless a tough intelligence to Kirsty Stuart’s portrayal of Blanche, who in Newman’s production is survivor as much as victim. The latter isn’t just at the hands of Matthew Trevannion’s Stanley, but of an entire society where women are meant to take part in some eternal beauty contest, before being all washed up before they’re 30.
READ MORE: A flavour of the Fringe: 10 shows to whet your appetite
On one level, Nalini Chetty’s Stella seems to have escaped all that, and while you can see the mutual primal appeal in her relationship with Stanley - himself demonised for his Polish roots - in the end it’s hard to sympathise with Stanley’s quickness to raise a hand.
It’s hard to see Stanley here as anything other than a thug and a bully, who treats both Stella and Blanche appallingly.
Blanche’s gradual mental collapse is set to a woozy after-hours jazz soundtrack that grows increasingly cracked under composer and sound designer Pippa Murphy’s stuck-record manipulations. By the end, you fear for where Blanche might end up next beyond her own desires in this subtle but disarmingly fresh look at a 20th century classic.
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 here