A Streetcar Named Desire is easily Tennessee Williams’ most famous play; it squats over his
reputation rather like the malignant tarantula Blanche alludes to toward the end -as long as it exists;
his other plays (and there are many - all of them various shades of good to excellent to great) get
barely a look in. Recent years have seen a glut of Streetcars - you’ve never had to wait for one,
there have always been plenty to catch - so any new production has to fight to stand out from the
crowd. That’s not to argue against Streetcar’s greatness - it’s endured for nearly eighty years, proof
of its worth - but do we need to see it again and again ad infinitum?
When it’s produced as stylishly and imaginatively as in the Crucible Theatre’s current
version, we do. Josh Seymour’s scenically spare production - no attempt is made at a naturalistic
representation of Stanley and Stella’s poky two-room shack on the Crucible’s expansive stage -
takes a fresh look at a familiar text and manages to say new things about the piece without
desecrating it.
Perhaps the most striking innovation is Amara Okereke’s radical reinterpretation of Stella -
too often played as a passive buffer zone between the contrasting temperaments of her sister
Blanche and husband Stanley - here seen as a figure of some authority, not afraid to call her
husband out for his loutishness or reprimand her sister for her prissiness, and in many ways the only
adult in the room. Never before has the sheer burden of Stella’s life been made so explicit as in
Okereke’s performance, banal household duties still having to be done while the world whirls
around her. Her breakdown at the end, when she cracks under the responsibility of having
consigned Blanche to an asylum, is hard to watch for all the right reasons.
Competing for moral ownership of this still centre are Joanna Vanderham’s Blanche and
Jake Dunn’s Stanley. Vanderham is a wraith-like vision in white and red, her pencil-slim figure
serving notice of an innate fragility, a person marked out from the first for an unhappy ending. Yet
Vanderham mines the incidental comedy of the early scenes, pivoting around Blanche’s fondness
for the bottle, better than most. Dunn, a less emphatic Stanley than is often the case, is still the
pugnacious defender of his rights as the king in his own home and his final confrontation with
Blanche has a slowly uncoiling menace The ‘expressionist’ representation of the climactic rape
was another effective touch.
The most original innovation here, though, is the decision to make Blanche’s dead husband,
Allan Gray (Jack Ofrecio), a silent witness to her downfall and, sometimes, during her narrative
speeches, a physical presence in the action. This worked especially well during the long exposition
section in Act One but came close to being intrusive later on in the play (the point that Blanche is
haunted by Allan’s suicide has been made and doesn’t need re-stating). Somewhat outside the main
action, there is a splendid performance from Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong as Mitch, Blanche’s awkward
suitor, well meaning but thoroughly out of his depth, and excellent ensemble support from Bridgette
Amofah , Lia Burge, Nuhazet Diaz Cano and Dominic Rye.
The resources of the Crucible’s wide apron stage and revolve are thoroughly exploited in
Frankie Bradshaw’s design with effective lighting from Howard Harrison and sound and music
from Alexandra Faye Braithwaite. Despite the play’s formidable length (two and three quarter
hours, including interval), this is a Streetcar worth travelling some distance to catch, especially if
you’ve never seen it before or are only familiar with the less than faithful 1951 film version.
The play runs from 7th-29th March 2025
Reviewer: Paul Ashcroft Reviewed: 06.03.25.
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