Tennessee Williams’ great tale of poverty in America’s Deep South midway through the 20th century is always worth revisiting, if it’s told in a way which captures the brilliant nuance of the script.
Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s new production as part of their summer repertory season does exactly that and more, making it surely one of the essential plays of the year for anyone who craves a powerful dramatic experience.
Kirsty Stuart is Blanche, the image-obsessed Southern belle whose bold, happy-go-lucky confidence masks her fear of ageing, and of the poverty that her late family’s mismanagement of their estate is sending her towards.
By means of escape, although we don’t realise this at first, she unexpectedly visits her younger sister Stella (Nalini Chetty) in her cramped apartment in New Orleans’ French Quarter, a situation which the snobbish Blanche finds repulsive.
Even more repellent to Blanche is Stella’s husband Stanley Kowalski (Matthew Trevannion, in the role made famous by Marlon Brando), a card-playing boor who works in a local factory.
He grows to increasingly resent Blanche looking down her nose at him, with brutal results.
Director Elizabeth Newman masterfully balances the tone of this drama, so we feel drawn into the experience of not just the lead characters, but the group of locals around them, including Blanche’s doomed love interest Mitch (Keith Macpherson).
Yet it’s the three perfectly-cast leads who make this play; Chetty as the hopeful but trapped Stella, Trevannion as the downtrodden but monstrous Stanley and especially the excellent Stuart as Blanche, a whirlwind of a character who blows herself out by the end.
Whether you want to soak up the period character of Pippa Murphy’s jazz-style score and Emily James’ novel and effective revolving set, or dive deep into the many themes on display – misogyny, mortality, tragedy – this is an excellently-produced play with something for everyone.
A Streetcar Named Desire is at Pitlochry Festival Theatre until Saturday September 30.
Conversation