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Synopsis Blanche DuBois arrives in New Orleans to visit her sister Stella. In the seedy apartment she shares with her brutish husband Stanley, the truth about Blanche unfolds. The delicate, hopeless, neurotic Blanche meets her match in Stanley. Despite her southern belle charm and her airs and graces Stanley can see right through her. Dates and further information to be confirmed
The Donmar Warehouse's eagerly-anticipated and already sold-out revival of Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire opened to critics at its Covent Garden base last night (See Also Today's 1st Night Photos).
The play, which successfully transferred to the big screen in 1951 and made a star of Marlon Brando, centres on fading southern belle Blanche DuBois, whose arrival at the home of her sister Stella and her brutish husband Stanley Kowalski upsets their marital dynamic and sets Blanche and Stanley on a violent collision course.
Rachel Weisz (Blanche) and Elliot Cowan (Stanley) lead a cast that also features Jack Ashton, Barnaby Kay and Ruth Wilson. The last major London production of Streetcar was at the National Theatre in 2002, when Glenn Close and Iain Glen played Blanche and Stanley in a production directed by Trevor Nunn. This time round, choreographer-turned-director Rob Ashford (Parade) is at the helm.
Much like when a football score fails to reflect the evenness of a game, today's raft of four star ratings disguises some major discrepancies between the critics' opinions. For example, whereas The Guardian's Michael Billington was “impressed without quite being overwhelmed”, Charles Spencer of The Telegraph found it to be “by some distance, the best Streetcar I have ever seen” - though both awarded the same rating.
Opinions varied too regarding the performance of Elliot Cowan; descriptions ranged from “chaotically accented” to “riveting”. The evening, though, undoubtedly belonged to Rachel Weisz, who, if she glances at today's reviews, will be pleased to note that the strongest criticism of her performance that most of the enraptured critics could muster is that she is “almost too beautiful” for the role of Blanche. And special mention too should go to the “impeccable support”, particularly of Ruth Wilson as an “outstanding” Stella.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (three stars) - “Rachel Weisz captures Blanche to perfection in the early scenes of Rob Ashford’s atmospheric production, where the sounds of New Orleans impinge at all times on the action and a ghostly choreography recreates both the sexual playing away of Blanche’s homosexual toy boy husband and Blanche’s brutal back entry rape by Stanley Kowalski … He’s a brutish offspring of Polish immigrants, not a time-warped reject from Chariots of Fire which is what Elliot Cowan seems to be playing in his chaotically accented performance … Ashford’s production makes more of the cinematic fluency of the action than it does of the musicality, and indeed humour, of the text. You don’t really feel the play bursting through the actors, more parcelled out in small doses, like nips of Southern Comfort … Weisz … is always best when she’s drifting away on her own fantasies. She’s less convincing when dealing with Barnaby Kay’s insistent Mitch, who might offer an alternative, or in conveying the tragic absurdity of her lost status as both schoolteacher and scion of a large plantation family … Ashford creates some memorable ensemble moments in the community - aided by sharp-edged contributions from Daniela Nardini and Gary Milner as neighbours - and Oram’s design is beautifully lit by Neil Austin and underpinned with a low-level rumbling soundtrack of jazz and street sounds by Adam Cork. It’s a good production, not a great one.”
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph (four stars) - “Rachel Weisz … rises to the challenge magnificently. It's worth pointing out that Williams' own stage directions described the character as being about 30. Her undoubted beauty is combined here with a fluttering, birdlike nervousness, and sudden moments of desperate panic, that wrench the heart … Better yet, she seems pitifully tiny and vulnerable in comparison with Elliot Cowan as a big, brutal and spectacularly muscular Stanley Kowalski. Watching these two together is like watching an untamed beast cruelly toying with its prey … Rob Ashford directs an intense production that gains greatly from being played in this small, intimate space, and in dreamlike passages the characters from Blanche's past come back to haunt her … Ruth Wilson is outstanding as Stella, caught between her forgiving and passionate love for Stanley and her deep sisterly feelings for Blanche, while Barnaby Kay moves from gauche gentleness to cruel brutality as the suitor who might just offer Blanche the possibility of salvation … The show is at times a touch too leisurely, and Weisz could dig even deeper into her character's fear, shame and vulnerability, but this is, by some distance, the best Streetcar I have ever seen.”
Henry Hitchings in the Evening Standard (four stars) - “While no one could convict Rob Ashford’s smartly conceived revival of being lewd, it does awaken the brilliant nastiness of Williams’ writing … At its heart is Rachel Weisz, whose performance as Blanche DuBois ... proves mesmerizing … Adam Cork’s music and atmospheric sound season the drama, and Christopher Oram’s emphatically vertical design, complete with an effective if worryingly wobbly spiral staircase, makes clever use of the Donmar’s intimate space … Over three hours the drama’s concentration is powerfully sustained … Elliot Cowan’s Stanley is rawly animal … After a somewhat uncertain start - sure of triceps, not so sure of accent - Cowan grows, conveying his volatility and energy, though he misses the note of vulnerability so memorably brought to the role by Marlon Brando … Meanwhile Ruth Wilson’s Stella is sensitively imagined - high on the opium of lust, evasive yet compassionate. And Barnaby Kay convinces as Blanche’s admirer Mitch … But the key is Rachel Weisz. Spectral when we first see her, she shows her range as she shifts between sultry flirtiness, light chatter, fevered reminiscence and squawky hysteria … Weisz’s interpretation of Blanche is compellingly intelligent. 'I don’t want realism, I want magic', she declares. This production has both, and makes Streetcar seem a resonantly modern tragedy.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (four stars) - “With Rachel Weisz playing Blanche DuBois there is also no doubt this production will be a popular success. Yet, for all the evening's merits, the perfectionist in me questions Rob Ashford's production, which is often stronger on externals than the drama's inner core … If anything, the bias in this production is towards DuBois herself, whom Weisz plays with growing power. Looking like a young Hedy Lamarr, she is almost too beautiful, so that Blanche's sensitivity about her age seems misplaced. The sinuous drawl of the American south also sometimes eludes her. But what Weisz brings to the role is a quality of desperate solitude touched with grace … But touching as Weisz is, Ashford's production over-externalises Blanche's dreams and memories: we see not once but many times the husband whom she discovered with an another man and who subsequently shot himself … Elliot Cowan is a fine Stanley filled with the right muscular swagger, surface brutishness and sense of his own worth. There is also impeccable support from Ruth Wilson as Stella, torn between her lust for Stanley and compassion for her deluded sister … but I emerged impressed without quite being overwhelmed.”
Benedict Nightingale in The Times (four stars) - “Let me be ungentlemanly enough to be gentlemanly about Rachel Weisz. Her performance as the cracked belle at the centre of Tennessee Williams’ great play is so impressive that I must point out that in one vital respect she’s miscast. Why does her Blanche DuBois feel impelled to hide her age and her looks from anyone, least of all the nice but dim suitor played by Barnaby Kay? ... Stanley Kowalski … everything Williams hated and Blanche isn’t: coarse, insensitive, cruel, destructive. Marlon Brando took the role in the movie and found in it a slyness, a watchfulness, that Elliot Cowan missed last night. Maybe the vulnerability wasn’t wholly there either. But, boy, did Cowan exude danger and power. At times I felt he was overstating the boorish, crude manners … but he’s riveting when he lolls, swaggers, flexes his biceps, lets rip with a violent gesture or a big, hoarse bellow … It doesn’t matter that the director, Rob Ashford, expands Williams’ stage directions by bringing onstage her dead husband, his lover and assorted figments of Blanche’s disintegrating mind, but it isn’t necessary. You can see the torment of the past in Weisz’s face - and the stress of the present that finally, movingly, horribly breaks her.”
“Her delicate beauty”, said Tennessee Williams of Blanche DuBois, “must avoid a strong light. There is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggests a moth.”
Rachel Weisz captures that part of Blanche to perfection in the early scenes of Rob Ashford’s atmospheric production, where the sounds of New Orleans impinge at all times on the action and a ghostly choreography recreates both the sexual playing away of Blanche’s homosexual toy boy husband and Blanche’s brutal back entry rape by Stanley Kowalski.
Stanley, the Marlon Brando role, is the most difficult part, and never fully realized on the British stage. He’s a brutish offspring of Polish immigrants, not a time-warped reject from Chariots of Fire which is what Elliot Cowan seems to be playing in his chaotically accented performance.
The Polish, says Blanche, are something like the Irish only not so highbrow. But Ashford’s production makes more of the cinematic fluency of the action than it does of the musicality, and indeed humour, of the text. You don’t really feel the play bursting through the actors, more parceled out in small doses, like nips of Southern Comfort.
Blanche and her sister Stella, watchfully and touchingly played by Ruth Wilson, are both suitably young. Weisz is transparently shocked at the realization that Stella and Stanley are living in just two rooms, and the proximity between the tenement dwellers, erupting in shouting matches and thrown crockery, is well gauged on Christopher Oram’s set, with its tall spiral staircase and wrought iron decoration.
The haunting scene where Blanche takes brief comfort in the presence of a young man (Jack Ashton) collecting for charity is here an evocation of her own lost marriage. Weisz does that very well and is always best when she’s drifting away on her own fantasies. She’s less convincing when dealing with Barnaby Kay’s insistent Mitch, who might offer an alternative, or in conveying the tragic absurdity of her lost status as both schoolteacher and scion of a large plantation family.
Ashford creates some memorable ensemble moments in the community – aided by sharp-edged contributions from Daniela Nardini and Gary Milner as neighbours – and Oram’s design is beautifully lit by Neil Austin and underpinned with a low-level rumbling soundtrack of jazz and street sounds by Adam Cork. It’s a good production, not a great one.
Fantastic production (for a choreographer) but Rachal Weisz, good at the start, rather missed the mark and lost focus. Also a slightly miscast Stanley who bravely tried to put 'Polack' into his accent but didn't quite pull off the depth of the character. Both were eclipsed by the Stella of Ruth Wilson who really soared and a very subtle performance from Barnaby Kay. Nice to see Daniela Nardini on stage again but will someone please give her a better part. - Joesmith
03 Oct 09
Rachel Weisz is surely now the definitive Blanche DuBois. I have never before seen an actress capture so perfectly such an imperfect character and display her complexities and contradictions with such seamless ease. Superb production. Superb cast. - soobert
11 Sep 09
Rachel Weisz rises triumphantly above what could have been spectacular miscasting. From the proximity of the front row it's clear that Ms Weisz is astonishingly beautiful and so should be totally unsuited to coveying the faded glamour of Blanche DuBois who is afraid to be seen in clear light. But this is a remarkable pereformance, birdlike as Blanche desperately waivers between her awful reality and alcoholic fantasy building to panic stricken hysteria by the dreadful conclusion. Rob Ashford's production is powerful and almost too intense for this intimate space. Elliot Cowan is palpably dangerous as Stanley Kowalski and Ruth Wilson provides excellent support as Stella. Above all though this is Rachel Weisz's triumph, utterly mesmorising and engendering a terrible sympathy for poor, deluded and ultimately tragic Blanche. - David Baxter
10 Sep 09
Just want to agree with the starry reviews below and suggest rds sticks with the movie as obviously no different interpretation is going to make it happen for him/her. This Streetcar has greatness and Weisz is the greatest of them all. - Mikey
04 Sep 09
Terrific set apart from the spiral staircase to nowhere which made the scenes involving the Kowalski's neighbours awkward and most probably invisible to all those sitting stage left. Stanley, Elliot Cowain, wasn't right in the part and I don't think it was the direction so much as he didn't have it in him - OK, he had the physique, of sorts, but one that's more gay gym rat than Brando butch. Rachel Weisz made a huge effort to be Blanche but again missed the mark and probably not in the direction either but by the fact that she too doesn't have it in her. Yes she did the Southern Belle bit alright, but that was about it - it was acting with a capital A and sadly became monotonous. I was desperately wanting this production to work being a huge fan of the Donmar, but it didn't happen. This is very much a case of style over substance and as I have seen a fair number of Street Cars over the years that just ain't good enough. - rds
28 Aug 09
Tenessee Williams doesn't usually do it for me but this was excellent. The last time I saw Streetcar it had Glenn Close as a somewhat improbable Blanche and, for me, it just didn't work. But this production is perfectly pitched and I found it gripping.
Rachel Weisz seems to just vanish in the character and brilliantly makes Blanche look and feel like damaged goods. It's one of those performances that seems to exist almost at the molecular level.
While it's quite hard for the other performances to match up to hers, the beautiful Ruth Wilson is excellent, really conveying how Stella is torn between loyalty to Stanley and to her sister. I'm a huge fan of her but Weisz walked off with it. Elliot Cowan as Stanley is a great brooding physical presence, but his accent was truly bizarre.
As has been said, the design is excellent and I liked the use of music. - Sycamore Flint
28 Aug 09
All the great playwrights and plays of the 20th Century were American - O'Neill, Williams, Miller - and this is one of the best by one of the best. Given it is choreographer Rob Ashford's second directorial outing, his achievement is astonishing. You gasp yet again at Christopeher Oram's design, which makes you feel like you are actually in New Orleans - with a gas street lantern, three story spiral staircase and more wrought iron than you've clapped eyes on in a long time! The three central performances are all spot on - Elliott Cowan's Stanley and Ruth Wilson's Stella are terrific interpretations, and Rachel Weisz's Blanche is simply sensational. I've seen the late Sheila Gish, Jessica Lange and Glenn Close all put in great performances as Blanche, but this one tops them all. This is the Donmar at its absolute best and I doubt I'll ever see a better Streetcar. - Gareth James
18 Aug 09
Faultless production. The casting of a younger Blanche makes such sense, it's amazing that it is not normally done. Rachel Weisz is just superb. - fred
13 Aug 09
Well it is a rich 3 hours and the whole Donmar space is well used, excellent, very well dirceted.
Have to say Ruth Wilson as Stella blew me away, WOW.
Yes Rachel good but for my money Ruth is the star. - jamie tate
05 Aug 09
Rachel Weisz truly gives the performance of the year. A great and powerful play. - Carol
Re-opened in 1992. Seats 254. 1999 - Ambassador Theatre Group takes over from the Associated Capital Theatres as the landlord of the Donmar Warehouse. 2002 - Michael Grandage succeeds Sam Mendes as Artistic Director of the Donmar. Nick Frankfort succeeds Caro Newling as Executive Producer.
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