A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire
The National Theatre, London

Stuart Simpson

Before the play even begins you will already be impressed by the National Theatre's production of A Streetcar Named Desire. The set is shockingly good. A two-storey New Orleans house, complete with spiral iron staircase, dominates the stage. The imagined lethargic heat created by the warm colours and the many slowly revolving fans hanging from the ceiling can nearly be felt.

There seems to have been a little less thought put into how the play should sound. The notes for the production contain an advertisement for the published letters of Williams. Sir Peter Hall is quoted as saying that he can hear the 'gentle insistence of the beautiful Southern accent as [he reads] these letters'. This is not the impression created by Iain Glenn, who more than most of the cast can at times sound like a caricature of an American GI. This is a great loss for the production, as the atmosphere created by the set should have complemented the slow Southern accent, which itself implies an oppressive heat.

Having said this, Streetcar would still be a play worth seeing if it were produced in Black Country accents and with a set of made of cardboard. The first half of the production is disappointing in some respects. One of the main faults, which seems to be a fault common to various contemporary productions, is the decision to play it for laughs. This may be a prejudice on the part of the reviewer, but it seems that in a play as deeply moving as Streetcar, pantomime humour is misplaced. The humour becomes a distraction rather than part of the play.

This wouldn't be so noticeable, however, if it were not for the fact that Blanche (Glen Close) doesn't begin to shine until after the interval, which is when the play truly takes off. Blanche is never really as ambiguous a character as she should be. Her strength and high-minded superiority are not undercut by her true helplessness and vulnerability. In turn this means that Stanley's (Iain Glenn) reaction to her is one dimensional: he wants rid. This may be why the rape scene itself is far less ambiguous than it should be, as there is never any relationship between Stanley and Blanche other than one of mutual disgust.

All this means that the first half of the play, which works on the ambiguity of both Blanche's character and upon Stanley's uncertain reaction, seems a little empty, other than the laughs. The second half of the play is great theatre. It matters less that we never saw before how vulnerable Blanche was, because it is no longer hidden. Glen Close plays Blanche's fall wonderfully. Her strength in the beginning now begins to work for the role, rather than against it, as her descent seems all the greater for it.

Close is such a strong actor, that when she takes the stage to deliver each of Blanche's speeches, these appear more than ever as set pieces around which the play revolves; Close commands the full attention of the audience at these moments. But there is still something missing in the production, as there is never any real chemistry between Stanley and Blanche.

Therefore, when Stella (Blanche's sister and Stanley's wife) dismisses the rape as a mere delusion of Blanche's deranged mind, she gets off lightly. As the doctor leads Blanche away, Stella's grief, however deep and powerfully represented, stems from the realisation that her sister is mad, and her husband is a brute. She doesn't blame herself for condemning her sister to save her marriage, as she never entertained the notion that there was anything between Stanley and Blanche. The tragedy of the situation is lessened.

It seems that Trevor Nunn has taken Blanche's remark that 'life is too full of evasions and ambiguities' as a hint to remove any evasions and ambiguities from Williams' play. This is a shame, as Streetcar above all is a play of evasions and ambiguities.

The National Theatre, London till 23 November