A Streetcar Named Desire - Royal Lyceum ★★★★

Emily James’ clever use of a revolving set and Jeanine Byrne’s shifting, shadowy lighting establish the production’s tone before a word has been spoken. This take on A Streetcar Named Desire imagines not only Tennessee Williams’ sultry New Orleans but also the restless clash of delusion and reality inside the mind of new arrival, Blanche DuBois (Kirsty Stuart). Add Pippa Murphy’s atmospheric soundscape of crackling 78s, whirring cicadas and rumbling streetcars, and the whole sensory cocktail perfectly mirrors Blanche’s turbulent state of mind.

The lines between interiors and exteriors are also erased to clever effect, allowing us to watch the play’s central relationships in the context of the wider community – though, arguably, this comes at the expense of the claustrophobia and lack of refinement so integral to Blanche’s experience of the street.

Weighted down with baggage, Blanche struggles past the wrought iron spiral staircase that dominates the stage and is directed to an apartment on Elysian Fields. It belongs to her sister, Stella, and her husband Stanley, a factory worker of Polish descent. (Blanche’s casual racism is just one element of this American classic that feels strikingly modern.) Their home is small, cramped, poorly furnished, and only the latest of Blanche’s expectations to be crushed.

She has already lost her young husband, her position as an English teacher, and the family home, Belle Reve, her ‘beautiful dream’. Stuart emphasises Blanche’s captivating wit and forced dignity even as disappointment sits immovably on her shoulders. By turns jittery and self-assured, she reaches for the liquor and the worlds of the great American writers with equal desperation. Crumbling emotionally, as the reality of her past relationships break through to the surface, her brave exterior of fake furs and diamonds now comes under the unforgiving gaze of her brother-in-law, Matthew Trevannion’s cruel and contemptuous Stanley.

Her sister Stella endeavours to excuse and temper the behaviours of Blanche and Stanley alike. One of the most affecting aspects of this production is the way in which the warm generosity and instinct for joy with which Nalini Chetty imbues Stella is steadily suffocated. In part this is because she is caught up in the conflict between the two more powerful personalities. But it is also clear that, despite the physical desire they enjoy in one another, the parameters of Stella’s life are defined by Stanley’s – his bowling, poker games and emotional demands. He is, as he says, the king of his domain. Compromise is doomed from the moment that Stanley and Blanche first clock each other, and the mutual protectiveness palpable in Stuart and Chetty’s performances is just one shift in the balance of power that gets under his skin.

Trevannion swaggers and threatens to terrifying effect. The moments when he dances animalistically across the stage underscore his predatory nature, and what Blanche perceives to be the brutish level at which he exists. At the same time, Trevannion’s Stanley introduces a jarring note into the production. This is, of course, entirely appropriate for a man who, from their first meeting, sets out to undermine Blanche’s illusions and expose her lies. He is a natural disrupter. Yet we understand little of why Stanley is as he is, or what his poker-playing friends see in him. Are they as cowed by him as Stella is? For the most part they just seem resigned to his whims. Quite literally, Stanley roars from the stage, but it’s hard to perceive how he connects with those around him. So when the play reaches its final terrible encounter between Stanley and Blanche, there is little sense that we’ve travelled towards something tragically inevitable; instead, it is one more awful outburst of many.

Around the central trio, their neighbours slip in and out of view offering glimpses of what might be. Rows and reconciliation between neighbours, shared laughter of women who know what men are all about (a delightful opening exchange between Deirdre Davis and Patricia Panther), and the acceptance of men and women who expect no more than they have been gifted. What Elizabeth Newman’s direction draws out in particular is the way men and women go at life differently. At one telling moment, the men all line up on one side of the stage, the women on the other, as if the war between Stanley and Blanche is but one fierce microcosm of the world around them.

It is a remarkable thing therefore that Blanche emerges from the wreckage of her relationships with a dignity that rises above the breakdown in her mental stability. Kirsty Stuart steers both Blanche’s course and our own emotions powerfully – from the gripping monologue in which the truth of her marriage is laid bare to her increasingly futile attempts to escape the reality in which she has become trapped. Stuart shows Blanche’s self-belief, as much as her self-delusions, to be as inspiring and pertinent in the age of Me Too as when Tennessee Williams created his most famous southern belle.