A Streetcar Named Desire

 

After a seven hour pilgrimage I have spent the afternoon in darkness with about 350 strangers, Paul Mescal, Anjana Vasan and Patsy Ferran.

After failing to be organised enough in advance to get tickets for the resolutely sold out A Streetcar Named Desire we decided to have a last ditch attempt at getting returns.  So, I left home at 6.45am, arriving to grab places 11th and 12th in the returns queue at just before 9.  We finally got our call for tickets at 1.45pm when the auditorium was already open for the matinee and we had just decided to stick out the queue to the evening.

The play as performed here is spare, the distilled essence of all that theatre is about.  A bare stage in a tiny theatre creates an intensity to start with and the deceptive simplicity of the staging with intricate choreography and evocative sound and music meant there was nowhere to look except at the performances and the stark reality of the power play between and within the sexes.  

Paul Mescal is all raw toxic animal masculinity, while Patsy Ferran’s Blanche and her carefully constructed persona disintegrates (or perhaps more accurately, is broken) in front of our eyes and Stella (AnjanaVasan) is caught between them 

This was one of those afternoons where it feels like the audience are breathing together, and there was that wonderous moment after final blackout where you could actually hear the audience take a breath as one before the applause.  

Everything else I book for this year has a lot to live up to. 

EDIT: A further run has been announced so we could have waited after all, but actually I had a really good time spending the morning with other theatre geeks like us so I don’t actually regret it at all.  Although,  the constant tension was painful as a pair of tickets dropped through about once an hour - could have done without that bit!