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A Streetcar Named Desire
Almeida Theatre, London N1
EVERY new production of A Streetcar Named Desire reminds us of the genius of Tennessee Williams. And every new production sets out to grasp his genius in its own way.
Director Rebecca Frecknall in her new take on the play at the Almeida goes straight for the guts and lays bare its complex, bleeding heart.
Played in the round on a gleaming, stripped-bare stage, this is a director’s statement piece. Gone are the accustomed New Orleans shacks, the low-life period props, the heat, the sweat and the squalor.
Gone are the naturalistic sounds and the passing traffic, and the everyday bedlam of people locked in poverty and time.
Instead, a live rock drummer (Tom Penn) cracks out a beating pulse while the cast play actors, stage hands and characters all at once, in true theatrical style.
At key moments, cast members surround the protagonists, speeding the action and exposing for us an ancient and societal power that both transcends and impels the simple individual.
In this context, Paul Mescal brings us a Stanley Kowalski who personifies nature itself. Fresh from the stardom of TV’s Normal People and the recent film Aftersun, Mescal is the reason this play is sold out, with queues for returns every day from dawn.
Stanley — one of the greatest, most sought-after roles for a modern actor — is, in many productions, eclipsed by the central star-casting of the play’s famous heroine Blanche Dubois.
Not so here. Rather, Stanley holds the centre ground, and Frecknall ensures the action is unequivocally steeped in maleness, masculinity and animal energy.
Mescal inhabits the role like a tiger in its natural habitat, soft-footedly prowling the stage, fearsomely dead behind the eyes until suddenly he strikes with primordial rage or softens and holds his woman like a cat that has briefly retracted its claws.
Not only is this an inspired performance, it presents the play with the kind of balance I’m sure the author intended.
It brings us a world we now try to escape but which originates in nature: a world where men and maleness shape our destiny, and women — fragile and vulnerable — struggle but lose.
A truly formidable scenario that makes the blood run cold!
Runs until February 4 2023. Box office: (020) 7359-4404, almeida.co.uk.
