I saw this yesterday. I thought it was absolutely stunning. I have not yet seen the Cabaret revival so this was my intro to Rebecca Frecknall, and now I need to see everything she does. Stripping this play down this way somehow made it feel more carnal & more poetic than I’ve seen it before.
Patsy Ferran is the star here in the cast. She is cast against type for Blanche—small, brunette, unglamorous—and she is fragile, wounded, yet also defiant, manic. I’d always considered Cate Blanchett’s Blanche to be one of the greatest performances I’ve seen, but Ferran’s unique take here brings such clarity to Blache’s tragedy here. She rapidly fires off dialogue and is constantly grasping for a new trick to pull out of her bag to keep telling herself & others some story of comfort to hold onto her own sanity . One wonders if she’s ever been a Southern belle that’s now faded, or if that’s even now a story she tells herself to feel something beautiful existed at some point in her life. Ferran is relatively young, and reads young, and somehow her Blanche feels like a wounded feral child, and I found the payoff to be frightening and tragic. This, in my mind, should be a star making performance for her. At intermission & while leaving most of the murmurs I heard from other audience members were, indeed, about how wonderful she is here.
Anjana Vasan and Dawne Walcott are both fantastic as Stella and Mitch. I felt their performances really grounded the piece and the extreme woundedness of Ferran and animal-like Stanley Mescal plays would not work as well without them. Vasan’s final moment is particularly harrowing.
Paul Mescal is good. I enjoyed his physicality and the unpredictable explosiveness of his performance. I admit I was considerably distracted by his accent/voice work throughout the entire piece. It felt very put-on to me & I’m not sure he does a convincing American accent. His voice felt flattened and disconnected & took me out of it. He worked the least for me here, but his choices are strong. I said to my friend it was a bit like watching the best, most handsome guy in one’s drama class play Stanley—incredibly talented, and a good performance, but in general it feels like he doesn’t quite fit the part. In spite of his choices he still reads like a sensitive, boyish guy playing at this part. His casting against type doesn’t work for me quite as well as Ferran’s does—but don’t mistake me, he is quite good.
All in all I thought this was one of the most worthwhile things I’ve seen this season, and more than lived up to the hype.
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