NY/NJ area: Do not miss the Laila Robbins Blanche

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/27/08 at 9:17pm

I've seen many a STREETCAR, fine ones, poor ones, what-where-they-thinking? productions.

But Laila Robbins is currently (only thru 10/5) giving one of the most complex performances of this marathon role at the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ. She is in every way masterfully connected: funny, smart, stunningly beautiful, shrewd, truthful, and ultimately one of the most heartbreaking. (I'd have to go back to Lois Nettleton at the Kennedy Center 30 years ago to remember feeling so strongly about a Blanche.) Anyone in the tristate area who has felt let down by some mediocre STREETCARS in recent years -- and there have been many (Danner and Aidan Quinn my own nadir) should take NJ Transit out to nearby Madison and see this breathtaking work by an actress at the top of her game. Robbins first played the role at the Steppenwolf, and has returned to it, probably with a new passion and investment for finding yet another layer. Find it she has. It's all there -- one of the finest takes on this role ever. The production around her is quite good.

[Dre2387]

Posted: 9/27/08 at 11:05pm

I wish i could see it. I live in the next town over (when I'm not at college) and I've done a props internship and stage management internship there in the past 3 summers. Almost every production they have put on there is brilliant. someone mentioned that they should get the regional Tony one year and I hope they get it soon, cause they deserve it so much.

and the director of Streetcar? Artistic director of the theater, Bonnie Monte. Little crazy but a genius. She has built that theater up from nothing in like the past 17 or 18 years. She's brilliant.

my avatar is from the outdoor production done 2 summers ago. :)

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/28/08 at 9:34am

I'm no shill for this theater -- haven't loved everything I've seen there, or all of Monte's flourishes. And I wasn't totally in the thrall of the attractive but somewhat mannered Robbins' performance in CHERRY ORCHARD there a few seasons back, though I certainly admired it.

But this really is a revelatory Blanche, one of the finest I've ever seen. There are some spectacular set pieces (fine comedy in the "...night falls, and the other apes gather..." You can see what a spellbinding teacher Blanche once was)... and some really dangerous choices -- the scene with the Evening Star collection boy takes on the inherent pedophilia without blinking or romanticizing it, even as your heart breaks to watch this woman reach out so hungrily -- physically and emotionally -- to such an obvious child. (To cast a real child -- someone who seems not to yet shave, makes it creepier and more devastating.)

And then there are the requisite turning points -- when Stanley gives her the bus ticket back to Laurel, one of the most crushing blows Williams deals his heroine, Robbins finds level upon level of response -- they keep flooding her face, without slowing the momentum, the whole Kubler Ross spectrum. Here, it's a shattering turn. Also, when she cowers on the floor before the assault by Stanley -- you see her stripped of resources, child-like as she reckons with the inevitable.

But it's all a truly seamless piece, and nothing goes unexplored in this interpretation.

STREETCAR remains a play that reveals undiscovered truths and insights with every production. I never tire of it, because like many greats works, it keeps on giving. I've never realized how much self-preservation is built into Blanche (even in Lois Nettleton's literally towering, I'm-no-a-victim take). When she tries to get Stella to leave with her in this production, you see both a rational argument, and an irrational personality. That tug of war in Blanche is something I appreciate more as I get older, by the way -- the frightening blend of wisdom and very personal blinders that can paralyze. Anyway, this is a memorable way into this woman, and I'm so glad I didn't miss it.

Updated On: 9/28/08 at 09:34 AM