Official "A Streetcar Named Desire" Review Thread

AP First:
"This nearly three-hour production of Williams’ classic 1947 drama, reverentially directed by Edward Hall, is a curiously passionless affair, missing much of the play’s sensuality and even some of its poetry. Despite the marquee value of Natasha Richardson as Blanche DuBois, Williams’ desperate Southern belle, and John C. Reilly as Stanley, her lower-class nemesis, the evening rarely catches fire, even when the two protagonists are battling each other on stage. ¶
That battle includes plenty of brute force but not much sexual tension. Reilly’s Stanley is a crude, rude fellow, but the actor’s plain, beefy features make one wonder why Blanche is strangely attracted to her brother-in-law. There’s not much mystique in Reilly’s performance, although he certainly has the lung power to bellow Stanley’s more belligerent outbursts."

and
"Yet Richardson’s Blanche is more flinty than fragile, displaying a steeliness not usually found in this vulnerable woman, whose mental state is rapidly unraveling. The actress excels at that disintegration."

"Hall spreads the production across the wide Studio 54 stage, and designer Robert Brill has created a particularly atmospheric environment of wrought-iron staircases for the play’s florid French Quarter setting. It’s too bad more of that floridness couldn’t have found its way into Hall’s unfortunately off-the-track “Streetcar."

Eeek. Not a good start.

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"That battle includes plenty of brute force but not much sexual tension. Reilly’s Stanley is a crude, rude fellow, but the actor’s plain, beefy features make one wonder why Blanche is strangely attracted to her brother-in-law."

WOW. Was that a direct quote from my review here?

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Full text?

Link?

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Here's Broadway.com

Similar feelings...again...not seeing the heat between Richardson and O'Reilley and questions why the sexual tension would be there...

http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=511052

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Broadway.com is mixed-to-negative:

"Reilly is the unlikeliest Stanley since Ned Flanders warbled to Marge in a musical version called Streetcar! on The Simpsons.
It was for this reason that many eyebrows raised at the news that Edward Hall, an enterprising young London director making his Broadway debut, had cast Reilly. (Co-star Natasha Richardson, by comparison, was seemingly born to play Blanche DuBois, the wilting Southern flower whose arrival unleashes all sorts of hormonal mayhem.) Those eyebrows are likely to drop only partially at the sight of Hall's efforts. He offers a moment of head-scratching tedium for every moment of shrewd insight, resulting in a serviceable but earthbound production of Williams' 1947 masterpiece.


Once you get past the counterintuitive casting of Reilly (if you can get past it), Hall's biggest innovation is an attempt to strip away some of the play's magnolia-scented nostalgia. Upon arriving at the Kowalskis' cramped New Orleans apartment, Blanche puts paper lanterns over the bare light bulbs and declares, "I don't tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth." Hall falls squarely on the side of truth, tearing down Williams' lanterns and shining a fairly harsh light on the play's sweaty couplings and confessions.


Perhaps to compensate for the lack of smolder, Hall and Reilly have created a slightly brighter Stanley than usual. He's still a beer-guzzling, "Stella!"-bellowing galoot, to be sure, but he also has a wily side to him. When this Stanley attempts to get to the bottom of the convoluted finances that have brought his sister-in-law to town, you get the sense he enjoys tackling the problem. (The casting also serves as a useful reminder that Williams originally wanted to cast not Marlon Brando but the more intelligent--and somewhat less hunky--John Garfield.)

Ultimately, though, the audience has to see what drew the once-genteel Stella to the big lug in the first place. As Stella (a terrific Amy Ryan) explains to an incredulous Blanche, "There are things that happen between a man and woman in the dark--that sort of make everything else seem--unimportant." No offense to Reilly, but this line made more sense when Brando and Alec Baldwin were playing Stanley.

As a result, the sexual tension between Stanley and Blanche stays at an extremely low simmer, stripping from Richardson a crucial factor leading to Blanche's decline. As effective as she can be at conveying Blanche's mental illness, particularly near the end, you don't really get the sense that the play's events have much to do with her condition. And the lack of chemistry goes both ways: Tremulous and jittery from her first entrance, Blanche is so tightly wound here that it's hard to see why everyone gets so worked up over her. (It doesn't help that Hall saddles Richardson with silly funhouse lighting and sound effects during her mad scenes.) That includes Blanche's potential white knight, Mitch, played by a solid Chris Bauer."


http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=511052

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Updated On: 4/26/05 at 06:51 PM

A typically mature response from LaCage.

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Talkin Broadway is also mixed-to-negative:


"Hall's production hits all the notes in Williams's dissonant symphony about the human spirit, but makes no real music of its own. Like Blanche, who habitually turns off or modifies the shading of lamps to control the perception of her vanishing youth, Hall is more obsessed with appearance than substance. We get, therefore, a creepy representative tenement set (the work of Robert Brill) that emphasizes the disconnect between what goes on inside and what transpires in the real world, and carefully focused lights (from Donald Holder) that always know just what to obscure in shadow and what to reveal clearly.

The play's characters are never illuminated quite as well. This production's Blanche, Natasha Richardson, is hearty and robust from her first moments onstage; Richardson gives fine line readings, but never appears lost at sea in a world she's can't adapt to, and never believably captures the soul of a woman who knows her best days are behind her. Whether playing with lights or sparking a dalliance with a young newspaper collector (the too-mature Will Toale), Richardson's Blanche never actually seems to be dwelling in a world of her own crippling creation."

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"If Richardson's head is never sufficiently in the clouds, Ryan and Bauer give appropriately grounded performances that come closest to matching their roles' requirements. Ryan is thoughtful, even mature, and makes Stella a devoted maternal figure for Blanche, and a respite from Stanley's brutishness; Bauer begins strong and slowly collapses, emotionally and physically, as Blanche's constant consternation pushes him to the brink and beyond.

It's Reilly, however, who best typifies this Streetcar. In appearance, manner, and voice, he's as far removed from Brando as is imaginable, every bit the Neanderthal Blanche decries him as. (At one point, he stands clutching a radio as though it's a boulder he's about to use to kill his prey. Which isn't that far off the mark.) But for Reilly, Stanley is first and foremost a tired businessman, the kind likely to snap if he's interrupted while reading the paper after a tough day at work, and who has no real interest in sex.

Thus, Stanley's chemistry with Stella is perfunctory, his stated desire to make noisy love to her (impossible with Blanche around) only a tacit promise and not an urgent need. His distaste for Blanche and her retreats into fantasy register as equally passionless, and are portrayed by Reilly as only mild (if loud) annoyance. This smothers the story's raging fires, and renders the titanic Blanche-Stanley clashes of wills inconsequential; their confrontations are pallid, and they result in the least convincing sexual assault scene I've ever seen onstage.

This production more effectively relates to its material than did two other recent Williams offerings on Broadway, The Glass Menagerie this season and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof last year. But as cast and played, this production has less in common with Williams than The Honeymooners, though Reilly, in addition to being no Marlon Brando, is no Jackie Gleason. Still, it's easy to imagine his Ralph Kramden-like Stanley bellowing, "To the moon, Blanche!" That would be welcome - it would mean that something about this A Streetcar Named Desire could get off the ground."

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/Streetcar2005.html

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Well, I didn't find one single HINT of chemestry between these characters. To me, these reviews are for the most part, right on.

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Thanks, Margo for putting your highlights and reviews. I get so not-confused when you post review threads.

It looks like Reilly is not getting well-received. Like many, I have to say that he's miscast, but I think that with a play like "Streetcar," which has been done soooo many times already, and of which there are already two excellent film versions, you might as well try to make it fresh. Unfortunately, as we all know, Broadway is not the best place to take artistic gambles.

Frank Scheck (Hollywood Reporter, Reuters) is Mixed-to-Positive:

"With a Stanley depicted as much more of a working-class regular guy, this "Streetcar" lacks the volcanic intensity of previous renditions, and the lack of sexual tension tends to undercut the power play between the two seminal characters. However, while it is unlikely to erase anyone's memories of the classic film version starring Marlon Brando and Vivian Leigh, it does offer a more realistic, down-to-earth depiction of its lead characters, with Richardson offering a similarly grounded interpretation.

Reilly, who would seem to be a much more natural fit for the role of Mitch (indeed, he played the role in a Chicago production), lends an entertainingly comic air to Stanley's grievances, and his lack of a powerfully charismatic presence tends to equal the playing field between Stanley and Blanche. Unlike Brando, who left no doubt as to who would be the ultimate victor in the pair's power struggle, this actor makes things much more ambiguous.

Richardson, who has previously triumphed on the New York stage in such roles as Anna Christie and Sally Bowles, delivers another superb performance here. Her Blanche lacks the grandiose qualities of many of the actresses who have preceded her and is more obviously a phony. But her natural beauty and grace, and her sensitive, withdrawn line readings, provide a sympathetic air to the character that makes her ultimate fate all the more moving.

Amy Ryan as Stella and Chris Bauer as Mitch provide excellent support; each gives their character a harder edge than usual, with the result that they seem less overshadowed. Ryan makes clear that her Stella is no pushover -- indeed, there are times when she seems more than a match for her boorish husband -- and Bauer is a less than cuddly Mitch, especially in the scene when he finally shines a clear light, both literally and figuratively, on Blanche.

Director Edward Hall has delivered a vibrant staging, which looks particularly at home in the less than pristine surroundings of Studio 54. Robert Brill's set, William Ivey Long's costumes and Donald Holder's lighting provide exactly the right sweaty New Orleans atmosphere. Despite the theater's effective air conditioning, you can practically feel the moist heat in the room."



http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/reviews/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000895425

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Updated On: 4/26/05 at 09:48 PM

The Times and Post will be SO interesting with this one.

Wow. This is startling. I had heard this was the best play revival of the year by far.