Only a few American plays can compare to A Streetcar Named Desire. And of our best plays, Streetcar is arguably the most distinctly American. When Blanche arrives in her sister's apartment, Stella tells her, "New Orleans isn't like other cities." This particular New Orleans certainly isn't. This is Tennessee Williams' city, where people do whatever they want with a distinctly American freedom from tradition.
Streetcar's reappearance on Broadway, from the Roundabout Theater with Natasha Richardson, would be an enterprise of great pith and moment under any circumstances. This time, the production fascinates and becomes memorable, even through its faults. The story of Blanche DuBois, the deluded fallen woman who moves in her with her sister and brother-in-law, is given the emotional scale of an epic. Director Edward Hall's tense direction brings out the humor in Blanche's desperation. And there are moments of extraordinary staging. When the flower seller comes to the door, Blanche bounces violently between the door and the telephone. She looks like she's being buffeted around by a storm of fate, and we feel struck by lightning.
But there are moments as well of false blocking, as when characters drop to their knees. And the production has a stiffness that blocks the sultry eroticism of Williams's Southland. Even when the street singer sings a couple of lines from "The Empty Bed Blues" between scenes, the show doesn't relax. Tennessee Williams' naturalism is a polished overlay on expressionism; the mise-en-scene should affect us directly, aside from the dramatic action. The British have never been comfortable with that, and Edward Hall imposes a decidedly British constriction in Williams. It's the price of his fierce focus.
As for Natasha Richardson: her Blanche is absolutely riveting, drop-dead electrifying. We cannot take our eyes off her. She radiates anxiety. The character is as taut as a violin string about to snap. After all, one of her earliest lines is, "I've got to keep hold of myself," and her problems are only beginning. Richardson's Blanche can't even get the entire line out -- the last couple of words are choked off in her tension. It's not just that Blanche can hardly function. She can hardly stand up. She sways back and forth, like a drunk about to collapse. And so she reaches the other side of despair well before the last scene. When Mitch confronts her, in the last act, she goes for a bottle and says, "Southern Comfort -- what is that, I wonder?" But she is lost by now, without the strength to put up a pretense. She tosses off the line, and it has a bitter humor.
As Stanley Kowalski, Williams' macho fantasy, John C. Reilly is more limited. I hate to refer to another production, but it can't be avoided. Part of the passion of the 1951 film of Streetcar -- and of the original Broadway production -- was that Marlon Brando was gorgeous as well as crude. It's obvious that he and Blanche, as he says in that great line, "had this date with each other from the beginning." But Reilly's apparently been cast because he's coarse -- maybe the homeliest actor in the business. It's hard to imagine anyone -- even that nymphomaniac Blanche -- lusting for him, and lust is one of the playwright's chief concerns. Worse, he falls into false mannerisms, pointing with his thumb.
As Stella, Amy Ryan has nice moments, as in her first conversation with her sister. But she hasn't solved the problem the character brings, caught between two icons. She ends the evening relying on physical attitudes. She says she doesn't believe Blanche's story, but she does. It's a nice choice, but Ryan only expresses it by looking defeated. And so Natasha Richardson's presence dominates the show nearly to the point of hiding everything else -- including Robert Brill's beautiful, cluttered set. It's as if she has such a strong force field that the other actors can't get too close to her. While she has a stunning talent for the character's psychology, her work is self-involved. And she hasn't let her beauty fade for the role. Blanche's nemesis is strong light bulb; Richardson looks good in any light.
Broadway audiences routinely stand for shows that can't hold a candle -- or a strong light bulb -- to this one, but this audience wasn't particularly enthusiastic at the curtain call. It was because we were stunned, and confused. We're not used to this intensity -- particularly when the brilliant elements overpower the whole. But if there was any question of whether the American repertoire has any true tragedy, skeptics' doubts are dispelled in this production. Between the director's acuity and the actress' superpowers, this Streetcar has the authority of Oedipus Rex or King Lear. Blanche's fate is as inevitable as either of those eponymous heroes, and we see from the moment Richardson walks on stage that she's doomed.
