I decided to try and blog every day this month, with a
Scottish theme running to each post. I must be doing well because this, by my
calculations, is my ninth post in eight days. And it’s fitting in with my
Scottish theme because I’m reviewing Rapture Theatre Co.’s production of A
Streetcar Named Desire, and Rapture describe themselves as Scotland’s premiere
touring theatre company.
If you remember I loved their version of ‘Who’s Afraid ofVirginia Woolf?’ To quote myself, of that I said ‘This play was 3 and a half
hours of exploration into relationships with the self and with others. Into
identities and how we perceive and are perceived. Into surface and depth. Into truth and confrontation of truth and
avoidance of truth.’
This was more of the same – and, as I did with Woolf, I’ve
booked to see it again.
With Woolf I out and out loved the play, I thought it was
mesmerising – pure theatrical poetry and I had high hopes for Streetcar as
Michael Emans was directing again and I felt his dedication to Woolf would
carry through. It definitely did, the company always begins by really analysing
and deconstructing the texts – every line has a meaning and a purpose.
Speaking to Creative Scotland Rapture say of the play: ‘It draws on deep human emotions fearlessly, and
confronts us with truths we are more comfortable avoiding. We genuinely care
about these characters because of their complexity – none is either all good or
all bad. We recognise their human fragility and relate to them more strongly
because of that.’
I would have to argue that the portrayal of Stanley didn’t
tie to that for me – I didn’t see him as complex, he seemed like a one
dimensional bully in this production for me.
Which was something I had to
really sit and think about because Stanley, in this play, is played by a black
actor.
Prior to going to see the play I had read Brian Beamon’s piece in The Herald about how he couldn’t see how the characters of Stanley, Eunice or Mitch
could be black. Beacom says ‘Kowalski was created in 1947 to be a Polish
immigrant, and as such his race and class informed his status, his attitudes to
life and women. Tennessee Williams’ play is allegorical, a reflection on a
layered, Deep South American society, a world of stark segregation in which a
black man would not be allowed to live in an apartment block with a white
woman, and certainly not a house owned by a woman of colour.’
I disagreed with Beacom’s notions straight away. Yes, this
play is set in a time of deep racial segregation – but where we are now in
society is in a place where (for the most part, I hope) the tensions have given
way and it would not be strange in most parts of the world to see a black man
and a white woman as a married couple. However, as the black lives matter
movement has proven – although we’re not where we were, racial tensions still
exist and having that mix of black and white actors really emphasised the
differences in the white privilege, plantation world which Stella and Blanche
came from and the new world, which Stella was entering and Blanche wasn’t quite
able to.
I was questioning myself – had I fallen victim to the Taylor
and Kanye version of Blanche and Stanley – was I against Stanley and in favour
of Blanche because I was white and I was connecting to the white frailty trope?
Because I do ultimately agree with Munroe Bergdorf that all white people are
racist, and I try to be aware of that. Blanche, played by Gina Isaac, is frail.
There is a lot of frailty present on that stage, but ultimately I don’t think
it was because she was white. I think it was down to how carefully considered
and directed Isaac’s performance was.
Blanche is often presented as extreme, as a bit mad. But in
this performance my heart bled for her. Her breakdown is always tragic,
regardless of who plays her, but, having struggled with my own mental health
issues (which I talked about here) I felt in this production I really got a sense of the circumstances that had
led Blanche to end up where she was, and that it wouldn't be all too difficult for anyone who struggles mentally to go through what she has been through and not end up like her. Isaac’s says in this interview ‘This is a play about people who happen to be the position they’re in. She’s
part of the old aristocracy, part of a world that doesn’t exist anymore. And
this clashes with the new world and the vibrancy of New Orleans.’
I got the
truest sense of the world that she had lost, and I think that’s where any hope
I had of seeing Stanley’s point of view in this play went out the window – he was
all ‘Napoleonic Code’ and I was all ‘Can you get a grip of yourself and see
what this poor woman has lost?’ I couldn’t for a minute think of him as being
anything other than a completely selfish a**hole.
And that’s not to say the actor gave a bad performance, but
Stanley is more intelligent, in the play only he and Blanche rival each other
for their ability to perceive and see the truth that others can’t – it’s what
drives her to retreat into her mind and life in a fantasy where everything is
better, because she sees the stark reality of the world and her lack of place
in it – and he saw it and abused it. He is violent and abusive towards Mitch, Stella & Blanche in the play, and none of them are easy to watch, btu in particular, in the scene where Blanche and Stanley have
that ‘date [they’ve] had with each other from the beginning’ it comes across as
out and out rape. Which it is always is, but with Brando’s iconic performance
in mind there’s been a sexuality and erotica assigned to the character of
Stanley – which is completely stripped away in this. We see him, not Brando. So
in fact, it can be argued, that Joseph Black gave a phenomenal performance –
this Stanley was his own, I just couldn’t see the multi-dimension I saw in
other characters, and it wasn't anything to do with his ethnicity.
Sex is Blanche’s only weapon, and it’s been abused so many
times by the time we meet her that seeing it turned against her in a violent
way was chilling. And that’s I think where all my sympathy for Blanche came
from – her world was gone, she was scared of the world she’d found herself in
and she was weaponless bar sex – and when she did use it she was persecuted for
it. Yes, she abused her position as a teacher, but it was all she knew how to
do.
This play may have been produced in 1947 but the themes are
relevant – alcohol dependency, sexism, misogyny, domestic violence and mental
health.
This may not have been the most concise review of the play –
because I’m still processing it, I’m still making my mind up on it. Two days
later I can’t work out how I felt about bits of it, and I’m looking forward to
that second viewing to try and work that out. That Rapture, in Eman’s capable
hands, have taken a play I know so well and made it something I’m still
thinking about, is a marvel. Once again, this is theatre poetry – and I’ve had
that first reading where I’m swept up in emotion and my experience is still too
raw to process. I’m seeing it again, and maybe then I’ll be able to be more
analytical. If you’ve been thinking about booking this – I highly recommend you
do. But just don’t expect to hear the rumble of that same old streetcar you’re
familiar with.
Streetcar runs at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow till Saturday 9th September, then tours various Scottish locations until it finished in Edinburgh 3rd-7th October. Check dates and venues here.
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