Play Review

Streetcar Named Desire - Studio 54

In my humble opinion...

This was an interesting production and it definitely picked up in the second half.  The setting was appropriate and the sound and lighting was very much in tune with the New Orleans feel.  The staging was, for the most part, very good and only distracting at a few points.  My main issue came with the casting.  They had some great names in it.  Blanche was played by Natasha Richardson.  But she was far too much of a stage presence to be an anxious person with delicate nerves.  She tried too hard to be flighty, then in the moments when she's being candid, she was far too grounded and solid a character.  Stanley was the same person who was Roxy's husband in Chicago.  He's been in a bunch of stuff and is a great supporting actor, but he doesn't quite have the magnatism for a Stanley.  You really don't quite see what Stella sees in him, in the dark or otherwise.  So I think that played a part in the first half dragging so much.  There were some shining moments though and these places made me see the play in its own right instead of comparing it to the movie or my own preconcieved notions of what it should be.  And those moments made it worth seeing.