A Streetcar Named Desire at the Kennedy Center
Lisa Tomasetti
Cate Blanchett (Blanche) in A Streetcar Named Desire
Cate Blanchett is good at many things: acting (duh), being pretty (obviously), and, as she says about her portrait of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, "soft diplomacy" (huh?). Anyone who catches her performance in Tennessee Williams' classic play at The Kenendy Center's Eisenhower Theater will quickly discover that the Oscar winner is not only talented and beautiful, but she's also fantastic at being an undermining, off-kilter, catty bitch. Playing the heartbreakingly kooky sister and guest of Stella Kowalski and her husband Stanley, Blanchett deftly executes her character’s subtle abusiveness. Her delivery of each line evokes both laughter and a painful wince—from pointing out her sister's weight gain, to complimenting the house as a place that "only Edgar Allen Poe could do justice," to describing Stanley’s Polish nationality as "something like Irish, only not as highbrow." She's wickedly funny and just plain wicked.
When highfalutin' Blanche is deposited at her sister's door, it's clear that she's teetering on some sort of psychological brink. Overwhelmed by jealous feelings toward Stella (Robin McLeavy), her thwarted romantic efforts with Mitch (Tim Richards), and her increasingly hateful interactions with Stanley (Joel Edgerton), Blanche is suspended in a precarious mental balancing act. Blanchett brings Blanche back and forth from the edge of madness as her character searches for the strength to cope with these volatile emotions throughout the play. Costume designer Tess Schofield further underscores this growing tension through a series of reflective outfits: Blanche's dresses grow grander with each scene, culminating in a birthday dress so ornate that it makes her look like a cake topper. Fittingly, this sense of extravagance begins to slip away as Blanche’s mental state falters—by the time she's taken away in the end, she wears nothing but a slip.
Any actor who takes on the role of Stanley Kowalski, meanwhile, shoulders the burden of being compared to Marlon Brando, but Edgerton is able to hold his own. He's barrel-chested and brash, as expected, and can shatter a dish into a million pieces with a quick snap of his wrist. Edgerton's characterization is also softer in several telling moments. Where Brando sank to his knees as he called to Stella in Streetcar's most famous scene, Edgerton instead collapses to the ground, lying helplessly and weeping as his wife comes to scoop him into bed.
The setting of Stella and Stanley’s one-bedroom New Orleans apartment has never looked so austere, as the play’s sense of doom and gloom prevails throughout the performance. Whether in the set design's ominous charcoal facade, the flickering thunderstorms through a window, or the dimming of the room's solitary bulb (thanks to a paper lantern Blanche bought to fancy up the place), there is a shadow of darkness that permeates both the characters and the story.
This is a rare production of Streetcar that features the all-Australian cast of the Sydney Theatre Company. The actors struggle with the deep Southern accents that the play often demands, but manage to pull it off despite the occasional Aussie drawl. Yet even with such a stellar cast and production crew, Blanchett still steals the show. There’s nothing quite like seeing her perform in person—especially after having only watched her on film. It's like noticing a beautiful painting in a textbook then going to see it in person: You know you're going to be dazzled, and yet you’re still surprised by how much the experience moves you. Perhaps that’s a bit of a grandiose statement, but it’s fitting for such a grand performer—Blanchett commands this production of Streetcar from the moment her trembling frame first moves across the stage to the climactic agony of seeing her dragged away.
