A Streetcar Named Desire

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

Neil Cooper

Four stars

One of the many fine things achieved by Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s outgoing artistic director Elizabeth Newman is this unflinching production of Tennessee Williams’ 1947 play. Revived for this short Edinburgh run, Newman lays bare Williams’ study of one woman’s doomed attempts at bluffing her through her emotional baggage in the face of continual brutalisation. 

One probably shouldn’t over psychologise Williams’ writing, but it is clear from Kirsty Stuart’s mercurial portrayal of Blanche DuBois here that she has been traumatised for some time. Landing unexpectedly in her sister Stella and her husband Stanley’s cramped apartment in a noisy New Orleans community, Blanche’s high maintenance ways have left her jobless, penniless and loveless. 

Blanche finds herself cuckoo in a volatile nest, the claustrophobia of which sees a simmering power struggle between Blanche and Stanley for Stella’s attention. Blanche attracts other attention too, from Stanley’s poker buddy Mitch, whose attempt to court this woman surviving through her fantasies is destined never to be. With Keith Macpherson playing a guileless Mitch, the pair share a tender scene that makes clear where some of Blanche’s state of mind partly stems from.

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It is the simmering tension between Stanley and Blanche that gives the play its drive beyond this, with Matthew Trevannion ripping up designer Emily James’ hothouse set as Stanley, who bullies and abuses Blanche and Stella, responding with fists to challenges to his own frailties. Nalini Chetty’s Stella is a calming presence to both her sister and her spouse, while Stuart’s Blanche looks like she might shatter into tiny pieces any second. 

Pulsed by Pippa Murphy’s woozy jazz score played by a dream Scottish combo, Newman’s production digs deep into the emotional warfare of Williams’ play in a way that shows off the lingering scars of Blanche’s past. She may be damaged goods, but no one is saved here in a show that continues to bring dynamic fresh life to a twentieth century classic.