*Photo borrowed from the web
Last night I went back to the Bio Rio to see the streamed, last night of the Young Vic's Young Vic production of Street Car Named Desire.
The Swedish translation for the title was 'Linje Lusta' which just doesn't quite get the meaning across in my mind, I believe that Linje does denote a train line- and if you put it into a system such as google translate, it does come up as the english title. Maybe this is unimportant- plays seem to transcend their cultural origins. In my mind when I read this play I picture actual places in New Orleans that when I saw them, made me think of the play. I am not sure a deeper visual depth is necessary.
I really loved the stage set, and I was pretty good with the use of music (Pj Harvey, Hendrix, Catpower) to change scenes, although that and the ‘colgate’ toothpaste really set it up as so ‘modern’ or is the word contemporary? The revolving of the stage during Blanche’s ’spells’ was really effective. But better than the cinematic equivalent which always moves so fast I just feel that I am taken out of the scene. I can see why the New York Times critic Matt Wolf said “ A Blanche That Gives As Good As She Gets” because Gillian was a strong and loud Blanche, which made the final unraveling that much more poignant.
Interestingly, Tennessee’s language did not seem dated even though it was juxtaposed against the modern setting and music.
I do think though the streamed audience viewers might have gotten the ‘best’ sight line and also audio via the cameras, I did not suffer any of the frustrations that the reviewers seem to mention, although the first couple of minutes were marred by buffering, thankfully that got sorted out, thanks I am sure to some technician someone in London.
Although I have read the play more than once, I will say this version did open to me the idea that Blanche consciously was perhaps going for Stanley and that she ‘knew’ what that might mean…
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