Off-B'way Reviews: A Streetcar Named Desire; Ghosts; Vanya

Sex plays a vital role in three classics works, now in revival Off-Broadway: Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts and, surprisingly, Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in a solo adaptation called simply Vanya. How the directors and casts handle this hot topic determines the success or faltering of each show. 

Paul Mescal and Patsy Ferran in
A Streetcar Named Desire.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Williams’ Streetcar has had a total of nine Broadway productions since its debut in 1947 as well as numerous film and TV incarnations. But few have matched, let alone eclipsed, the impact made by Marlon Brando as the brutal, charismatic Stanley Kowalski in the original and immortalized in Elia Kazan’s 1951 film adaptation which also elevated Vivien Leigh’s delicate, shattered Blanche DuBois to icon status. (Sadly all that remains of Jessica Tandy’s Broadway original is a recording of one scene. Her praised performance lives on only in memory and written reviews.) Rebecca Frecknall’s innovative Almeida Theater staging, now at BAM’s Harvey Theater after Olivier Award-winning engagements in London, has divided critics. But I found it perfectly captured Williams’ elemental battle between the primitive Stanley and the delusional Blanche.

Anjana Vasan and Patsy Ferran in
A Streetcar Named Desire.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

I was not as enthusiastic about Frecknall’s assault-and-battery approach to Cabaret which is still running on Broadway at the August Wilson. But her imaginative minimalist interpretation is more effective here. Stripped of scenery and accompanied by a deafening percussive score (composed by Angus MacRae and performed vigorously by Tom Penn), Williams’ immortal play becomes a combat ballet like Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Figures from Blanche’s imagination such as her dead, gay husband (Jabez Sykes) and the messenger-of-death flower seller (Gabriela Garcia) insert themselves into the action in expressive dance movements. 

Film and TV hunk Paul Mescal is a commanding Stanley, holding his own against memories of Brando. He prowls and runs around set designer Madeleine Girling’s raised platform like a tiger, ready to pounce. But the production is dominated by Patsy Ferran’s

Anjana Vasan and Paul Mescal in
A Streetcar Named Desire.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

jittery, chatty Blanche. Barely holding herself together, her Blanche is teetering on the edge of hysteria at every moment, desperately staving off madness with alcohol, cigarettes, and flirtation. The sexual connection between her and Stanley is percolating beneath their every interaction, making his molestation of her inevitable. 

Anjana Vasan’s solid Stella (Stanley’s wife and Blanche’s sister) grounds the production and understudy Eduardo Ackerman (subbing for Dwane Walcott at the performance attended) delivered an embattled Mitch, torn between his attraction for Blanche and his revulsion at her promiscuous past. This Streetcar has primal force behind it but the new, uneven Ghosts does not.

Lily Rabe and Billy Crudup in Ghosts.
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

When Ibsen’s Ghosts was first published in 1881and staged a year later, it caused a scandal, not just because it frankly dealt with the corrosive effects of venereal disease, but also because it took an unflinching look at how the repression of the natural sexual urge can destroy lives. So it’s unfortunate that Jack O’Brien’s otherwise proficient production of the play in a decent new translation by Irish playwright Mark O’Rowe at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theater is drained of carnal energy. 

Written not long after Ibsen had espoused pre-feminist themes in A Doll’s House, Ghosts also exposes the hypocrisies and destructiveness in conventional, “respectable” society. The main character is Mrs. Alving (a powerful Lily Rabe), a widow about to open an orphanage as a memorial to her supposedly noble late husband. In fact, Alving was an alcoholic libertine whose sterling reputation was a facade created by his industrious wife. She is now paying the price for her spouse’s sexual excesses. Her beloved son Oswald (a lackluster Levon Hawke) has inherited syphilis and his health is deteriorating to the point of incapacity. (Remember, this was before a shot of penicillin could fix you up.) 

Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe
in Ghosts.
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

Ibsen’s main thesis is that sexual repression leads to the ruination of all the characters. Mrs. Alving explains that her spouse became a drunken reprobate because of the puritanical mores of Norwegian society. Despite some strong liming and direction, the production fails because there is no animal chemistry between the actors. There is no spark igniting between Oswald and the maid Regina (a feisty Ella Beatty) who turns out to be the illegitimate daughter of Alving and therefore Oswald’s half-sister (introducing yet another taboo topic: incest). There is a similar lack of fire flicking between Mrs. Alving and Pastor Manders (Billy Crudup, appropriately buttoned-up) whose long-ago mutual attraction was smothered by their overweening sense of moral duty. In Richard Eyre’s memorable production which played BAM in 2015, there was a considerable passionate connection between Lesley Manville and Will Keen in those roles.

Ella Beatty, Levon Hawke, and Lily Rabe
in Ghosts.
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

In addition, O’Brien unnecessarily brackets the action with a contemporary conceit. Before the action starts, sound designers Scott Lehrer and Mark Bennett bombard the audience with a cacophony of contemporary street noise—including car horns. When the lights dim, the actors inaudibly repeat the first few lines of the play while reading scripts. Hamish Linklater as Engstrand, Regina’s nominal father, tapes a wooden block to his foot to simulate his character’s bum leg. At the play’s finish, the cast angrily flings their scripts on set designer John Lee Beatty’s elegant long table. What’s the purpose of this alienation effect? To remind us we’re watching a play? That the dominant repressive attitudes espoused by the larger culture of Ibsen’s time are still prevalent today? These ideas should be clear without calling attention to themselves.  

Despite these flaws, there is a dynamic energy here, particularly when Lily Rabe is debating her unfortunate life choices with the self-righteous Manders. You can see her indignation rising and her attempts to keep it down as she is accused of espousing non-conventional mores. When she counters Manders’ arguments in favor of stifling sensuality, her unique voice, a blend of razor blades and honey, quivers with barely suppressed anger. Rabe conveys Mrs. Alving’s conflicted passions as she wrestles with the consequences of her husband’s prolificacy and her cover-up. Crudup has a raw force as Manders, but, as noted, the physical urge is not there and makes him a less equal partner to Rabe. Hawke (the son of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman) as Oswald lacks the necessary fire to ignite his role. Beatty (the daughter of Warren Beatty and Annette Benning) does display a comic flair with Regina’s attempts to appear sophisticated as she shows off her elementary French. She also rises to the occasion of outrage when Regina learns the truth of her parentage and exits Mrs. Alving’s house, slamming the door like Nora in A Doll’s House. Linklater imbues Engstrand with an intense desperation as he tries to reclaim his daughter and his identity. 

John Lee Beatty’s set, lit with meaning shadows by Japhy Weideman, creates the appropriate Gothic atmosphere, but without a fleshly element, this Ghosts fails to haunt.

Andrew Scott in Vanya.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

While this revival of Ghosts lacks sexual heat, Andrew Scott’s solo adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, just called Vanya, now at the Lortel Theatre Off-Broadway after a smash London run, positively reeks of it. Adapted and co-created by Simon Stephens, (director Sam Yates is also credited as co-creator), this one-man version of the classic depiction of blighted, frustrated lives on a Russian country estate contains not only the usually-overlooked carnal component, but also a galaxy of emotions and beautifully delineated characterizations by Scott in a tour de force performance. 

Unlike the clumsy brief modern interpolations in O’Brien’s Ghosts, Stephens’ updating is unobtrusive, plus his contemporary dialogue feels natural and appropriate to the characters. Though the pompous professor Alexander is now a filmmaker and Scott gives the characters a variety of dialects ranging from posh British to country Irish, Chekhov’s Russian tale of unrealized dreams has never felt more intimate and relevant. Scott endows each of the eight characters with a distinct personality, aided with a simple prop for each. 

Andrew Scott in Vanya.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Rather than the usual melancholy brooder, Scott’s Vanya is a manic comic, cavorting around Rosanna Vize’s contemporary set which resembles a combination industrial break room and a rehearsal studio. (Vize is also a co-creator.) This Vanya masks his depression with a manic court-jester vitality. He announces every entrance or mood swing with a sound-effects gizmo issuing canned laughter or popping in a music cassette. Michael, the dissipated doctor, conveys his nervous energy by bouncing a tennis ball. Vanya’s unhappy niece Sonia, pining with unrequited love for Michael, folds and refolds a red handkerchief to express her longing.   

Scott and his collaborators even give life to Anna, Vanya’s late sister and Alexander’s first wife. This character is not on stage, but her spirit is symbolized by the family piano evocatively playing itself at the appropriate moments. 

In addition to convincingly differentiated between the roles, Scott delivers a plethora of moods, passions and subtextual memories. He is unafraid of silence, allowing the slightest whispered line conveying concealed passion to resonate and reverberate in quiet moments. He’s also unafraid of sex, unflinchingly acting out the lust between Michael and Helena, Alexander’s second, much younger wife. As in Streetcar, but not Ghosts, the physical element is definitely felt in Vanya. 

A Streetcar Named Desire: March 11—April 6. Almeida Theater at BAM/Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY. Running time: two hours and 45 mins. including intermission. bam.org.

Ghosts: March 10—April 26. Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, 150 W. 65th St., NYC. Running time: one hour and 50 mins. with no intermission. lct.org.

Vanya: March 18—May 11. Lucille Lortel Theater, 121 Christopher St., NYC. Running time: 110 mins. with no intermission. vanyaonstage.com.