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.