Hope you are all keeping well out there as Lockdown restrictions start to ease. As a disabled person I am personally going to be taking this next phase very slowly - though I have managed to get out for a couple of walks and some much needed fresh air, most recently. For the most part, however, I have still been hunkered down safe indoors, with the remote firmly in hand.
I thoroughly enjoyed the NT Live showing of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ well … is ‘enjoy’ the right word? Probably not, but I was hooked! Balled my eyes out at the end of several repeated viewings! And at the risk of sounding like I’m piling the same superlative praise onto Gillian Andersen’s performance that everyone has already heard, damn it, I thoroughly enjoyed her portrayal of Blanche, which focused on showing the heartbreaking mental decline that left her isolated, and vulnerable to Stanley's abuse. The audience could only look on with mounting unease and fear for her safety.
Ben Foster's incarnation of Stanley was a notable step away from Brando's legacy. He came across as genuinely sociopathic and narcassistic, in comparison to Brando's Stanley who tends to come across more as a blunt, working class man who abhorred everything Blanche stood for. These shrewd decisions also allowed for some really charged sparring scenes between the sister and brother-in-law, where Blanche let’s you know she has the measure of Stanley and his games, and we see some former glimpses of the woman she used to be.
I also enjoyed Vanessa Kirby's portrayal of Stella, her genuine love for Blanche really came through, crucially, this served to make the revelations regarding her husband all the more terrible, granting the audience opportunity to contemplate her future beyond the finish of the play with even more dread.
I was also totally enthralled by the gift that is the new production of ‘Alan Bennett's Talking Heads' my memory of the old production is a little hazy, but you can be sure I'll be seeking it out now!
I was struck by how precise, daring and moving this body of work was. I loved the recurring theme of each character having a secret self, another life, a yearning or some inner sadness. It seems trite to say the production was perfect, and yet, to me, the monologues themselves, the dialogue seemed flawless, so too the acting and situation of each piece in their own way … or rather the intention behind it. A writer could learn a lot by placing one of these pieces under the X ray. I may well have a go at creating a new character and self-contained story in monologue format soon. Have you seen or read anything recently that made you race to pick up a pen?