A Streetcar Named Desire
Seriously? Is there anything the National does that isn’t astoundingly beautiful?
I never thought I would get the chance to see Gillian Anderson’s Blanche DuBois. None of us did. I first heard about this performance of Streetcar in 2018 from one of my favorite teachers, Anya Saffir. She described Anderson as the perfect example of an actor who can literally put out blood, sweat, and tears and then, 30 minutes later, walk into a bar as if that 2.5 hour performance never happened. It’s the difference between “smart” acting and method acting on steroids.
This is maybe why, for the first time ever, I understood all the pieces at play: domestic violence, pedophilia, female virtuosity, piety, and purity. When I first began studying acting, it was impossible for me to understand these basic concepts for many reasons: one reason is that, as a child, I had crippling comprehension skills. Another reason is that I simply hadn’t lived life yet. How could Stanley raping Blanche, Stanley enacting violence on Stella, Blanche having affairs with young boys pass me by? Did I not understand these very adult themes, or did I block out all of these crucial events entirely?
In this staging, I see a proto-feminist play. I see two women who are stuck in bad situations that can only get worse. I see traps. I see no way out. I see suffocation. I see a tragedy. At 10 years-old, watching the Elia Kazan film, I probably thought Blanche was a crazy lady just because she was born that way. Now (this may be completely attributable to Anderson’s performance), I see a woman who is consistently oppressed, outcast, and ostracized. Someone who is trying to escape, but her past is right behind her and ready to pounce.
She lies consistently, and somehow I know this is because she feels deep shame and regret for her actions. As she says, “I don’t tell the truth. I tell what ought to be the truth!” She lives in her own fantasy world to deny her fleeting youth. “Please don’t get up. I’m only passin’ through,” she tells Stanley’s poker buddies. None of them get up, look up, or even acknowledge her existence. This little bit, built in by the director or not, opens up the possibility that nothing is true in this play.
Take William’s first great success, The Glass Menagerie. “This is a memory play,” the narrator, Tom, proclaims. A few years ago, there was a Broadway revival by Sam Gold that people either loved or loved to hate. There was no set besides a shelf stage right with some hand props. Tom looked to be in his 50’s or 60’s. The actress playing Laura was actually wheelchair-bound (everyone agreed with this casting choice, for the most part). All of my friends at the time were deeply offended. Where is the set? Why is Tom so old? Did they even try to create any sense of illusion in this production? Well, no. That’s the point. Tom tells you, at the very beginning of the play (with the house lights full) that this is a memory play. It’s from his perspective, and it is a story from his past. There is no version of this play that is actually present except for the one that replays over and over again in Tom’s mind.
So this brings us back to Blanche, and another plot point I never picked up from the play. It is so brief, but within the first 30 minutes, it’s revealed that there was, in fact, some sort of domestic violence in Stella and Blanche’s childhood, and it’s safe to say Blanche probably took the brunt of it as big sister. On top of all of this, Blanche was the only witness to her closeted husband’s suicide. You begin to feel for the nagging trauma manifesting in Blanche’s head over and over again. It’s PTSD. All of the lies are defense mechanisms that operate purely for her own survival. Classic fight or flight. And she has chosen flight one too many times.
It’s Tennessee trying to tell it “simply how it is.” Every family, every society, every social circle has strong notions. And strong notions beget extreme actions.
. . .
Other questions that have surfaced:
Can a ruined woman ever fully recover?
Can Blanche ever get true satisfaction from men of her own age?
Should Blanche be held accountable for her actions despite the terrible things that have happened to her?
