A STREETCAR
Krzysztof Warlikowski
Wednesday 14th March 2012
If you were wise you would not ask me what I thought of A Streetcar, friends of mine were not so wise and were forced to listen unwillingly to me rant and rave for ages about the ordeal that was A Streetcar.
My strong feelings about the performance had somewhat dissipated over the last month. For time it was all I could talk about, unfortunately it was to tell everybody what a painful experience it was, but then that is the role of theatre, to get people talking and debating.
Lets talk about probably the biggest problem with A Streetcar, the subtitles.
The performance was presented in French with English subtitles (a fact I forgot to tell Mum when I bought the tickets, the slightly alarmed look on her face was rather amusing). But you pretty much only had a choice of either watching the performance or reading the subtitles. They were up way to high for you to be able to both, which could have been a blessing because they just didn't match what the actors were saying. The audience would either be two thoughts ahead or three thoughts behind. It was very confusing and I ended up just watching the actors move about the stage piecing together what was going on from my knowledge of the original text. It would have been impossible for those with no knowledge of the story to follow what was going on.
The performance was presented in French with English subtitles (a fact I forgot to tell Mum when I bought the tickets, the slightly alarmed look on her face was rather amusing). But you pretty much only had a choice of either watching the performance or reading the subtitles. They were up way to high for you to be able to both, which could have been a blessing because they just didn't match what the actors were saying. The audience would either be two thoughts ahead or three thoughts behind. It was very confusing and I ended up just watching the actors move about the stage piecing together what was going on from my knowledge of the original text. It would have been impossible for those with no knowledge of the story to follow what was going on.
And then singing happened. In French. For no apparent reason.
I thought to myself,
I thought to myself,
"ok that was unnecessary and jarring to the performance, I hope she dosent do it again"
She did.
This time in English. And then she spoke to the audience, again im not really sure what we all gained from that other than feeling very awkward, but as long as she doesn't sing again i'll be happy.
Not only did she sing again but this time it went on for half an hour.
At this point i'd like to point out that the duration of the performance was
TWO AND A HALF HOURS LONG
oh, and with
NO INTERVAL
This unnecessary singing marathon came towards the end of the performance and it is fair to say it began to feel like some kind of torture. Oh, I have forgotten to mention that he song was accompanied by giant text scrolling up over the stage like the credits at the end of a movie. Who knows what the text said, it was too fast to read and the fact that it was back projected meant that a good chunk of the audience had a light the brightness of the sun shining right into their eyes for half an hour.
Its pretty clear that I did not enjoy the musical portions of the performance.
And then nudity happened. Full frontal nudity. Again, for no apparent reason.
I literally have no idea who the character was supposed to be.
Was it Mitch? Who knows!?
I sure don't.
This is probably part of the review (tirade) where I would comment on the performance of the actors.
But I honestly didn't concentrate much on their performance, my brain was tied up in wondering what the hell was going on.
Famed French film actress Isabelle Huppert played the part of Blanche. I guess she played Blanche well because I couldn't stand her. In the opening scene Huppert was eating bread and delivering the lines so quickly that I thought she was going to choke, it was repulsive to watch and listen to.
I did't really believe the character of Stanley, played by Andrzej Chyra. He wasn't powerful enough it made no sense to me why Stella would keep going back to him.
Ok this is getting to be a novel.
I will say that the set was amazing for this production. It looked like a bowling alley and had a glass corridor going from left to right that served as the bathroom and other rooms that slid forwards and backwards throughout the performance. It was used very effectively and gave the stage some life.
My favourite part was the use of live video stream. There were three cameras at different points in the theatre that were able to deliver different angles of the actors, some that the audience would not usually be privy to. It helped with the intensity of the performance and delivered strength in the actors words when the subtitles failed.
When people ask me what I thought of A Streetcar my immediate reaction is to say "it was awful, actually awful". But thats not really fair, there were some great parts its just that the really bad parts brought the whole things down.
I mean they did put on a performance for two and a half hours without an interval they have to be given props for that.
And if nothing else it got the audience talking.
Or screaming, whichever you prefer.
STELLAAAAAAAAAH!
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