Of all the things one feels for Blanche DuBois it is rarely admiration. Pity is usually the overriding sentiment. She shows up, like some bedraggled creature, on the doorstep of her sister's home, and then has the audacity to look upon Stella's life with disdain. Yet Rachel Weisz's Blanche is unusually likeable, and her performance is utterly seductive. The casting is surprising in that she has the alluring, soft beauty of an English rose rather than the looks of a widowed, alcoholic 30 year old southern state dame, best viewed in a dim light. But Weisz commands the audience's attention just as Blanche DuBois dominates the household she intrudes upon.
      Desire, the name given to the tram Blanche takes to Elysian Fields (the place of her final undoing), is quite literally the vehicle of her demise. Desire led her to neglect her responsibilities as an adult and a teacher and prey upon a minor at the school she taught, leading to her dismissal. Desire fuelled her promiscuity. Desire is behind her alcoholism, and her flirtations with Stella's husband Stanley. And yet desire in and of itself is not dangerous. As Blanche famously states, "I don't want realism, I want magic!", and it is this that is her problem. Her desires are moulded by fantasy and ideals; her regrets and mistakes are masked by lies and deceit; and her sense of herself is governed by delusion, insecurity and narcissism. She has all the weaknesses of a loathsome character, but Weisz portrays a woman who is at once vulnerable, resolute and loveable.
      Director Rob Ashford - better known as a choreographer - has embellished this production by giving material substance to Blanche's inner demons. The ghostly spectre of her dead husband and his lover at times linger in the shadows of the stage, and the Mexican flower lady, cloaked in black lace, drifts through like Death. One of these scenes is accompanied by haunting fairground music that signals the acceleration of Blanche's mental demise.
      Ruth Wilson plays Stella with marvellous sincerity. She gives a convincing, often heart-rending, portrayal of a woman torn between her compassion for her sister and her loyalty to her husband. Stella's masochism is compellingly paralleled with the lethal sadism of Stanley, who Elliot Cowan plays with Brandoesque aggression and sexuality. This balance is vital for the success of any production of Streetcar. Sex is the glue between Stella and Stanley and Blanche's envy of their relationship is as poisonous to them as it is to her. Barnaby Kay lends Mitch - Blanche's last hope of a second marriage - a melancholy that matches her own. Together he and Weisz give hints of the happy future the two could have, and it is painful to watch their dreams shatter.
      Weisz's performance turns Blanche into a woman who we come to respect, and makes of her a heroine as much as a victim. Dressed in a red silk dressing gown she delivers her judgement of Stanley with confidence, composure, post-modern feminism even. Her notion that there is something 'bestial' and 'ape-like' about him not only rings true because of Cowan's portrayal of a violent simpleton who bullies her relentlessly, but also because she holds herself with knowing poise. In some respects, however, Weisz wants us to admire Blanche too much, and she loses the malign intent behind some of this woman's manipulative behaviour. Similarly, Cowan seems at times too brutish and not calculating enough. Elia Kazan's film of Streetcar sees Vivien Leigh as a Blanche that is malicious and bitchy as well as fragile and Marlon Brando's as a Stanley who is always ahead of her game. Ashford's production underplays the darkness of the two character's exchanges and Weisz doesn't quite elucidate the extent to which Blanche is responsible for her own ruin.
      If you refuse realism, what you have is fantasy. And not far beyond, lies madness. Blanche's fantasies fail her, and she, like Williams' sister (thought to be the character's basis), is taken away to an institution. Weisz's portrayal of someone in the throws of a nervous breakdown is convincing to the end. The harrowing silence, as we sit in horror watching Blanche being restrained by the nurse, is broken by piercing cries - she whines like a frightened animal, and then as she takes the doctor's hand, the words we have been waiting for: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers". Ironically, this is not only her final line but perhaps also her final lie, for there is no indication in the play that strangers have ever shown her much more kindness than her family or 'friends'. Weisz's voice and expressions make this the tragic ending Williams would have wanted. Blanche is broken, and in their faces, we see that the others are too.
Florence Mackenzie