Un Tramway Nommé Désir (A Streetcar Named Desire)
La Comédie-Française
5 February - 2 June 2011, 8.30pm
6-39 euros
In French
****
La Comédie-Française's decision to stage the first American play in its 330 year history has caused quite a stir amongst the French theatrical establishment. The company's closely guarded repetoire admitted Shakespeare's 'Merry Wives of Windsor' only last season, and now, in an effort to raise the company's international profile, diversify it's audience, and thus compensate for europe-wide spending cuts that have hit the heavily-subsidised French institution particularly hard, the Comédiens-Français have commissioned New Yorker Lee Breuer to direct Tennessee Williams' 'A Streetcar Named Desire" for its prestiguous Salle Richelieu.
Under the direction of renowned avant-garde director Breuer, experimental theatre company Mabou Mines re-imagine this great classic of nineteenth-century theatre in an elaborate and highly conceptual production that seeks to utilise the elegance of Orientalist Japanese decor and theatrical techniques as a metaphor for William's antebellum South. Lavishly embroidered kimonos replace the white lace dresses associated with Vivien Leigh's faded southern belle, and as the sisters trip around the stage reminissing about the family's Mississippi plantation, Belle Reve, their every move, each bourbon and each cigarette, is facilitated by a silent troup of masked kuroko stagehands. Indeed, the production's overtly Japanese aesthetic creates a suitably sensual backdrop for Stanley and Stella's passionate relationship whilst allowing menacing dark shadows to haunt Blanche's fantastically decadent dreamland from the start. From the very moment Blanche steps off her streetcar, these dark shadows subtly but relentlessly break down the divisions between reality and performance, actuality and theatricality, the security of definition and borderless chaos.
Magnificent painted dogugaeshi screens, depicting the harrowing images of a warrior killed in battle, descend over the stage and produce a similar effect to a flip book, layering progressively disturbing glimpses of Blanche's inner turmoil to represent her simultaneous rejection of and obsession with the bloody traumas of her stained past.
However, after three and a quater hours of grand scene changes along an extrodinary diversity of thematic lines; the stage variously hosts several New Orleans jazz interludes, a somewhat uneccessary metamorphosis of Stella into Stanley's guardian angel (complete with rigging), and a rather scary scene which sees the latter transformed from a hard-drinking Hell's Angel to a truly terrifying clown of the nightmare variety, it almost seems as if Breuer has gone too far in distancing this landmark production from the straight-up realism of Elia Kazan's 1951 film classic. The clash of thematic accents detracts from the effective unifying force of Orientalist Japan and although it feels as if no expense has been spared, it likewise feels as if no artistic idea whatsoever has been discarded.
The cast deliver a tight, energetic and unified performance, as is to be expected from La Comédie-Française troupe, even when under the direction of a non-French speaker such as Breuer. An outstanding, fresh interpretation from Françoise Gillard as Stella, together with Eric Ruf's clownish Stanley, produces an utterly absorbing and convincing on-stage relationship between husband and wife; and Anne Kessler as Blanche DuBois brings the perfect balance of vanity, grace, fragility and finally desperation to the iconic role.
An ambitious, intelligent, somewhat baffling but nonetheless visually spectacular production that triumphantly marks the premier of american playwriting at La Comédie-Française.
La Comédie-Française's decision to stage the first American play in its 330 year history has caused quite a stir amongst the French theatrical establishment. The company's closely guarded repetoire admitted Shakespeare's 'Merry Wives of Windsor' only last season, and now, in an effort to raise the company's international profile, diversify it's audience, and thus compensate for europe-wide spending cuts that have hit the heavily-subsidised French institution particularly hard, the Comédiens-Français have commissioned New Yorker Lee Breuer to direct Tennessee Williams' 'A Streetcar Named Desire" for its prestiguous Salle Richelieu.
Under the direction of renowned avant-garde director Breuer, experimental theatre company Mabou Mines re-imagine this great classic of nineteenth-century theatre in an elaborate and highly conceptual production that seeks to utilise the elegance of Orientalist Japanese decor and theatrical techniques as a metaphor for William's antebellum South. Lavishly embroidered kimonos replace the white lace dresses associated with Vivien Leigh's faded southern belle, and as the sisters trip around the stage reminissing about the family's Mississippi plantation, Belle Reve, their every move, each bourbon and each cigarette, is facilitated by a silent troup of masked kuroko stagehands. Indeed, the production's overtly Japanese aesthetic creates a suitably sensual backdrop for Stanley and Stella's passionate relationship whilst allowing menacing dark shadows to haunt Blanche's fantastically decadent dreamland from the start. From the very moment Blanche steps off her streetcar, these dark shadows subtly but relentlessly break down the divisions between reality and performance, actuality and theatricality, the security of definition and borderless chaos.
Magnificent painted dogugaeshi screens, depicting the harrowing images of a warrior killed in battle, descend over the stage and produce a similar effect to a flip book, layering progressively disturbing glimpses of Blanche's inner turmoil to represent her simultaneous rejection of and obsession with the bloody traumas of her stained past.
However, after three and a quater hours of grand scene changes along an extrodinary diversity of thematic lines; the stage variously hosts several New Orleans jazz interludes, a somewhat uneccessary metamorphosis of Stella into Stanley's guardian angel (complete with rigging), and a rather scary scene which sees the latter transformed from a hard-drinking Hell's Angel to a truly terrifying clown of the nightmare variety, it almost seems as if Breuer has gone too far in distancing this landmark production from the straight-up realism of Elia Kazan's 1951 film classic. The clash of thematic accents detracts from the effective unifying force of Orientalist Japan and although it feels as if no expense has been spared, it likewise feels as if no artistic idea whatsoever has been discarded.
The cast deliver a tight, energetic and unified performance, as is to be expected from La Comédie-Française troupe, even when under the direction of a non-French speaker such as Breuer. An outstanding, fresh interpretation from Françoise Gillard as Stella, together with Eric Ruf's clownish Stanley, produces an utterly absorbing and convincing on-stage relationship between husband and wife; and Anne Kessler as Blanche DuBois brings the perfect balance of vanity, grace, fragility and finally desperation to the iconic role.
An ambitious, intelligent, somewhat baffling but nonetheless visually spectacular production that triumphantly marks the premier of american playwriting at La Comédie-Française.
