A Streetcar Named Desire
As soon as I learnt that Sam Troughton was going to be in the play I was leaping around intending to go, despite the fact that I’ve never been to Liverpool before. Fortunately my good friend jinxed100 invited me to spend the weekend with her, so in addition to going to the play she spent the day showing me round some of Liverpool and I have vowed to go again. My other friend phyllisdobbs01 joined us for the actual performance, so there was some trepidation that I had dragged two of my friends to see a play they would not normally have considered.
Fortunately the play was excellent. It’s very many years since I last saw Streetcar and I had therefore forgotten the plot, so it was like seeing the play for the first time. The set was memorable - the Kowalski’s two room flat, with the rooms separated by just a curtain instantly provided a claustrophobic feel to the play, with the only alternative being when the house was rotated so that the staircase to the upstairs flat had centre space. The flat itself had the windows etc at an angle which also contributed to the general sense of unease.
The whole cast were excellent. Amanda Drew was completely convincing as Blanche Dubois and has justifiably received several extremely good reviews. Sam Troughton was, I thought, equally good, although some of the reviews I have since read have pointed out that he is not Marlon Brando. But then I don’t think you should expect one performance to be identical to another.
During the story Stanley Kowalski goes through a number of emotions, which Sam Troughton portrays very effectively. His anger at the way Blanche treats him is both understandable and frightening and he dominates the stage. This is one man you would not want to cross. And yet at times he can be tender towards Stella, his wife, and there is no question of the love between them. Yes, at the end he seems total heartless and, as my friend said, he was a really bad lot. However, he also gets to take his shirt off on stage (more than once), which no-one complained about. So all I could reply to my friend was “I think he’s lovely”.
We waited outside afterwards to see if we could get any autographs. Amanda Drew came out and was lovely. I’m always surprised at how genuinely pleased most actors are at being asked for their autographs. We continued to wait and were surprised to see David Troughton and his wife come out after a while, so I plucked up courage and asked for his autograph since his son hadn’t come out. He thought the idea quite amusing, but nevertheless signed our programmes. I still haven’t got Sam’s but one day I will.