A Streetcar Named Desire

Dear Writers’ Theatre:

I am so sorry.  So, so sorry.  I just can’t stand the play.  I came anyway, because I love you.  And I hoped that most of my problem with A Streetcar Named Desire is the movie version.  I don’t believe any fan of Vivien Leigh could stand it.  But really, my problem is that there is no one to root for.  I have dismissed several works of “great literature” with that judgement and I understand that it is not a valid criticism for any piece of art.  So let’s get to what might be valid criticism:

Someone was having a bit too much fun with the “intimacy” factor.  I have twice complained in this blog about the goofy seating changes you sometimes make to accommodate a vision for the set.  In theory, I am in favor of it.  I subscribe because I am interested in seeing something different.  I imagine you were trying to give the audience a feel for how the tiny apartment in hot, humid New Orleans was just charged with the electricity of the brewing conflict or whatever.  But I was a dozen feet from your actor’s wet and quite naked butt.  There is the discomfort of feeling the emotional charge and then there is the discomfort of feeling like the place is…unsanitary.

Fine.  I am a prude.  A Yankee prude.  An illiterate Yankee prude.

But I had to leave.

This clip is a decent scene that Writers’ Theatre posted on YouTube.  It is the one in which I find Blanche to be almost likeable.

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