A Streetcar Named Desire (Play)

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    In ‘Streetcar,’ Patsy Ferran Gives Blanche a Nervy New Read

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    The London-based actress has been heralded as one of the most talented of her generation. Still, she worried audiences would balk at her “very unconventional Blanche.”Patsy Ferran will not judge a book by its cover. But covers are important to her. “See?” she said, palming a copy of a Barbara Kingsolver novel at a Brooklyn branch of McNally Jackson bookstore. “Such a good cover. Aesthetics do matter.”Ferran, a London-based actress, is currently starring in Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, just up the road from the store. A latecomer to reading for pleasure, Ferran picked up fiction, particularly American fiction, during the pandemic lockdowns and has yet to put it down. Currently working her way through Percival Everett’s “James,” with Samantha Harvey’s “Orbital” cued up next, she had promised herself that she wouldn’t buy any more books. But the shelves were calling.“I kind of explore cities via book shops,” she said. “That and good coffee.”In the store, Ferran, lively, shrewd and lightly self-deprecating, (“I do my own glam,” she said wryly as she shook out her hair from a woolly hat) picked up and put down several recent paperbacks, enthusing about their feel. “British paperbacks are so stiff, you have to crowbar them open, which I hate,” she said. Ferran decided that she might buy just one. Or two. Certainly not more than three.Ferran leaped onto the London “Streetcar” days before previews were set to begin after another actress had to withdraw from the role.Dina Litovsky for The New York TimesFerran, 35, made her professional debut just after her graduation from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, in a production of Noël Coward’s “Blithe Spirit.” More stage roles followed, including her first lead, as Alma in “Summer and Smoke,” also by Williams, directed by Rebecca Frecknall. “This young actor is a genuine marvel, as hilarious as she is heartbreaking,” one critic wrote of the performance. Soon she was recognized as one of the most talented stage actresses of her generation.Small and quick, with dark, curling hair, Ferran was an unusual choice for Blanche. A great American heroine, “an aging Southern belle who lives in a state of perpetual panic about her fading beauty” in Williams’s words, Blanche is typically played by willowy, languorous blondes. (Recent New York Blanches include Cate Blanchett and Gillian Anderson). Ferran knows this. She worried that audiences would dismiss her as the wrong cover for this particular book.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      8 New Shows Our Theater Critics Are Talking About

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      A British satirical comedy, a Tennessee Williams classic, a soundscape of Havana: These are productions worth knowing about.Critic’s PickAndrew Scott, Andrew Scott, Andrew Scott …‘Vanya’Directed by Sam Yates and adapted by Simon Stephens, this one-man “Vanya” — in which Andrew Scott delivers a tour-de-force performance — arrives Off Broadway after a run in London, where it won an Olivier for best play revival. Though faithful to the original material, the production offers not just modern touches, but also “a new way of seeing into the heart of its beauty,” our critic wrote.From Jesse Green’s review:What makes the production exemplary, like the play itself, is the emotion. I hate to think why Scott is such a sadness machine, but the tears (and blushes and glows and sneers) lie very shallow under his skin. He only rarely raises his voice. As the feelings are evidently coming directly and carefully from his heart, he narrowcasts them directly and carefully at yours.Through May 11 at the Lucille Lortel Theater. Read the full review.Critic’s PickThe lush sounds of Havana.“Buena Vista Social Club” at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater features choreography by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times‘Buena Vista Social Club’The joyous horns and full-bodied voices that make up the beloved 1997 album come alive in this Broadway musical, with a book by Marco Ramirez, direction by Saheem Ali and choreography by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck. Though the show offers a fictional back story for these veteran Cuban musicians who shot to global fame after recording the album, the thrill here is the music, exuberant and expansive, which fills in the beats of Cuba’s history, both in sorrow and in revelry.From Elisabeth Vincentelli’s review:The spirit of the musical “Buena Vista Social Club” is evident in its opening scene. … The music is center stage, and we immediately understand its power as a communal experience that binds people. Therein lies the production’s greatest achievement. For a place where music so often plays a crucial role, Broadway hardly ever highlights the thrill of music making itself.At the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater. Read the full review.A ferocious Paul Mescal in a Tennessee Williams classic.Downhill with no brakes: Patsy Ferran as Blanche and Paul Mescal as Stanley in “A Streetcar Named Desire” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times‘A Streetcar Named Desire’Paul Mescal and Patsy Ferran dance with violence and desire as Stanley and Blanche in Rebecca Frecknall’s gritty revival of Tennessee Williams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In the absence of beauty, brutality pervades in Frecknall’s darker production, which features a utilitarian set and exhilarating performances that ratchet up the fury. From Jesse Green’s review:Mescal is best known and deservedly praised for excruciatingly sensitive portrayals of hurting hunks who can barely acknowledge their pain. (I can’t speak for “Gladiator II,” but he is superb in “Normal People,” “Aftersun” and “All of Us Strangers.”) It was therefore not immediately evident that he could do justice to a character, first played by Marlon Brando, that Arthur Miller described as a “sexual terrorist.” I am sorry to report that he can.Through April 6 at the Harvey Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music. Read the full review.Critic’s PickThe vicious nature of the truth.Andrew Barth Feldman (on the floor) with Joanna Gleason in “We Had a World.”Jeremy Daniel We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Ferocious Paul Mescal Stars in a Brutal ‘Streetcar’

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      Desire comes a distant second to violence in a Brooklyn revival of the Tennessee Williams classic.“The sky that shows around the dim white building is a peculiarly tender blue, almost a turquoise, which invests the scene with a kind of lyricism and gracefully attenuates the atmosphere of decay.”Not bloody likely.Those stage directions from Tennessee Williams’s published script for “A Streetcar Named Desire” may amount to a mission statement and an artist’s credo but, 78 years after the play’s debut, they are no longer marching orders.At any rate, no one follows them. The New Orleans neighborhood in which Williams set the action — called Elysian Fields, no less — has for decades been radically reimagined: as a shoe box, a hangar, a manga, a loo. In his New York Times review, Ben Brantley called that last one, directed by Ivo van Hove, “A Bathtub Named Desire.”Now Rebecca Frecknall, whose Broadway production of “Cabaret” is no one’s idea of subtle, takes up the cudgel. In the revival of “Streetcar” that opened Tuesday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, a transfer from London starring the ferocious Paul Mescal, she literalizes the idea of brutal relocation. You will not find a tender blue sky or even a white building, let alone any lyricism, on Madeleine Girling’s square, wood-plank set. Elevated on concrete blocks, in the gritty dark of the Harvey Theater, she makes the world of Stanley and Stella Kowalski — and of their frail interloper, Blanche DuBois — look like a boxing ring.There is some justice in that: Stanley is, after all, Williams’s half-despised, half-beloved icon of a brute. He enters the first scene bearing a package of bloody meat, which he throws at Stella to cook — a gesture she finds briefly annoying but that also turns her on. No less than her husband, she looks forward to making what he calls “noise in the night” and getting “the colored lights going.” That’s his kind of lyricism. And when Blanche, Stella’s impoverished older sister, arrives in desperation for an indefinite stay, we see its flip side as he sets out to destroy her because he can.In Anjana Vasan’s excellent performance as Stella, our critic writes, we sense her love for her sister, even more than the usual weak-tea toleration.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Paul Mescal, Andrew Scott, Nina Hoss and More, Off Broadway in March

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      Underwater drama, a daunting solo undertaking, a gaggle of students and a version of “The Cherry Orchard” that aims to recapture Chekhov’s winking tone.‘A Streetcar Named Desire’Many times we have asked, “Dear God, ‘Streetcar’ again?” And many times we have been reminded that Tennessee Williams’s haunting tale of desire and violence is presented often because it is a masterpiece. This latest production, a London import directed by Rebecca Frecknall (“Cabaret”), stars Paul Mescal (“Gladiator II”) as Stanley, Patsy Ferran (“Miss Austen”) as Blanche and Anjana Vasan as Stella. In a New York Times review of this production’s original run, Matt Wolf described it as being “deeply empathic” and served by an “electrifying” ensemble cast. (Through April 6, Brooklyn Academy of Music)‘Wine in the Wilderness’The necessary and illuminating rediscovery of Alice Childress’s work continues with this piece, directed by the Tony Award winner LaChanze — who, in 2021, starred in the belated Broadway premiere of Childress’s brilliant satire “Trouble in Mind.” Set in Harlem in 1964, as a riot turns the city red, “Wine in the Wilderness” actually premiered on Boston public television in 1969, as part of a series titled “On Being Black.” The story centers on the fraught relationship between a painter (Grantham Coleman, a terrific Benedick in Shakespeare in the Park’s “Much Ado About Nothing”) and his would-be model and muse (Olivia Washington). (Through April 13, Classic Stage Company)‘Deep Blue Sound’Set in a tight-knit community in the Pacific Northwest, Abe Koogler’s deceptively simple play about the mysterious disappearance of an orca pod requires a strong cast to evoke the group’s ties and bring the show fully alive. Such was the case in the premiere production a couple of years ago, as part of the Clubbed Thumb company’s Summerworks series. Luckily, some of the actors, led by the wondrous Maryann Plunkett, return for this encore run, along with worthy additions including Mia Katigbak and Miriam Silverman (a Tony winner for “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window”). (Through March 29, Public Theater)‘Have You Met Jane Goodall and Her Mother?”In 1960, Jane Goodall set off to study chimpanzees in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) at the age of 26, yet that country’s government still required a chaperone. So Goodall took her mother, Vanne. Researching that story, the playwright Michael Walek discovered that the two women liked each other and got along, so at least his comedy shouldn’t rely on overused tropes of pent-up mother-daughter acrimony. Bonus: There is puppetry. (Through March 30, Ensemble Studio Theater)From left: Alyah Chanelle Scott, Kathryn Gallagher, Julia Lester, Havana Rose Liu and Kristine Froseth in the play “All Nighter.”Sara Krulwich/The New York Times‘All Nighter’One of the spring’s most intriguing ensembles gathers Julia Lester (“Into the Woods”), Kathryn Gallagher (“Jagged Little Pill”), Kristine Froseth, Alyah Chanelle Scott and the rising star Havana Rose Liu (“Bottoms” and a staggering number of upcoming high-profile screen projects). They portray the friends and roommates assembled by the gifted comic playwright Natalie Margolin (whose star-studded pandemic Zoom play “The Party Hop” is available on YouTube) for a nightlong studying marathon fueled by Adderall, hummus and kibitzing. (Through May 18, Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More