Tennessee Williams’ play concerns those subterranean currents of sex and class, which however Americans might protest to the contrary, runs through American society as much as British. Where D.H.Lawrence might find an accommodation between the two, Williams gives us conquest. Taking this as her lead, director, Chelsea Walker bravely appropriates the text for a contemporary setting and agenda. Blanche does not behave as the script suggests by succumbing to Stanley’s animal sexuality, thereby sliding further into moral and mental ruin; she is raped.  She is unceremoniously and brutally pushed over the edge into a kind of limbo between the fantasized world of gentility and the brutal reality of sex, sweat and the gratification of animal desire.

Patrick Knowles’ Stanley Kowalski is a man with few redeeming virtues. With no reserves of reserve or self-control he is one of those barely socialized creatures for whom the urge to self-gratification trumps all. There is little to show of the discipline of the decorated serviceman. He is, as his wife, Stella, says, ‘A different species’. A man who we feel does not actually deserve a share of the  (lost) proceeds from Belle Reve, the Du Bois family inheritance.

Kelly Gough’s Blanche is no sweet magnolia blossom to be blown around on a summer breeze. A fantasist she may be, but one who, we sense, has been pummelled by circumstance to the edge of monetary and mental ruin.  Ms Gough gives an intelligent and emotionally articulate performance, which serves both the author and director. This is a Blanche alive with nervous energy and with a sexuality craving employment. Always fishing for a compliment, never having a drink for its own sake always for a covering reason, she gives substance to that fugitive theme of identity. Is this the same woman as the one who ‘entertained’ young soldiers following the suicide of her youthful husband? Her lies and self-delusion are part of her daily makeup ritual as she clumsily tries to obliterate her past.

The crumbling gentility of Tennessee Williams’ original setting (a metaphor if ever there were) has given way to a kind of human storage in Georgia Lowe’s plywood box of a set. It is a cleverly workable affair, but the temptation to strip away in order to allow the script to speak for itself is one too easily given in to and I think on this occasion misses an opportunity.

The world fit for gentility is for Williams a contracting space. Only by taking the world as it is can we begin to change it. Blanche’s world where, ‘I have always depended on the kindness of strangers’, is one that no longer exists – if it ever did outside of fiction. However the world of atavistic male barbarity, as we learn on a daily basis, is one ‘too much with us’, and Ms Walker has cleverly coaxed the script to frame that reality.    ★★★★☆    Graham Wyles   18^th April 2018

Photo Credit: The Other Richard