Streetcar Named Desire

Maybe it takes a Dane and an Aussie to reinterpret an American classic. In the Sydney Theatre Company production of A Streetcar Named Desire at the BAM Harvey Theater, directed by Dane Liv Ullmann, Aussie Cate Blanchet gives new life and subtlety to Blanche DuBois, a character so well known to audiences that we didn’t believe there was anything new to discover about her. Blanche, who moves into the New Orleans apartment of her pregnant sister, Stella Kowalski, and her thuggish husband, Stanley, spirals ever deeper into their psychodrama. Played with unexpected verve, Joel Edgerton’s Stanley also plumbs the depths of his character’s emotional core. But it is Blanchet who owns the show with her restrained but searing performance giving Blanche a memorable mouthpiece indeed.