There were no standing ovations at the Berliner Ensemble in Germany last night. I have just seen Endstation Sehnsucht (A Streetcar Named Desire) directed by Michael Thalheimer and designed by Olaf Altmann — and ‘from the English by Helmar Harald Fischer.’ Though I adore this play on the page, I have never seen a production of Streetcar that I liked. No arguing with Marlon Brando’s performance; but Vivien Leigh was just too over the top for me (where is Jessica Tandy when you need her)? Nevertheless the performances in Kazan’s 1951 film are so iconic as to have blotted out this play as play.
Anyway, the title of this German version translates as ‘Destination Yearning” (Destination Nostalgia is a literal translation). It seems to me to be somewhat of an adaptation (I don’t speak German so I was unable to read the program notes) but it strikes me that the English subtitles provided were not identical to the play that I have read so many times. Some text - here and there — was definitely changed and/or excised. It doesn’t really matter though, because this interpretation made this old play seem so alive to me. Thalheimer and Altmann have apparently collaborated before; the design and direction were unique and unforgettable.
Realism is abandoned — as one might expect from a theatre espousing Brecht— and the set is nothing more than a ramp carved into a kind of cave in a massive wall (very technically difficult, I would think for the actors to act on). From the beginning this speaks to Blanche’s tragedy — as characters are constantly falling down or climbing up. Often they speak directly to the audience. At the back the walls light up at certain moments (the ‘coloured lights’ mentioned by Stanley) accompanied by heavy metal music.
There were three major differences in this production and any other production I have seen. First, the class issues in the play were perfectly clear — Stanley and Stella’s working class friends were yelling and laughing (one section I will never forget was just a woman laughing savagely in the dark for what seemed like a whole minute) in ways that reminded me of my Hamilton Hardcore working class neighbours. Second, Stanley wasn’t sexy, nor a brute (he had a pot belly) he was simply horny, somewhat violent man — like so many others. And Blanche was definitely horny too; in their first meeting she was clearly seducing him — it was her a mode of survival. All of this makes the play clearer as treatise; finally the fog of sentiment has been cleared away. Blanche is not fragile, she is a biting, scratching, desperate woman, very much as Stella describes her — misused by life and discarded in a pile of furs and fake pearls at the bottom of the ramp/cave at the end. Stanley isn’t a hot guy you might secretly want to rape you, he is just a working class man, caught in a web of his own male privilege and the class exploitation imposed upon him.
The audience must think; but still, I was crying all through. All about the acting; the gestures — fierce, moments of repetition — haunting. Blanche whispering ‘Stella Stella Stella Stella' — a hiss. Stanley at the end, saying over and over again ‘everything’s going to be alright' until it becomes a yell. A production unafraid to be politically incorrect and completely real — oddly without a speck of old-fashioned ‘realism.’ We will not see the likes of this in Canadian theatre, for obvious reasons. And there was no standing ovation — like I see those oafs in the audience do for every bad play we see in Toronto. In Berlin, the audience just clapped and clapped and clapped (and clapped), because there was nothing left to do.
