AD | Tickets gifted in exchange of an honest review
TW: Age guidance 14+ plus the production explores emotional themes, either implied in the text or visually represented on stage
Sheffield Theatres closes its 2024/2025 season with their production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, playing in the Crucible Theatre. A Streetcar Named Desire is set in 1940s New Orleans and follows Blanche Dubois as she visits her sister Stella and her husband Stanley, and quickly both Stanley and Blanche don't see eye to eye with the pair clashing and forming a battle between each other, for Stella's heart. With Blanche's past being found out is everything really as it seems.
Sheffield's production is directed by Josh Seymour. Seymour creates what is an intense production. Seymour, with the help of fight director Bethan Clark, displays the themes well, creating direction that is powerful and effective. Seymour also shows Blanche (Joanna Vanderham) telling the story of her past relationship nicely and it really does show the re-telling clearly and is understandable. Though that being said Seymour's directional choice to have a piano playing during moments in the show, which yes is played well, unfortunately somewhat for me, did cause a little distraction on the action and dialogue being said and did take a little bit of getting used to. Seymour does though create good moments between Blanche and Mitch (played by Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong) which do show a nice edge to their relationship. Seymour uses the stages turntable and stage space effectively bringing an extra level of intensity to what is already there. This helps show moments of Blanche's past and show moments with her ex Allan (Jack Ofrecio). Seymour's direction carries the show, running at 2 hours and 44 minutes with an interval of 15 minutes, with intense moments through various points of the show.
Written by Tennessee Williams this well-known play and has a lot of content to it. Williams' writing creates a story that has a lot of complexity within the dialogue and the plot. With scenes written well and with well rounded characters, working alongside Seymour's direction and the cast's interpretation of the characters, from someone who wasn't so familiar with the show, there were times when it did feel slightly unclear to me, but overall the main plot was clear and understandable, and was shown well on the stage, through Williams' writing.
With a small cast, made up of 9 cast members, who all do a good job of interpreting a detailed plot line and intriguing characters, and all tackle some difficult themes bringing this classic play to life.
Joanna Vanderham, who plays Blanche DuBois, leads the cast with a performance that is nice and has powerful delivery. With moments between both Vanderham and Ofrecio giving an intense performance and really enhances the backstory about their relationship which shows us why Blanche DuBois is who she is now. With many emotions tied into Vanderham's performance, Vanderham gives a well performed character throughout.
Jack Dunn, who plays Stella's husband Stanley, gives a powerful and strong performance. Dunn has to take difficult themes but handles these with a careful and considered performance. Such as the first time we see Dunn's character Stanley treat Stella (played by Amara Okereke) badly, the direction and performance of this ensures the story hits the mark, but as I said handled carefully and in the right way.
Amara Okereke plays Stella, who portrays a character that is nice and good throughout, even though she has to deal with various difficult situations throughout the show. Okereke delivers a pleasing performance and works well alongside the other cast members.
Both Vanderham and Dunn come together to show their character's feuding relationship brilliantly given what is a hard theme to play out on stage.
Howard Harrison's lighting design created moods to match the dark scenes and moments between Blanche and Allan. But then with the use of brighter lighting, being effective to show an opposite moment to the darker scenes which helped convey the story alongside the dialogue.
A Streetcar Named Desire is a strong and powerful story. Seymour ties in great direction to Williams' play which shows off not only the story but characters brilliantly. While though for me there were points that felt slightly unclear and some of the direction I was unsure of, but with that A Streetcar Named Desire handles difficult themes and creates a production of a classic that the cast definitely delivers.
★★★.5
A Streetcar Named Desire runs at the Sheffield Crucible until Saturday 29th of March.
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