Two Streetcars, Both Alike in Desire
Plus: thoughts on recent plays and musicals, on Broadway and in Brooklyn: English, Urinetown, and Purpose.
Lately, a lot of A-list screen stars have been seeking refuge on New York stages (George Clooney! Kieran Culkin! Robert Downey Jr.! Sarah Snook!), and the absurdly high prices have not necessarily dissuaded audiences from packing theaters on and off Broadway. While I probably won’t make it to see Denzel and Jake G in Othello, what with those $900 tickets, my friend’s BAM membership made the Paul Mescal-headlining A Streetcar Named Desire shockingly affordable: $100 for the edge of the orchestra, and the pre-sale window didn’t require ninja reflexes to secure a seat.
This minimalist production, a West End import, was directed with a heavy hand by Rebecca Frecknall, who also helmed the Cabaret that’s currently on Broadway. I generally am not a fan of this faux-avant garde style of theater, but the Tennessee Williams play is just so damn good that it can withstand any and all ill-advised tweaks. I did enjoy the modernist drumming that underscored certain moments, but maybe it was Stockholm Syndrome at work.
Considering every actor playing Stanley Kowalski works in the shadow of Marlon Brando, Paul Mescal acquits himself reasonably well. He takes a more sarcastic approach to his role, one that’s aware of his character’s toxicity. It’s dumb to compare the two actors, because Brando basically revolutionized screen acting in the 1951 movie adaptation, but it may be instructive. With Brando, you believe that he believes every word he is saying. That’s what makes him magnetic and attractive. Conversely, I could tell that Mescal was acting. This may just be a fundamental difference between stage and screen acting, or at least in their approaches. At least Mescal didn’t try to go for that raw Method intensity, because it wouldn’t have worked.
The play is really carried by his co-stars, both of whom are powerhouses of London theatre. Anjana Vasan (who plays Stella) is great, and Patsy Ferran’s Blanche DuBois is an absolute revelation. It was nothing short of miraculous to behold, shifting between ferocity and vulnerability without coming off as bipolar. She’s not getting lost in her delusions, but rather knowingly seeks solace within them. Most people are coming to Streetcar for Mescal, but you really should be going for her instead. (Ferran also has a supporting role in Mickey 17, where she plays a completely different type of character: a mousy scientist who is nothing like Blanche.)
And if you haven't seen it already, I would absolutely suggest seeing Elia Kazan’s movie version before this production. For one, familiarity with the material will make the minimalist provocations less jarring, and also, it’s just an excellent film. Even if you’re not going to see Streetcar at the BAM (tickets are now prohibitively expensive, good luck with the lottery!), you should watch Streetcar at home.
A couple friends brought to my attention that an early Simpsons episode has a “Streetcar!” musical parody and honestly… would have loved to see Paul Mescal in this. “A stranger’s just a friend you haven’t met.”
Two-Show Super Bowl
Instead of watching the Super Bowl back in February, I saw two Broadway shows. English, by Sanaz Toossi, recently wrapped up its limited run at Roundabout. The Iran-set drama about adult language learners is a particularly liminal slice of life. The text has some awkward bumps, perhaps focusing too much on a subplot that hints towards a student-teacher romance. It’s clearest, most complex insights come when probing how our identities are rooted in our language and homeland. The entire cast was terrific, and while it was cool that these Iranian actors were making their Broadway debuts, that’s also a mark against the theater industry. This production felt cinematic, with well-placed fluorescent lights, and overt references to popular English-language romance films: Notting Hill and Moonstruck.
Unfortunately, English is now closed, but there’s a few weeks left to see Roundabout’s other current play, Liberation by Bess Wohl, and the praise from my friends has been unanimously strong. I’ll be seeing it in a couple weeks, and anyone under 40 can attend for $30, though discounted seats are now severely limited.
After a dinner break at a nearby gastropub, I walked a dozen blocks uptown for Urinetown, part of New York City Center’s ever-reliable Encores! Program. Despite the silly premise — in the aftermath of ecological collapse, access to public bathrooms are tightly regulated by a powerful corporation — the musical’s Malthusian message of resource constraints is no laughing matter. That bleak subtext was perhaps too easy to ignore, thanks to admittedly hilarious parodies of musical theater tropes and slapstick comedy. Somehow I hadn’t seen Jordan Fisher perform until now, and his dynamism showed me why he’s one of Broadway’s most popular young actors.
Although Encores! Productions only run for about two weeks, you can see the next two shows in their season: Love Life and Wonderful Town. Those 40 and under can get $28 tickets, which is a wonderful deal; more info on their website.
Go see Purpose!!
Not an official review as I saw this in previews.
Another banger of a play from Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, whose Sarah Paulson-headlining Appropriate took Broadway by storm last year. Once again, the setting is the living room of a grand two-story house. And while the characters are of a different complexion than those in Appropriate, both are seriously soapy family dramas. The patriarch of Purpose is Solomon Jasper (Harry Lennix), a famous Civil Rights leader whose lauded stature — hanging on the wall is a photo of him shoulder-to-shoulder with Martin Luther King — casts a long shadow over his descendents. Semi-retired with his wife Claudine (Latanya Richardson Jackson), Solomon’s two sons have come to his Chicago manor for a family reunion of sorts. The eldest (Glenn Davis) is a disgraced state senator just out of prison for committing a bevy of financial crimes, while his wife (Alana Arenas) is about to start her own sentence (the sequential terms are an accommodation for their young children). The somewhat estranged younger brother Naz (a wondrous Jon Michael Hill) shows up with a mysterious friend (Kara Young, who may be barreling towards her fourth consecutive Tony nomination).
To use easy descriptors and lazy buzzwords would be a disservice to this play, so I won’t even try to go further from there. But the breathtakingly assured writing from Jacobs-Jenkins and direction by Phylicia Rashad kept the audience enraptured, no easy feat for a play that runs for nearly three hours. The tone is a tricky thing — should you be laughing or crying? — and there were awkward moments where a mix of both were coming from the audience. Best to follow Naz’s lead. As the audience surrogate, he occasionally pauses the action with soliloquies that sometimes explain too much. Jacobs-Jenkins is generous to his characters, and each actor has their own standout moment, but it’s Hill who gets the powerful, some would say purposeful, last word.