A Streetcar Named Desire at the Young Vic

I am still a shameless X-files fan, Scully was the FBI agent that every girl wanted to be and every guy wanted to be with. So, seeing Gillian Anderson play such a powerful role and being 5-10 metres away from me at any given time, made me a little bit weak at the knees.

One of Tennessee Williams' most famous plays, A Streetcar Named Desire is on at the Young Vic until 19th September. It is an emotionally intense stage performance of three characters, Blanche DuBois (Gillian Anderson), Stella (Vanessa Kirby) and Stanley Kowalski (Ben Foster) set in the seedy underbelly of downtown New Orleans.

This play questions the motives for violence and lust to the extent that you cannot take sides. It scrapes the surface of mental illness and screams 'uncomfortable' to us. There is a constant contrast between the systematic undressing of Blanche, her vulnerable and sexually charged human form and the hard, strong lines of the revolving stage, the metal posts, the corners of the bed and the bath tub, even the iron stairs which squarely ascend to the upper level of the theatre.

Every character is tragic in this play but Blanche is the most misunderstood, doomed as soon as she wheels her suitcase to the front door. I think every woman has a little bit of Blanche in her, those moments when the world cannot provide the love and attention we so desperately need, the constant clawing of reality and the existence of ourselves as an ideal, flawless and untouchable individual. Blanche is our extreme. I think it is our intense relationship with Blanche that causes us to desperately despise her. She is a needy and selfish character, self-absorbed to the extent that she cannot accept herself as part of the disappointing world that surrounds her.

Taken from Tate online. Ref: T01794

I forgot how incredibly sad this story is and I found myself close to tears at the end when Blanche (Gillian Anderson) was paraded around the revolving stage, looking at the sky of a world she did not recognise. This last scene reminded me of a print by William Hogarth, Plate 8 of A Rake's Progress. This series of prints depicts an eighteenth-century rake who loves money, fame and glamour. He spends everything, goes mad and ends up in Bedlam, Bethlem Royal Hospital in London. In the eighteenth century Bedlam would charge a small fee to visitors wanting to come and look at the patients, it would be a day out, a chance to judge and gawp at those deemed insane. In Plate 8 of A Rake's Progress we can see two well dressed women to the right, an example of these visitors. They snigger and cling to each other, disgusted yet pleased with what they see. As an audience at the Young Vic we were these women, gawping and judging the vulnerable character before us, trying to understand what caused Blanche's mania but really just pleased to be able to walk out of the theatre after three hours and back into our normal lives.
 
This play has effected me. It has infected me with the memory of that last scene. The cast were faultless and the performance was excellent.

I am now even more in awe of Gillian Anderson...I think it's time to re-watch the X-files!

20,000 Days of Nick Cave

I don't know very much about Nick Cave. He is an Australian musician famous for being in a couple of bands, his emotionally raw, obsessive lyrics, he is the front man of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, a band formed in the 1980s but really I have never connected with him.

My boyfriend lent me an album of his and to be honest it felt like a good melody spoilt by that drunk guy in the pub who puts on the jukebox and ruins your favourite song. His lyrics never seem clever enough for the intensity of his voice and yet I feel like I am missing the point to his songs, some hidden meaning that I am not hipster enough to understand. So why did I go and see the premiere of 20,000 Days on Earth at the Film4 Summer Screen at Somerset House, a film about Nick Cave and his life?

Well, Nick Cave is from Brighton, near where I live, my boyfriend likes him and I was trying to be nice, and there wasn't anything else I really wanted to see at Somerset House this year. Everyone loves Sense and Sensibility but I don't want to see it again and I'd cry all the way through ET.


So I unpacked my three picnic blankets and my extensive feast of Sainsburys food and we settled down under a marginally threatening sky and prayed it wouldn't rain. It didn't. Just before it got dark we were graced with an impressive rainbow doming the entire venue and Somerset House flashed with coloured lights and booming music as the screen came to life. The film was excellent, so much more accessible than Cave's music. It was perfectly shot as a documentary, never dwelling on sections of Cave's life for too long, it flipped from scene to scene through psychedelic music and graphic speed. Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, the co-writers and directors, did a fantastic job and Cave was interesting and succinct. He talked about life and his family in a way I could understand. I got the impression that he always felt lonely and was desperately searching for more, people maybe, in the form of fame and yet he loves his family. He is obviously extremely proud of his wife and his children and really, he is just an ordinary dad deep down.


The film, being warm enough, having a good spread of food and it not raining all contributed to a great evening out under the stars. The perfect way to celebrate my graduation in MA History of Art from the Courtauld, housed in Somerset House.