The Times and the Post have published their reviews of the Kennedy Center’s revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Patricia Clarkson as Blanche. They are in agreement about Clarkson (“a clear-eyed look at one of theater’s haziest heroines”) and about the production as a whole (“vivid if uneven”). This line from Ben Brantley at the Times caught my attention:
But the production’s cooler gaze also has the overpowering disadvantage of making the play itself appear cruder and clumsier than it usually does. A “Streetcar” without poetry becomes just another domestic melodrama, accessorized with frilly symbols, about what happens when irritating in-laws come to visit.
Williams “without poetry.” That can’t be good.