Review by Sam Waite
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Perhaps the best known of Tennessee Williams’ plays, so familiar is A Streetcar Named Desire to audiences that two of its key lines - the Brando-bellowed “Stellaaaa!” and Blanche DuBois’ “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” have become part of popular lexicon even for those who don’t know their origin. Add to this the recent third run of Rebecca Frecknall’s Broadway-bound production, and the pressure is certainly on for this new take at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre.
Blanche DuBois steps off of the titular streetcar - the fatefully named Desire Line in New Orleans - to pay a visit to her younger sister, Stella, and brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. Every inch the Southern Belle, Blanche is taken aback by the Kowalski’s two-room flat, a stark contrast to the family home recently lost to creditors back in Mississippi. While Blanche considers Stanley little more than a common brute, her own vague story about losing the home and taking leave from her position as a high school teacher, coupled with her penchant for fantasy (outright lies, though at times even she seems convinced) leads her brother-in-law to suspicions which will culminate in catastrophic results.
On paper, Stanley and Blanche are likely seen as the more dynamic characters, but this production’s strongest asset is its Stella, played masterfully by Amara Okereke. With Stella being pulled between her wealthy upbringing and the more reserved life she chose with Stanley, Okereke does a beautiful job of inhabiting a space neither grand enough for the family home, nor restrained enough for her humble surroundings. When demonstrating her happiness to Blanche, Okereke’s Stella sits open-legged and throws herself into her happy housewife persona, but when standing up to her husband’s aggressions she is firm of voice and of stature, her willingness to forgive his abuses at vivid, devastating odds with her refusal to accept his verbal disrespect of either herself or her sister.
The Crucible is a sizeable space, the audience surrounding the expansive stage on three sides and an overhead walkway available, used here to introduce the upstairs home of Eunice and her husband Steve. Where this presents a potential challenge for director Josh Seymour is the limited space in which Williams’ story takes place. Where he twists this to his advantage is in presenting the apartment in full, clarifying just how minute a space the Kowalski’s call home. With Blanche as emotionally guarded as she is seemingly open, Frankie Bradshaw’s fully-furnished set helps immediately create the sense of lost privacy that deepens the rift between Stanley and his sister-in-law. With the two rooms on one revolve, and the bathroom moving around the perimeter on another, Bradshaw’s absent walls - borders reflected only by their frames - allow us to see every inch of the home without any fuss or distraction to differentiate locations.
Seymour has helped create a fine set of performances, and makes strong use of both the limited space of the apartment, and the open space of the Crucible. A small issue, one I found myself distracted by more than once, is an inconsistency in the blocking. Most of the time, entry to and exit from the apartment is through more or less the same spot in the unseen exterior wall, making it difficult not to notice when anyone comes or goes from elsewhere. A powerful moment, in which physicality alone gets across sorrow and forgiveness, is blunted slightly by the carrying of Stella to the bedroom goes directly there, bypassing the stabilised entrance to their home. It’s minor to many, I’m sure, but in a production and play based so firmly in reality, the lack in consistently periodically took me out of an otherwise compelling performance.
Joanna Vanderham makes for a stellar Blanche - thickly accented and white-blonde, she is every inch the opposite of Okereke’s Stella, though their love for one another is instantly apparent. At first I wondered whether the artifice, the sheer stereotype of her voice and mannerisms may grate, but not only do these become more palatable with time spent, but it becomes clear that there is a deliberate falseness to the performance. A wise move from Vanderham, Seymour, and dialect coach Aundrea Fudge, Blanche’s accent is far broader than Stella’s, leaving it up to the audience to decide whether the younger sister has toned herself down, or the elder has pushed her persona to its fullest extent. When her walls begin to come down, and Blanche reveals something true, there is a brief sequence of her living out the memory in realtime, a thrilling and emotive highlight of Vanderham’s deceptively measured portrayal.
Moments of fancy and wonderment are brought to life by Howard Harrison, the production’s lighting designer, who has additional lights descend from the ceiling to invoke both fantasy and the night sky, and whose moody design is highlighted most prominently in a pivotal scene where Blanche’s habit of avoiding proper lighting is called into question. Also adding to the story is the musical accompaniment, a combined effort from sound designer and musical arranger Alexandra Faye Brathwaite, and musical director Lauren Dyer. Played overhead, the piano accompaniment helps swell the emotions of key moments, and the strong vocals of Jack Ofrecio, as a manifestation of Blanche’s late husband, embed us more fully in her fantasies, and in her gradually more fractured mind.
Charming in the role of Blanche’s potential beau, Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong brings an affable, eminently likeable quality to Stanley’s poker buddy Mitch. Unfortunately, his many charms aren’t given as much time to shine as other cast members, though I realise it would be a challenge to add more of Mitch to the long-finalised script. What warmth he does bring to the character makes his story’s conclusion, where Williams reinforces that all of these men are brutes deep down, all the more powerful. Surprisingly, and unfortunately, the dynamic and powerful role of Stanley falls flat here. Solid in his introductory scenes but quickly proving one-note in his portrayal, Jake Dunn fails to bring levels to Stanley’s bursts of anger, or much of the charm elsewhere that drew Stella to him, and which have won her continued loyalties.
With an assured team behind the scenes - I’m always grateful for the presence of an intimacy director (Chi-San Howard) and of a fight director (Bethan Clark) for ensuring the safety and comfort of all involved - this Streetcar is certainly strong in many aspects, but stumbles over certain key points. Neither of those famous lines has its requisite power behind it, which is particularly notable when the surrounding work in those same scenes carries a great deal of that power. Vanderham’s Blanche DuBois is incredibly affecting in her final scene, but both she and Dunn’s Kowalski lose the final moments to Stella, with Okereke’s endless gifts proving one again to b the strongest part of the show.
A Streetcar Named Desire plays at the Crucible Theatre until March 29th
For tickets and information visit https://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/events/a-streetcar-named-desire-2025
Photos by Marc Brenner