Street Car!

After the concern surrounding Ashley Page's departure, and the disappointing reception of his full length Alice, Scottish Ballet's A Streetcar Named Desire was an encouraging step forward. Choreographer Anna Lopez Ochoa's first narrative ballet  is as celebratory and uplifting as a story based on sexual violence and insanity can get.

Apart from a few ill-judged moments - Stanley does not really need to shout "Stella" to express his frustrated emotions at the climx of the first act, and the subsequent pas de deux eroticises male brutality - Streetcar is a theatrically thrilling fusion of ballet and movement more familiar from American and Europe modern dance. 

The contrast between Blanche's fluttering, balletic steps and the earthier stomps of the New Orleans characters makes explicit the gap between her dreams of gentility and her impoverished present: the presence of a dramaturg, Nancy Mekler, seems to have ensured that every aspect of the performance, from set to props to costume to choreography, is unified to emphasise Blanche's journey from hopeful ingenue to delusional victim.

Using a relatively limited dance vocabulary, Ochoa's vision of Streetcar struggles to capture the bleak intensity of Tennessee William's original: Tamar Barry is a striking Stanley, but lacks the brutal edge of Brando's screen portrayal. And despite Ochoa's much repeated mantra that "dance lacks a past tense" - for this reason, her version does not have the final reveal of Blanche's husband's suicide, but tells the story chronologically - the flashback to Blanche's prostitute past suggests that a more allusive and abstract ballet can strike more precisely at the heart of the story's preoccupation with faded glamour and hypocrisy.

Yet Streetcar provides lavish spectacle: the pas de deux between

Stanley and Stella is a stunning technical display - perhaps diluting the savagery of their coupling for a sensuous elegance. Driven by an approachable score from Peter Salem, which is equal parts jazz and minimalist orchestration, the busy streets of New Orleans, and the more sedate atmosphere of Blanche's youthful idyll, are given robust energy. And the second act, which rushes from a montage of Blanche's attempted romance, through a recollection of her past towards the inevitable arrival of the men in white coats, races the narrative along without losing coherence or the thematic integrity.

With Sophie Martin (Stella) and Eve Mutsuo (Blanche) putting their technique at the service of characterisation, and Ochoa using ballet as a foundation for spectacle and emotive choreography, Scottish Ballet escape the trap of relying too heavily on the source script, and insist that narrative dance need not be plot heavy and predictable.




Scottish Ballet presents 

A Streetcar Named Desire

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Wed 18 – Sat 21 Mar 2015

Evenings 18-21 Mar - 7.30pm
Matinee 21 Mar – 2pm

Box office 0131 529 6000 (bkg fee)
Free pre-show talks at 6.30pm on Thu 19 Mar with Artistic Staff and Fri 20 Mar with Music staff. Call box office to reserve tickets.
Free post-show discussion immediately following the performance on Fri 20 Mar.


Sadler's Wells, London
Tue 31 Mar – Thu 2 Apr 2015 - 7.30pm

Free pre-show talk at 6.30pm on Thu 26 April. Call box office to reserve tickets.

Tickets from £12-£40. Discounts available - please contact box office.
Box office 0844 412 4300 (bkg fee)






USA


Harris Theater, Chicago

Thu 7 – Sat 9 May 2015 – 7.30pm

Tobin Center, San Antonio

Tue 12 May 2015 – 7.30pm

Brown Theater, Houston

Fri 15 May 2015 – 7.30pm

Byham Theater, Pittsburgh
Tue 19 May 2015 – 7.30pm

Spoleto Festival
College of Charleston Sottile Theatre, Charleston
Fri 22 - Sun 24 May 2015

Kennedy Center, Washington DC
Thu 28 – Sat 30 May 2015
Evenings 28-30 May – 7.30pm
Matinee 30 May – 1.30pm