Were Broadway Critics Kind to the Roundabout's Streetcar Revival?
Here is a sampling of what they had to say:
Eric Grode in his Broadway.com Review: "The sexual tension between Stanley and Blanche stays at an extremely low simmer, stripping from Richardson a crucial factor leading to Blanche's decline. As effective as she can be at conveying Blanche's mental illness, particularly near the end, you don't really get the sense that the play's events have much to do with her condition. And the lack of chemistry goes both ways: Tremulous and jittery from her first entrance, Blanche is so tightly wound here that it's hard to see why everyone gets so worked up over her. It doesn't help that Hall saddles Richardson with silly funhouse lighting and sound effects during her mad scenes. That includes Blanche's potential white knight, Mitch, played by a solid Chris Bauer. The emotional disconnect between Stanley and Blanche brings into sharper contrast their common bond--Stella. Ryan's begrimed beauty and sad eyes make her forgiveness of both Blanche's and Stanley's flaws plausible and unexpectedly moving... 'I don't want realism. I want magic!' Blanche cries as a crushed Mitch attempts to see her for what she really is. Williams' doomed, deluded heroine would probably not have much nice to say about Hall, who has given Streetcar a bracing dose of realism--and lost a fair amount of magic in the process."
Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "This Streetcar suffers from fundamental mismatches of parts and performers. This Blanche never seems all that vulnerable. Ms. Richardson has a couple of moments of searing, outraged pain, as when Blanche describes her young husband's suicide. But her means of signaling imminent nervous collapse is to make her voice and hands tremble, and these vibrations often feel artificially switched-on. And Ms. Richardson's uncannily fresh face does not bear the marks of suffering. Mr. Reilly, so brilliant in Sam Shepard's True West and the films of Paul Thomas Anderson, would have been perfect as the awkward, gentlemanly Mitch, a role he has played elsewhere. But while Stanley does not have to be a beauty like the young Marlon Brando, who created the part, he does need to exude strong sexual promise and menace, neither of which is in Mr. Reilly's goofy portrait of him. The deep-voiced Mr. Bauer, who portrays Mitch here, comes closer to being harshly animalistic, like a redneck out of Deliverance. This is not the way things should be."
Howard Kissel of The New York Daily News: "Reilly may be the crude 'Polack' she constantly calls him, operating on instinct and brute force, but Richardson's Blanche relies on the power of her imagination.Life may have sent her devastating blows, but like an animal refusing to submit to a mightier predator, she wins our admiration for the sassy resilience she uses to tease and rile her bewildered foe. Richardson conveys a constant sense of Blanche reinventing herself. Like a master of one of the Asian martial arts, she uses her own sensuality to combat Stanley's... Amy Ryan as Stella and Chris Bauer as Mitch, Stanley's Army buddy and Blanche's sometime suitor, both have an animal quality similar to the pair in the main event. So does Kristine Nielsen as Eunice, the upstairs neighbor. It gives the play a relentlessness that becomes enervating... Hall may have missed the tenderness Williams feels for both Blanche and Stanley, but there's no doubt that his production reinvigorates this extraordinarily powerful play."
David Rooney of Variety: "Despite its initial detachment, Natasha Richardson's subtle, slow-burning performance as Blanche DuBois is riveting and affecting. But the production remains a conflicted battle between staginess and naturalism that bleeds much of the sexuality, pathos and poetry from this harrowing, lyrical play... Despite [Reilly's] commanding work here, he remains fundamentally miscast. In a 1997 Steppenwolf Streetcar, Reilly played Stanley's former Army buddy Mitch, who represents a temporary rescue raft for Blanche. It seems an almost mathematical equation that the Everyman actor is a neat fit for that role but a square peg for Stanley... Reilly's Stanley is exactly as Blanche sees him: a surly, unrefined ape devoid of sympathetic traits... As prey to desire as she is to her obsession with death and decay, Blanche must be attracted on some level to her executioner, regardless of being openly disgusted by his baseness. There's little conceivable sense of that here, all the more so because Richardson is such a knockout... This production, rather than any profound personal investigation, betrays a coldly respectful surface study that too often turns away from the soulful poetry and terrible beauty of Williams' masterful play."
Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "This nearly three-hour production of Williams' classic 1947 drama, reverentially directed by Edward Hall, is a curiously passionless affair, missing much of the play's sensuality and even some of its poetry... Reilly's Stanley is a crude, rude fellow, but the actor's plain, beefy features make one wonder why Blanche is strangely attracted to her brother-in-law. There's not much mystique in Reilly's performance, although he certainly has the lung power to bellow Stanley's more belligerent outbursts... Richardson's Blanche is more flinty than fragile, displaying a steeliness not usually found in this vulnerable woman, whose mental state is rapidly unraveling. The actress excels at that disintegration. She captures Blanche's descent into madness with a dramatic intensity that matches the determination that can be found in the rest of her performance. Streetcar is Williams' most lyrical play, filled with imagery almost musical in nature. Most of those verbal arias are given to Blanche, but Richardson recites them with a hard-edged practicality that robs the language of much of its richness. The play's two main supporting players have been expertly cast. Amy Ryan brings a sweet-tempered generosity to the role of Stella... And Chris Bauer exudes a genuine likability as Mitch."
Elysa Gardner of USA Today: "Richardson has rarely given the impression of being either a pathological narcissist or fragile beyond repair. But in Streetcar, which opened Tuesday at Broadway's Studio 54, she seems stripped of all vestiges of earthiness, empathy and common sense. Showing up at her sister Stella's house, emotionally and financially broken, this Blanche is a fluttering, preening mess - but purposefully so. Mining all the pathos and humor with which Williams painted his hopeless heroine, Richardson makes us feel for her without trying too hard to make us feel sorry for her. It's a brave, often funny and ultimately moving interpretation... Reilly's lack of conventional sex appeal and the gee-whiz folksiness he conveys in calmer moments don't make him an unconvincing foil for the mannered, repressed Blanche. And his scenes with rising trouper Amy Ryan, who delivers another pitch-perfect performance as the much-put-upon Stella, offer a gritty naturalism that counters Blanche's frazzled fantasy world."
Linda Winer of Newsday: "Edward Hall, the heretofore fascinating British director, has made his Broadway debut with a busy but placid production that fails to justify its oddball casting with either chemistry or concept... [Richardson's Blanche] smiles too easily, flirts with too much healthy gusto and, whenever forced to face her illusions, trembles far too artfully to bring us under her tender skin.In fairness, this Blanche is up against a boldly, grossly miscast John C. Reilly as Stanley Kowalski. We appreciate Hall's impulse to clean Brando's mythic cobwebs off the character. Instead of animal magnetism, however, this Stanley offers an Everyguy geniality with a friendly beer belly and an open face... Hall has staged this American classic with none of the raw originality seen in his Shakespeare cycle, Rose Rage, or his celebrated A Midsummer Night's Dream last season at BAM."