UN TRAMWAY - KRZYSZTOF WARLIKOWSKI

No known bus I’m referring to with the title above. The vehicle, instead, that brought to the theatre perhaps the most tormented heroine in the history of theatrical playwright, was the streetcar named desire. Isabelle Huppert, Renate Jett and other significant actors put themselves at the driver’s, Krzysztof Warlikowski, disposal in order that he’d transfer them in his own pecular universe. More a piece of life and less a performance, this rock synthesis has debunked the myth that Vivian Leigh, Elias Kazan and Marlon Brando once built, so that the play would be enriched with wonderful music brackets and historic narrations (biblical references, Herodis, Salome etc..., as well as ancient Greek literature, for example the part from Plato’s Symposium, in which Aristofanis is talking about the origin of love); a play that has so much to say, even now, about the archetype of a woman at the edge of her own fall. The Polish director has dared to experiment and ended up to propose not only a new “reading” of a very old text but also the deep diving into the psyche of a truly tragic figure.

The first scene could easily be seen as a foreshadowing for the inevitable end. Blanche came forth as a catatonic essence – Warlikowski had the smart idea of using an oblong scene, like an altar, a helpful thing for changing the balances of the simultaneous acts during the play. On that “altar” Blanche was sitting now, eating slowly, mouth opened, while the camera took close ups of her face; meanwhile we hear a beautiful poem. Renate Jett stands next to her, welcoming Blanche to “hell”. After the intro, when the two sisters find again one another, the atmosphere changes, getting into a pulp mood. Flip flops light, rock music and Huppert going from one “costume” to another, always changing her image from a wannabe teenager to a very tired lady, her truth always revealed behind every masquerade she uses to escape her own reality. 

What Warlikowski managed in his play, was to show how confused Blanche is by giving us the perspective of what’s going on inside her mind. He did that by letting her stay constantly on stage, even at the background or hiding in a corner, and we were listening to her secret thoughts and memories. We also witnessed how terrible noisy was her surrounding – I mean the way her mind was processing everything that went on around her. What I found interesting on this performance is the freedom of choice the director gave the audience; the choice to see Williams’s drama from the point that suits you best. He did that by using a camera and showing on the screen one scene while another one was taking place at the same time. Take the frozen lips on screen during Blanche’s date with Mitch for example.

One of the most memorable acts (and they weren’t few) was the time Stanley raped his sister in law. It begun with Isabelle hiding her face and arms in a dress and narrating the story I mentioned before, from Plato’s work. This way she depicted the unity of body and soul before Zeus separated males and females was perhaps one of the most fascinating scenes in the whole play. Stanley is watching her all the time. When the story finishes he comes and let her lean on him. We usually see this scene on high volume, but the director here prefers not to set the alarm on fire. He is so tender with the two “animals”, giving them a moment to come close and feel their resemblance. They are both lonely wolves, with the difference that Blanche eats her own flesh by throwing herself to the hunters, while Stanley eats every sheep, even if he recognizes a wolf underneath the wool. It’s very interesting how calm the whole conversation is, with the sexual tension leading the action. But even though the bottle never breaks, we feel the noise of the shattered glass; and thus end up all Blanche’s hope that one male body might heel her wounded soul.

Warlikowski did a lot of personal reading as we see. He gave us a whole new perspective of the play, by bringing to surface whatever lied in the bottom of Tennessee’s work. He deals with the words by delivering to the right person; for example when Stanley says something naughty to Stella, he has eye-contact with her sister. I like the way the director plays like that. It gives spicy details to a play that should ne spicy, considering its author’s personality.

Huppert, the most valuable arrow in his quiver, has brought on stage her experience. She played the decadence southern lady, an old coquette, without the narcissism a lot of actresses usually give upon her. Isabelle wasn’t afraid to become ugly, letting the audience see her fears, hiding like a child under the bed, begging for kindness. She, a treasure once, now has become a chased animal. The scene where she is hiding under the bed watching her first husband dancing with his lover as well as the one at the end when she begs Stanley yelling: “live me alone”, will haunt my memories for a long time. She had the courage to let her wounds exposed to Kowalski and us, too. She didn’t play her role using flatus technics, but she had an exquisite simplicity that makes us holding onto her every word. She has our attention, always, and she has managed to show Blanche more human than every other time we have seen her on stage.

The other actors, following director’s line, without giving life performances they gave life to their performances. Andrjez Chyra had Brando’s barrier to overcome and he succeeded to stay out of his shadow, giving light to Stanley’s shadow. He was vulgar, a total savage with not a single moment of sensitivity, thrusting Blanche’s magic world for he knows only reality.

Warlikowski doesn’t allow himself to take places and show mercy or judge any of his heroes. He just has a story to tell, with humans and not monsters, thus his position is beyond good and evil, an essay on humans reactions to society’s restrictions. He leaves us the freedom to make our own conclusions. Like a maestro he just touches the strings and let his actors play the symphony, according to their characters.

I can’t possible wrap this article up without noticing the amazing performance of Renate Jett. The actress who met Warlikowski in Stuttgart and let him bring the best out of her, is once again astonishing on stage, using her acting and singing talent. She has such energy that you think she could explode anytime, spreading her magic all over the place. Sometimes she sung discreet while something else was going on, giving the scene a divine atmosphere, others she came in front and made a hell of a show. The best part was when she stopped singing “all by myself” and burst out about people’s habits to compromise and give up on themselves. The audience loved her cause she puts her soul above any technics and so she has made magic tricks on reality. She is kind of the other half of Blanche; the sane lunatic perhaps.

140 minutes were not at all boring and the audience’s applause is the best proof for this. Warlikowski dared to change the rhyme from scene to scene and to compose a new language while translating this old play; the language that lies in the deepest rooms of a human’s soul. He managed to make me feel like I’m finding myself on Blanche’s mirror, not in the sense of a psychological perspective but more like dealing with our human’s nature common faith. In conclusion to the kindness of a stranger, Krzysztof Warlikowski, I owe the magic trip of a theatrical evening through the borderline of logic and madness, charm and wear, passion and guilt, life and art! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dQYL6hcJlQ