Audience of One

A Streetcar Named Desire

Last week for my dad’s birthday our family went out for a meal, before going onto see a play.

It was a slight surprise for me, seeing as we’d already been to see a show very recently and we never go to see stuff as a family. It was also a slight surprise for me because I’d read about the exact same play we were going to see in the newspaper the day before. It was an Oxford University students’ production of the Tennessee Williams play, A Streetcar Named Desire, whose director had been sacked as drama editor of the student newspaper due to running a review of the play. (The whole editorial team resigned in support of him – I have no idea what happened after that.)

The play is a fantastic one, and this production was also. The actors were incredibly good, to the extent that when they came back on for the second curtain call at the end some of them were still very much in character. My one problem is that I’d seen a Springfield musical version of it on The Simpsons and so when Blanche approached the paper boy to kiss him I was singing to myself in Apu’s voice “Will this bewitching floozy // Seduce this humble newsy?”. I was impressed that Marge Simpson actually had some of Blanche’s real lines from the play.

Maybe it’s an expense thing, but going to the cinema is now so commonplace – and of course once you’ve seen a film there, you can rent it again later. Going to see a play is more expensive. Is it more fun? Possibly. It’s certainly more of an “experience”, whatever that means. Maybe it’s because the people are real and standing there in front of you instead of just being pictures on a screen. (Of course film actors are real too. You get the point though.)

Seeing plays makes me want to act. Seeing films makes me want to direct. Seeing (in my mind) the results of both of these in a public performance make me want to shiver – I’m thinking I should just stick to music.

Matthew @ 11:47, March 12, 2005 to Reviews | Comments (2)