Warlikowski's "Streetcar" was first shown at the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe in February 2010, received mixed reviews. The director commissioned a new translation of Williams' original play by Wajdi Mouawad, which he later enhanced with quotes from various sources as Platoon, Flaubert, Sophocles, and the French comedian Coluche. The review of the premiere, newspaper Le Monde rejected the transformed text, remarking Warlikowski's "Streetcar" was "rushing straight into the void". However, the Daily applauded the directing and stage design with its unusual architecture. Naturally, the controversial new take on the script extended to the set design, created by Warlikowski's long-time accomplice, Małgorzata Szczęśniak. The wide and translucent stage, is "a capharnaüm without intimacy" (Libération), a bowling room full of glass cubes featuring wide screens with close-ups of the actors' faces. It is a cold hostile space, at the opposite of the claustrophobic wet proximity the characters are set in previous adaptations, such as the referential stage and cinema versions by Elia Kazan.
Despite the alterations that divided most critics, the ensemble of actors, on the other hand, got unanimous praise in the press, starting with Isabelle Hupper. The French actress camps Blanche Dubois, opposite Andrzej Chyra as Stanley Kowalski, Florence Thomassin as Stella and Yann Collette as Mitch. Blanche, a lost soul in a world of brutes and whose overly sensitive heart and mind shall be destroyed before our very eyes, clashes in contrast to everything that surrounds her. Even her exquisite wardrobe, provided by Dior and Yves Saint Laurent, while the rest of the cast is dressed by Szczęśniak, marks a double statement on how terribly misplaced and mislead the woman is.
Suitcase in hand, Blanche shows up at her sister's house. There, the raw and animalistic nature of Stella's husband, Stanley Kowalski, which translates into the couple's passionate dynamic, will only reinforce the frustrations of a fallen high society wannabe still traumatised by her marriage to a gay man. The stage becomes the transparent bipolar wound in which mythomaniac Blanche and her excessive use of words meets Stanley's almost autistic expression, screaming with unapologetic authenticity. Stella and Mitch, the helpless witnesses of the ultimate and inevitable tragedy are like a hybrid of all the spectators and their instinctive reactions. Andrzej Chyra, who gets the difficult task of embracing a role fundamentally associated with its ultimate performer, Marlon Brando, was saluted by the press for his boldness and ease, "wearing Brando's white T-shirt and reinventing the role without overplaying it" (Libération).
Over three decades after the writer's passing, the essential taboos, neurosis and solitude that mark the rhythm of Tennessee Williams' choreography of souls are presented at the edge of an anonymous road, on the path of a nameless streetcar ("without desire" as titled in the Nouvel Observateur), but definitely leading to an "intoxicating journey through the end of hell" (Libération).
"Un Tramway" based on "A Streetcar Named Desire", author: Tennessee Williams; translated by: Wajdi Mouawad; adapted by: Krzysztof Warlikowski; co-writers: Wajdi Mouawad, Piotr Gruszczyński; directed by: Krzysztof Warlikowski; cast: Isabelle Huppert, Andrzej Chyra, Florence Thomassin, Yann Collette, Renate Jett, Cristián Soto; set design and costumes: Małgorzata Szczęśniak; Isabelle Huppert's costumes by: Maison Yves Saint Laurent and Maison Christian Dior; lighting: Felice Ross; music: Paweł Mykietyn; video: Denis Guéguin; sound engineer: Jean-Louis Imbert. Lengh: 2h35.
Produced by: Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, Nowy Teatr in Warsaw, Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, Comédie de Genève – Centre Dramatique, De Koninklijke Schouwburg – Den Haag, Holland Festival – Amsterdam, spielzeit’europa I Berliner Festspiele, MC2: Grenoble, Hellenic Festival
Théatre de l'Odéon in Paris
Place de l'Odéon, 75006 Paris
Premiere: 4 February 2010.
Shows: 25th of November - 17th of December 2011.
For more information on the play see: www.theatre-odeon.fr.
Source: www.institutpolonais.fr