Staging anything by Tennessee Williams is a complete nightmare. Everyone has to swagger around all sweaty and say things like ‘Night missy’ and ‘Howdy y’all’. 

The people behind the production at the ADC must know all about the difficulties of staging Streetcar: all that poetry, all those blazing rows, all those confined spaces, that poxy, bloody southern drawl.

The play is about former southern belle Blanche DuBois (Helen Parker) who, having lost the family’s cotton plantation under a mountain of debts, has come to stay with her sister Stella (Elizabeth Magness) and her husband Stanley Kowalski (Paul Syers). Problems arise when the rather dainty Blanche conflicts with the no-nonsense Stanley – oh, and Blanche might be going a touch mad as well.

Director Alexander Winterbotham’s set is very naturalistic, and this ends up proving to be the stickiest part of the production actually. Divided in half to represent the Kowalskis’ modest apartment, the place is furnished with drinks cabinets, a dining table, a sideboard, bottles of beer, bottles of whiskey, some ghastly pictures, a bed, a table with a radio on it, some windows, some mirrors: it’s, well, a little cluttered. So why is that a problem? Well, quoting from the stage direction, the Streetcar Facebook group reminds us that the play is set in New Orleans, where “the blue piano expresses the spirit of the life which goes on there”. I think by that Williams meant that life there was hot and passionate and kind of unruly: you can’t be all that hot and passionate and unruly if you have to do-si-do around the chintzy sideboard and tiptoe past the dining-room chairs every five minutes. It’s supposed to be the New Orleans blues we’re talking about here, not morris dancing.

Still, there were some beautiful set pieces. One moment, after Stella and Stan have a fight, we see Blanche and Mitch talking when, behind the gauze curtain – well, let’s just say Stanley and Stella are becoming rather passionately re-acquainted with one another. With the moonlight streaming in across the pair and catching on the gauze, in a second that old idea of the blue piano and the spirit of New Orleans seems perfectly recaptured.

Elizabeth Magness and Paul Syers make an excellent Stella and Stanley. Perfectly cast, it’s Syers who makes this production for me. He’s tough, kind of clumsy, there was a touch of theatrical sheen about him that could have been scuffed up a little, but he was pretty impressive. Helen Parker’s Blanche was also good, brandishing her frayed nerves with delicate and thought-out affectations. Still, I thought she rushed through her lines once or twice which kind of took the spark out Williams’ drama somewhat.

The production did have some good ideas, I just thought that with a few too many lopsided accents, a wobbly set, some terrible sound effects, the doctor’s ridiculous hat  and need to carry a stethoscope, the production snagged itself a little too often on the mechanics of staging Williams’ softly poetical masterpiece.