Nicole Ari Parker in STREETCAR....

[ljay889]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 1:39am

So I finally saw STREETCAR tonight, and I was pleasantly surprised by Parker's performance. She gave a very moving and authentic performance. I think it's completely unfair that Brantley compared her Blanche to Lucy Ball because of the audience laughter. She is playing it straight, it's not her fault that the audience seemed to think the show was a comedy. The laughter was a bit ridiculous throughout, but thankfully they didn't laugh at Blanche's final line. Some of the laughing certainly took me out of the moment though.

Anyway, I really think Parker deserved a Tony nomination. It's very underrated performance. Anyone agree?

Updated On: 5/17/12 at 01:39 AM

[adam.peterson44]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 1:48am

I thought that her performance was very strong.

[Visceral_Fella]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 1:50am

I thought so too.

I saw this version before I saw the movie, and discussed the character of Blanche with some of my colleagues who were only familiar with the movie, and I was the only one who didn't think that Blanche wasn't crazy. Then I saw the movie and now I can see why they didn't agree with me.

Her Blanche is so unique. The way she plays her makes you wonder if she's crazy and fooling us as well, or if she's consciously lying to herself and everyone out of embarrassment and if that's the case then I feel like Stanley set her up. The way she looks at Stanley before she does that wonderful exit at the end also made me think again about his role in this and her awareness. She really made me think about her performance and want to engage in conversation after which sadly hasn't happened in a while.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 1:51am

I completely agree. And I agree that the audience for this show has no idea what the hell they're watching. The laughing just completely baffles me.

[RUkiddingme]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 2:32am

the whole show is so underrated.
The play is amazing as always and everyone in the cast delivers in their own way.
It is the perfect production? Maybe not.
But totally worth seeing.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 6:14am

Count me in as well. Nicole Ari Parker is really working her @ss off on that stage and giving a fierce performance. I personally think it was wrong she was not acknowledged at this year's Tony Awards.

It irritates me that most of the audience going to see this are people who were never exposed to Tennesse Williams' work and who have never seen a production or the film version of "Streetcar".

They're not theater-savvy and are going to see Parker and Underwood based on having seen these two performers in other things that they have done.

I'm willing to bet that for most of them it's the first time they've been to a Broadway show even though they probably were born and raised in the city.

The same thing happened at CAT with Terence Howard and Anika Noni Rose and RAISIN IN THE SUN with Diddy.

It is grating when someone is getting into the drama of the piece only to have a guffaw, snicker or howl completely ruin that moment.

I can't even imagine what the cast is thinking/going through on a nightly basis. My heart goes out to them because their probably going home thinking, "Damn, these people just don't get it!"

Updated On: 5/17/12 at 06:14 AM

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 6:35am

The audience laughed at the original production with Tandy and Brando.

It freaked everyone out. You can hear it discussed by other actors on the Broadway: The Golden Age DVD. It's also discussed on the extras for the Streetcar movie DVD.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 7:36am

I don't think this audience is laughing because the material is "freaking them out". I've seen it twice already and that isn't the case at all. They just don't get it.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 8:51am

I meant it freaked the actors out, since they were the ones describing it.

Brando was particularly devastated by the laughter.

I have no idea why the audience laughed. It's a complex reaction. Disbelief. Nervous laughter. And just plain not getting it, as you say.

[nasty_khakis]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 9:22am

One of the most enraging and confusing moments in my theatre-going experience was when Mitch rips the shade off the lamp and holds Blanche up to the light and calls her old. To me, this is the most damaging and hurtful act towards Blance (yes even more so than the rape, at least psychologically). When this audience laughed like it was a Niel Simon or Tyler Perry zinger I grew instantly angry. I think that some lines ARE funny, heck I myself chuckled at Blanchette's final line.

I foget the exact line but in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof I experience similar anger when the audience laughed at Big Daddy's speech line about never loving Big Mamma and threatened violence.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 9:26am

That line shouldn't get a laugh ... unless he delivers it badly. If he tosses it off, even angrily, it will get a laugh. He needs to have an intent to kill when he says it. Then it should have better results.

Unless the audience is just stupid.

[ComingUpRoses2]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 9:29am

I'm not sure if it has to do with the type of audience these shows are bringing in. I'd venture to say that most of them are of a much younger demographic than usual.

I do know that, sometimes, during very intense moments in both plays, musicals, and films, people have been known to chuckle to relieve tension. In any good production of Gypsy, a few people usually chuckle at Rose's "And I can make you now" line right before "Everything's Coming Up Roses." It's a natural impulse when confronted with something so twisted and dark.

I think it was Brian De Palma who once said that in intense works, you have to plant little bits of intentional humor to relieve the audience of the tension before they start laughing at the entire thing.

Knowing Streetcar very well, I know that there's enough intentional humor spruced throughout the play to keep it from being unbearably dark, so the audiences' response makes me scratch my head. This might just be a case of a young audience so disturbed by the themes of the show that they have to laugh to keep themselves from going crazy.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 9:37am

I love Parker in this revival and also think she got a raw deal in regards to the Tonys, but I do think she is playing the role for more laughs than it usually is.

Compare the way Parker handles all the drinking Blanche does with the way Blanchett did it at BAM. Blanchett was deathly serious- her Blanche was a raging alcoholic who was desperate for another drink. It was depressing and deadly serious. Parker is having fun with the drinking, and I think it works better. Streetcar is equally funny in parts as it is devastating in others. I think part of the reason people are laughing in this revival at the more serious parts is they have been having so much fun in the first half of the play that the shift takes them off guard. Parker is SO good at the comedy and her Blanche not of the crazy variety, so it's understandable that people not familiar with the play are honestly taken by surprise by the turns it takes.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 9:45am

I'm just stopping by to say I'm enjoying this thread.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 10:54am

I definitely agree. I loved her take on Blanche. I think she deserved a nomination over Cynthia Nixon for sure.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 11:01am

I remember seeing an incredible cast in Los Angeles for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

It starred double Oscar-winner Glenda Jackson (Martha), John Lithgow (George), Cynthia Nixon (Honey), and Brian Kerwin (Nick).

It was directed by Edward Albee himself (sometimes authors do not know the best way to handle their own material) ...

... and it was terrible. Bland. And mostly played for laughs. And it got big laughs, too. In the end, it felt like a well-crafted sitcom episode with occasional bite.

It didn't come anywhere near the intensity of the film or (from what I understand) the original Broadway production.

Albee said he always intended for it to be a comedy. I can tell you now that if it had opened with that direction, it would not be remembered as the classic it is today.

So, yes, how a play is presented can mean everything.


LA Times review of Virginia Woolf

Updated On: 5/17/12 at 11:01 AM

[Matt2]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 11:41am

Wow. I'd think Jackson would make an incredible Martha. But I guess the presentation of the piece is vital to its success. And it seems Albee, strangely enough, just wasn't the right person to direct the show correctly. Maybe he was just too close to the play to know how to direct it properly. Sorry, that sounds unbelievably presumptuous of me to say that he wouldn't know how to direct his own play (and I'm not trying to come across that way), but some authors just can't direct.

[Kad]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 11:44am

This isn't the first time I've heard of Albee not being a good director of his own work.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 11:56am

It's tough when you create something like a song, a musical work, a play, or a book (or anything else for that matter). You have an experience that no one else who ever sees or hears the work will have ... because you created it.

But you, in turn, have no idea how other people see it. At best, you can try to be objective and pretend to stand in their shoes ... but you know exactly where every creative decision came from, whether based on reality, a personal experience, or imagination. So your intentions can be different from an audience's perception ... or even an actor or director's perception.

Albee wrote a good play. Alan Schneider and Mike Nichols made it into a great play and classic material. It may not have been the author's intent ... just like William Inge wanted a different ending for Picnic (discussed in another thread) ... but ultimately what worked best won out.

It's important to remember that theatre is a collaborative art form. Sondheim always talks about that. His intentions for Sweeney Todd on stage were very different from Hal Prince's, but the two together created a masterpiece.

As much as I admire Sondheim and other writers and authors .... and as much as I respect that theatre is considered a writer's medium (where film is a director's medium) ... none of them did it alone. Far from it.

[broadfan327]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 12:34pm

It was my first time seeing a production of Streetcar, and I laughed throughout along with the audience. The way she portrayed Blanche, I didn't realize she was supposed to be crazy until the final scene. I saw Blanche as someone who was past her prime and schemed her way through life.

[ljay889]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 12:40pm

I agree that she added a lot of the humor to the drinking, and it worked. But it's pretty disheartening when the audience is laughing and howling throughout the majority of act 2.