She was amazing. The transformation from a woman who only has it together when she's inventing her reality to a woman completely unhinged and terrified of her true reality was breathtaking.
I couldn't take my eyes off her.
A choir director of mine once said to us that all art is about relating to or understanding the human experience in a whole new way. 'A Streetcar Named Desire' certainly did that for me. The desperation in all the characters to have a good life, which for most meant keeping things the way they were. For Blanche, played beautifully by Cate Blanchett, the desperation for a better life, for someone to love her and to get out of her previous was heart stopping. She couldn't see beyond herself and couldn't move past her past. She was trapped, she knew it, and she wanted to get out. In the end Blanche was fighting like a trapped animal, caught by only one leg in the trap, thinking there is a chance for freedom. The struggle was amazing to watch, and Cate Blanchett's depiction was absolutely riveting.
It's not easy to watch the struggle for survival, especially when it fails. In a story like this, for me part of the experience is trying to see how it could have ended differently. If people had acted better, looked for the good, had more compassion, or even just honestly talked would it have made a difference? Would the struggle have ended so crushingly? I'll be thinking about this for a while.
photo from playbill.com
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