Last night Erik and I excitedly made our way to watch A Streetcar Named Desire. I was especially keen because Gillian Anderson plays Blanche DuBois and growing up I was a huge fan of the X-files. Scully and Mulder are still one of the best tv romances and I should know; I was raised by tv! In an attempt to be profound I turned to Erik as we were sitting in our seats to let him know that at this very moment Gillian Anderson was preparing herself for the stage. Please do keep in mind that I often mistake profound for ridiculous. To myself I wondered about her "process". Was she nervous? Did she have any rituals? Stuff like that. I thought about how as a teenager I had watched her week after week, on a Friday night, because I loved the show and I wasn't a very popular teenager. For some reason I was turning this into a reunion of sorts. I would be reunited with one of my childhood icons and she in turn would be introduced to a crazy lady from South Africa.
Upon perusing the program we were to discover that this was in fact not a live performance. It was but it was a live broadcast of the performance all the way from England. Our hearts dropped. Really? Instead of seeing Scully in the flesh I would be seeing her onscreen, again. My monologue earlier seemed wholly unnecessary now. It then made sense why the tickets seemed so cheap and why there was nothing on the stage. The latter I didn't even notice, Erik had to point it out to me. But we were there and what else could we do but watch it.
Another reason why I had so been looking forward to watching the play was because I had seen rave reviews about it. I also enjoyed Anderson's performance in Bleak House and was excited to see her in something else. Of course, if I had the choice, I would have preferred to see the show live, but that's the only complaint. It was brilliant and Anderson was enthralling as Blanche. If you have the opportunity, watch it! It was moving, scary and disturbing in the best way, which for me is having a story that feels so real that it gets under your skin and makes you feel uncomfortable.
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