“Oh it’s Thursday. How gruesome.”

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@ Haymarket Theatre


Theatre Review: Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Streetcar Named Desire

True and true. Holly Golightly would certainly be impressed by the decadence and largesse of staying out until 1:00 on a Wednesday night (which is something I used to do every night mind you…ah the rigours of LSE life). And so would Blanche Dubois.

I have had the privilege of two exemplary theatrical experiences lately, one being Breakfast at Tiffany’s at the Royal Haymarket Theatre, and the other being Streetcar Named Desire at the Donmar Warehouse. Two powerfully tragic lead female characters, who also happen to be Southern belles with delusions of grandeur.

To varying degrees of destruction, both plays have a single, powerful message: men may come, men may go, they may try to control us, we may twist them around our little fingers, but ultimately they are not the biggest villains. The real demon to fight is getting through life without our logic and instinct for self-preservation being decimated by self-delusion.

Rachel Weisz glittered as Tennessee Williams’ seminal character Blanche Dubois, winning the audience over with every artifice, but always with a touch of darkness. We watch as a number of vulgarities enter her world, each time forcing another reality into her deluded mind. Then, each time, she constructs a new delusion, every time more dangerous, until Stanley Kowalski shatters them all.

Anna Friel’s Holly Golightly, Truman Capote’s most famous creation, is the same, and yet opposite. She takes care to have no imprint, no home, not even a name for her cat. She has no past as far as anyone’s concerned. She flutters in and out of her many suitors’ lives without a whisper of a care, leaving nothing but faint impressions of perfection.

If a lighter, more humorous touch is your preference, go see Breakfast at Tiffany’s [but don’t expect it to be anything like the film, it’s directly based on Truman Capote’s original story]. But Streetcar, with weight and history behind its darkness, left more of an imprint. Even today, I see Rachel Weisz teetering on the edge of sanity. I think of Anna Friel, and my brain goes to Chuck in Pushing Daisies.