A Streetcar Named Desire
Trying to leave a troubled past behind her, fading southern belle Blanche DuBois moves into her sister Stella’s New Orleans apartment. Stella’s brutish husband Stanley sees that Blanche is not what she appears to be, and sets out to destroy her…
Reviews:
The dancers were brilliantly served by Peter Salem’s atmospheric score, which blended elements of jazz, obsessive minimalist figures, dissonant crashes and keening string romance
The score, most of it live from a band in the pit, some of it recorded atmospheric noise, is the chief motor of this Streetcar. Drawing on a range of styles, from polite wedding waltzes to juicy New Orleans jazz to Philip Glass-ish noodling, it doesn't just underpin the action but offers emotional pointers ahead of the game. A blind man would know where he was in the story. The climax, where the "Paper Moon" theme shatters into a pile-up of discordant shards, isn't just a stirring aural metaphor for the chaos in Blanche's head, you can imagine it really is the sound in her head.
