In its national premiere, in a production of the Franco Parenti Theater in Milan, a new edition of A tram called desiredirected by thirty-year-old Luigi Siracusa, who also designed sets and costumes, more than 80 years after his debut in New York, and theatrical and cinematographic stagings, such as the famous film directed by Elia Kazan, starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando (1951). The director Siracusa concentrates the plot between just four charactersi: Blanche, played with sensitivity and tireless energy by Sara Bertelà, is a woman who, after a life marked by unfortunate and dramatic loves, moves, taking a tram named “desire” to the home of her pregnant sister Stella (Silvia Giulia Mendola), and her possessive husband Stanley (Stefano Annoni); she is courted by Mitch, a friend of the couple (Pietro Micci) who, when he discovers her dark love past, leaves her, after having deceived her with the proposal to marry her.
The whole story takes place in a narrow space, the small apartment in which the three live, a symbol of the psychological discomfort that torments Blanche. The actors clash, chase each other as if in a ring, a real stage space, but also a mental one for verbal and, at times, even physical conflict, as episodes from the past and conflicting states of mind emerge. Blanche criticizes her sister, considering her to be the slave of a violent and obsessive husband, while Stella criticizes her excessive frivolity. Hanno, who plays Stanley, is very skilled at hiding attitudes and feelings, like many men in the contemporary world, who alternate physical and psychological violence with requests for forgiveness and loving attention, towards his wife, but also towards Blanche with whom he has fallen in love.
Bertelà’s Blanche shows delicacy in her gestures and words, but also determination in the construction of the character: soul, in fact, a game of massacre between discussions and flashes on her past, collapses little by little, alternating hysterical registers with others of suffering and fragility, which lead her to the deepest desperation, but without losing her dignity as a human being. In fact, it is precisely the human aspect of the conflict between individuals that is at the center of the director’s staging, with an underlying message: even in anger and pain one must preserve one’s identity and not behave like “beasts”, as Blanche states who, despite suffering, appearing adrift, looking for something or someone to cling to, still wants to have faith in her peers, and is not overwhelmed by violence. She is fragile, but she still dreams of being able to fall in love and be happy, like every woman, despite her scandalous past that marks and isolates her, in fact she deludes herself into thinking she can build a new family with Mitch: Bertelà mimes a love dance with him by acting in the courtship scenes, always moving in dance steps: first delicately then convulsively, as if overwhelmed by nascent love. Even in the interaction with the other characters she is always on the move, on the run, slamming the shutters that open and close towards rooms hidden from the spectators or towards the outside, trying to get out of the small room in which she is relegated, showing moments of tenderness only for his future grandson and for his few objects that he brought with him in a trunk that the director, also costume and set designer, represents in a glass case as a precious and delicate relic of his past. Own in fact, the close contact desired by the director between the characters leads them to escape from themselves and from others in a constant movement in which they try to distance themselves from each other, but cannot, because the space for action is minimal then, no longer able to stand each other, they raise their voices, shout in each other’s faces to break away but they are increasingly closer and angrier. The acting, in fact, is always over the top to indicate the hatred and continuous dissatisfaction of each character, everyone has something they suffer for.
In fact, they emerge delicate and always current issues such as homosexuality, domestic violence, mental distress, claustrophobic family relationships, intergenerational love. But from the shutters, the only scenic elements present, glimmers of light occasionally enter to illuminate the tormented and dark story.
