The Moth – Old Joint Stock, Birmingham

Adaptor and Director: Nathalie Bazan

The Moth is the latest offering from Lying Lips Theatre Company, a midlands based company that presents intense drama in intimate spaces. And what drama could be more intense than A Streetcar Named Desire? What space more intimate than the theatre at the Old Joint Stock?

Nathalie Bazan, artistic director of the company, has adapted and directed this version of Streetcar. In her notes, she says that it has been adapted to fit a British audience and relocated to 1990s working-class Britain with an added twist centred around the character of Stanley.

As far as the story goes, it’s a pretty faithful retelling of Streetcar. The nouveau poor other-worldly Blanche descends on her sister, Stella, for shelter and support. Both Blanche and Stella are well-spoken and give the impression of being educated, unlike Stella’s boorish husband, Stanley. He has a very old-fashioned view of the world, a world in which the man of the house is king. He and Blanche take an immediate and mutual dislike – distrust – to one another. As the play proceeds, it becomes clear that, for all her superior airs, Blanche has her own secrets. And Stella’s marriage to Sidney is hardly a bed of roses as he bends her to his will. It’s a play that shocks – and must have been even more so in 1947 when Tennessee Williams wrote the original – in that it deals head-on with toxic relationships and domestic abuse; it’s distressing that even now such relationships with tragic ends appear regularly in the news.

As we enter the intimate space at the Old Joint Stock, the entire cast – and it’s a large one – is frozen in various poses around the stage. Indeed, one has to pick one’s way among them to find a seat. When the play starts proper and they come to life, we find ourselves in a noisy midlands club with drunken youngsters shouting above the din. We note that the stage is separated into areas that will ultimately telegraph the close proximity and lack of privacy Blanche will discover on moving in with Stella and Stanley. But first, we find a cast list on our seats and it’s here that there is some momentary confusion: against Blanche and Stella’s names are those of three actors, while against that of neighbour, Eunice are two. And this is the twist: Blanche and Stella are indeed played by three actors each.

The first pairing (Kimberley Dolman and Georgina Taylor) introduces us to their characters and we begin to see the dynamics of their sibling relationship. After the interval, they are replaced by Meera Majevadia and Noor Subka; Subka spends her stint heavily pregnant. When the time comes for the baby to be born, the roles are taken over by Cerys Lee-Jones and Hannah Dean. It’s an interesting conceit and one that could be used to indicate changes in a character, for example as they age, or maybe to bring to the forefront different aspects of a complex character. However, in The Moth it’s not at all clear, at least to this reviewer, why this directorial decision has been taken. That’s not to say that the actors do not play the parts well – they do – for example, the increasing fragility of Blanche is a thread that passes through each performance, and the inevitability of the sisters’ ultimate outcomes is well handled. Each actor makes Blanche appear self-assured with a brittleness leaving one fearing she might shatter were she to be dropped onto a hard surface. But each actor’s characterisation comes from the same place: yes, we see Blanche’s descent into her own head but there’s no obvious benefit to the multiple casting. With Stella, it does make more sense – she starts out as apparently happy-go-lucky but as her pregnancy progresses and she gives birth, she descends her own spiral as events overcome her.

At the centre is Oliver Roddy’s Stanley. He’s an objectionable Neanderthal throwback who has few anger management strategies at his disposal – this fact is at the centre of some of the most disturbing moments in the play. And while Roddy is certainly believable as the coarse Stanley, one doesn’t get the impression of a coiled spring on a hair trigger; this Stanley lacks the louring presence he maybe needs. However, what we do get are occasional glimpses of vulnerability, occasional feelings of empathy for a character largely written to shock.

The relocation also seems somewhat half-hearted. The original play is quintessentially American – not because domestic violence is somehow expected there, but in its humid setting, in its slow-burn and in its dialogue. It combines the claustrophobic nature of the day-to-day existence of Stanley, Stella and Blanche while giving a hint of the huge space outside their world, outside their grasp. The adaptation feels as if the most effort has been expended on the conceit of multiple actors rather than adapting the dialogue; there are occasions when a turn of phrase that works well in New Orleans jars in Britain. There are some opportunities perhaps missed – Stanley has a past in the military where he was decorated for his conduct, but this is mentioned only in passing, a thread that could be worthwhile pulling on.

So this is a brave attempt to recast a classic and Bazan and the company are to be commended for the scope of vision they bring to it. But at present it feels rather like a work-in-progress that isn’t quite there yet.

Runs until: 11 March 2023