Unfortunately, I cannot mention members of the company by name as there was no programme.

This is very strange as this production has travelled the world and surely there must have been one at some point, so why not here?

I will use the character’s name in place of the dancers given name.

A Streetcar Named Desire is one of Tennessee Williams’ most performed plays with the three main characters Blanche DuBois, her younger sister Stella, and her husband Stanley Kowalski.

Blanche comes to stay with the married couple after she loses the family mansion and plantation. Her journey to get to New Orleans is chequered to say the least and is shown here in flashback.

Tensions arise between the three and so the drama flourishes.

The Scottish Ballet has taken this dense and layered play and created a work of great beauty.

Unusually, there is a Director (Nancy Mecker) and a Choreographer (Annabelle Lopez Ochoa) which works here so well to give the dance narrative a theatrical flair which helps the audience to fully understand the script or should I say, in this case, the sequence of steps and movement that make up the Choreographer’s vision.

The Scottish Ballet, as part of their vision, is to have bold, adventurous performances rooted in strong classical technique.

They certainly achieved that here.

The technique of all the dancers is strong and fluid with the corps de ballet a standout giving tremendous support to the principals as well as changing the set.

The set design by Niki Turner is deceptively minimal with a lot of moving parts to create the spaces needed to further the narrative.

This, coupled with Tim Mitchell’s atmospheric lighting design ingeniously using rows and single light bulbs to great effect, certainly enhances the atmosphere for both us and the dancers.

What wonderful principal dancers they were.

Working with interesting choreography which places each principal in a certain style to establish their character, they all give star performances.

Blanche is more balletic and graceful with lovely extension and her port de bras quite beautiful. She portraits the slowly mentally unravelling Blanche with a sensitive awareness of what is happening to her and Blanche’s joy in finding Mitch, someone she might be able to start a new life with, is heartbreaking. Mitch is an audience favourite. Sweet, eager and pliable, his dancing is the opposite. Excellent rapid jumps and a mobile face charm us.

As the dead husband of Blanche who committed suicide when Balance found out he was homosexual, this dancer is exceptional. The two male pas de deux at the beginning of the ballet set the standard for the subsequent work. While this character is not in the play, he is used very well here to torment Blanche especially when she had been drinking. 

Stella, the younger sister, is given shorter, earthier movements, generating a more spontaneous style with energy and an almost brazen sexiness. Rock solid technique and with a strong acting presence, this dancer shone. I loved seeing her dance with a handbag!

Stanley, the brooding husband who is unhappy with Blanche for many reasons, is danced here with great strength making his character charismatic and overbearing at the same time.

His pas de deux with Stella after his screams to her, develops into a dance of great beauty full of passion and raw sensuality with super lifts and a lot of clean floorwork. 

His next pas de deux is with the tormented Blanche who is attracted to Stanley but fighting hard to supress that attraction. When Stanley approaches her to have sex, she recoils and this then gives Stanley his chance to degrade, humiliate and then rape her. This is really a dance of degradation. It is difficult to say a dance about a rape is done with immense feeling and stunning dancing from both, but it is here. At the end, as Blanche lay crumpled on the floor, you could hear a pin drop.

We finish with the full corps de ballet on stage looking stunning in black, each with a red rose in their mouth, and the ballet ends with Blanche being taken away to an asylum.

The whole ballet is supported by the Auckland Philharmonic playing extraordinarily well. They were aided by some recorded sounds and the mellifluous Ella Fitzgerald singing ‘Paper Moon’. This music is used, in various ways, in various scenes to create a companion narrative to the dance narrative.

The applause at the curtain call was rapturous, loud and long. Deservedly so.

A triumph of a ballet. A slow burner picking up tension and emotion as it proceeded.  

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