A Streetcar Named Desire

 

 

 

Chapter 1 - Uta Hagen

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Uta Hagen was a German American actress and practitioner who was well renowned for the method that she pushed forward in acting. She is best known as an actor for her roles in A Streetcar Named Desire, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and The Country Girl. She was a big inspiration for young aspiring actors, teaching classes and writing books about it. She left an unforgettable legacy in the history of theatre and acting. When she was building a character, she would ask herself nine questions. “Who am I? What time is it? Where am I? What surrounds me? What are the given circumstances? What are my relationships? What is my objective? What is stopping me from reaching my objective? What do I have to do to achieve my objective?” 

 

Something to note about her method is that her actors would do well to make sure they didn’t focus too much on their processes and over analyse the things they did, and instead actually root their characterisation and acting in continuous and rigorous observation of daily life. Her method consisted of five key elements, which are as follows: Substitution is much like emotional recall, but it hones in on noticing where sensations or activities from an actor’s lived experience match up with the scene as seen in the script and on stage. Transference is where the actor takes it upon themself to make a personal connection with their character based on their perspective and lived experience. Specificity is an actor being completely confident in knowing what to do on stage and how to behave, which is achieved through interaction with objects in their daily lives that would be a part of the scene. To reinforce this, actors were urged to rehearse with the exact props that they would use in their actual performance, and try to make an image in their mind of specific objects when looking at a blank wall or when looking at the audience. Authenticity is self-explanatory. Hagen kept on reminding her students to fully utilise the specific props, be in costume, and even tried to recreate the stage space and interior design of the performance venue to maximise authentic action on stage. Her students thus always had a pile of props and furniture with them on stage because she believed that the it was the relationship between objects and people that enforced authentic practices. Preparation also explains itself, where Hagen believed that the way to develop fluency and authenticity in an actor’s performance was to rehearse and rehearse and rehearse. (Ates, The Definitive Guide to Uta Hagen’s Acting Technique 2022)

 

These five techniques that Hagen pioneered had come in very handy when I began to build Blanche’s character. I was able to build a relationship of sorts with Blanche as a character, her struggles with anxiety and getting words out and her experience with loss. I did not method act this as it would be extremely taxing. Instead, I decided to use what I know about those things rather than reliving them, and this was able to help me build up her character. I really tried to use the same props and outfit over and over, but there were some hurdles to cross; the candle I used in the beginning mysteriously broke, the set that I used took so long to set up that it was borderline unethical to subject my classmates and teacher to the travesty of me trying to haul a sofa on stage in a 45 minute long lesson. However, during the longer lessons it was more practical to use my proper set, and I am very happy with the way it looked. Apart from that, the other props were the same. This helped me solidify Blanche’s character, as changing between different props every time, no matter how similar they looked, would have effectively ground the focus to a halt. And for preparation, I just kept rehearsing over a two-month time frame until I was fully confident with my lines, beats, movement and I was at least okay with my accent.

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Chapter 2 - The play

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‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ is a play written by the renowned author Tennessee Williams. It has themes of wealth, loss, love and homosexuality. Blanche mostly focuses on her experience as a teenage girl in love with someone she doesn’t know is gay. I saw this play for the first time back in June of last year, and I absolutely loved its story and the dynamic between the characters. Blanche has a very twisted view on love and doesn’t know how to stay with a partner. At the point where she begins the monologue that I performed, a man is visiting her house asking about her past relationships.

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Chapter 3 - Preparation and Process

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We had been preparing for this performance since December last year, despite rehearsals officially starting in January. The first step was to go through the roster of plays that feature monologues and find an excerpt from a play that I thought would fit with what I was going for. A Streetcar Named Desire was something that struck my interest. Once I found the monologue, we presented them to the rest of the class on the first week back to school. We swiftly began with our rehearsals soon thereafter. I spent a lot of time working on my generic southern USA accent. I wanted to incorporate some transatlantic elements, but it still took a lot of practice to get it consistent and adequate.

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Getting into character as Blanche was a lot of fun, we did a number of exercises to work on our focus, memorisation and characterisation. To memorise everything, I used the tried and true method of reading, covering and reciting. For focus, we traversed an obstacle course of blocks on the stage as we went through our monologues, restarting whenever we messed up or stuttered. Characterisation was mostly a self-achieved thing, where we would make interpretations based on who we think the character is. Much of my opinion on Blanche was formed based on what I had seen in different performances and renditions of the play.

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Chapter 4 - Props and Wardrobe

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For my set, I tried to make it feel like a living room. I aimed to portray a warm, homely feeling through my lighting, props, and stage space. I put a sofa and a table an average distance apart, and my teacher recommended they be at complementary angles, which made it look even nicer. There were cushions on the sofa, and on the table was a tea set for two. The two of course being Blanche and Mitch. Laying the table for two people instead of one drives the immersion further, as the audience see the other set of cups and realise she is talking to somebody else, not just herself. There was a double set of margarita glasses, and a “vase” in the middle. The vase was actually just a champagne bottle with flowers in, but this makes sense for the situation.

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Blanche’s current situation is that her big, luxurious house has been sold because her parents were ill, and they had to take care of them. Once they ended up dying, the house, named Belle Rive, was sold and the money seems to be tied up; while Blanche buys expensive things seemingly out of the blue, Stella and Stanley are left in the dark, not knowing where the money is or what it is being used for. Thus meaning their house at that point in time did not have so much disposable income to buy a proper vase. This adds even more to the immersion of the scene I tried to create. I do not know how successful this was to the audience, especially if some of them did not have prior knowledge of the play and Blanche’s situation, but for me it felt like I had done well to create a scene that complements well with what Blanche goes on about. Her outfit tells a story as well. The thin, flowery fabric of the dress is something that she likes to wear often, but this dress is less formal than that which she usually wears. Often, she wears extravagant dresses that, by looks alone, seem like they cost a fortune. This sparks suspicion in the other characters' minds as they begin to believe that she is spending the money from Belle Rive on her own luxuries.

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References

Ates, A. (2022) The Definitive Guide to Uta Hagen’s Acting Technique, backstage. Available at: https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/the-definitive-guide-to-uta-hagens-acting-technique-68922/ (Accessed: February 2, 2023).

(no date) Sparknotes. SparkNotes. Available at: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/streetcar/themes/#:~:text=The%20message%20is%20that%20indulging,forced%20departures%20and%20unwanted%20ends. (Accessed: April 2, 2023).