The Kindness of Strangers
Dec 3, 2009 17:17:21 GMT
Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2009 17:17:21 GMT
Liv Ullmann is directing Cate Blanchett in a production of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire",currently running in NYC at the Harvey Theatre,11/27-12/20.
Blanchett and her husband Andrew Upton lured Ullmann to Australia to direct"Streetcar" for the Syndney Theatre Co.,where the couple are co-artistic directors.
Blanchett states that she believes it is the Norwegian director's foreignness with the material that makes the interpretation so liberating:"In the English speaking world,we think we know the play better than we do-which is viewed through the prism of the film,and through cliches that we have about what it means to be southern".
Music was Ullmann's passport into Tennessee William's world. "It was very clear when I started to read the play that I had to know more about the blues", she says. "Because the truth of the play is the avoidance of truth,and the blues is how you say whayt you don't have words for. I also know that Williams,while he wrote the play,was all the time listening to Gramophones. Very much the Ink Spots".
Ullman's affection for Dubois extends back to a time when she wanted to play her."This is the part that I could have done when I was young. But to be honest,as good an actress as I think I was at times,I could never have done it to the brilliance that Cate's doing it." And it is paradoxically,Blanchett's reserve that Ullmann believes makes her so gifted at playing a woman who holds nothing back. (from Dan Kois,New York Magazine,11/23/09)
I would love to see this production. What a brilliant pairing.
Blanchett and her husband Andrew Upton lured Ullmann to Australia to direct"Streetcar" for the Syndney Theatre Co.,where the couple are co-artistic directors.
Blanchett states that she believes it is the Norwegian director's foreignness with the material that makes the interpretation so liberating:"In the English speaking world,we think we know the play better than we do-which is viewed through the prism of the film,and through cliches that we have about what it means to be southern".
Music was Ullmann's passport into Tennessee William's world. "It was very clear when I started to read the play that I had to know more about the blues", she says. "Because the truth of the play is the avoidance of truth,and the blues is how you say whayt you don't have words for. I also know that Williams,while he wrote the play,was all the time listening to Gramophones. Very much the Ink Spots".
Ullman's affection for Dubois extends back to a time when she wanted to play her."This is the part that I could have done when I was young. But to be honest,as good an actress as I think I was at times,I could never have done it to the brilliance that Cate's doing it." And it is paradoxically,Blanchett's reserve that Ullmann believes makes her so gifted at playing a woman who holds nothing back. (from Dan Kois,New York Magazine,11/23/09)
I would love to see this production. What a brilliant pairing.