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Natasha Richardson
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Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire is a role Natasha Richardson relishes.
An interview by Chris Jones
Are actors born or made? Nature or nurture? The age-old question can't be answered by Natasha Richardson. In her case, the answer is both. She is descended from one of England's esteemed acting families (her parents are director Tony Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave; her grandfather is the late Sir Michael Richardson), and she's compounded her genetic gifts with a diligent devotion to the craft of acting, tackling the dramatic canon's most formidable female roles in an array of powerful productions. Her stage career in London included Shakespeare's Helena (Midsummer Night's Dream), Ophelia (Hamlet), the title role in Anna Christie at the Young Vic and award-winning turns as Nina in The Seagull, as Tracy Lord in Richard Eyre's musical revival of High Society, and Ellida in Trevor Nunn's 2003 production of Lady from the Sea.
Richardson has also had a strong film career since her screen debut in Ken Russell's Gothic (1986). She has starred in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Patty Hearst, Widow's Peak, Nell,, and The Parent Trap. She recently completed Asylum for Paramount Classics and the Merchant-Ivory film The White Countess, scheduled for release this year.
Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson in Anna Christie.
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Now a naturalized U.S. citizen, Richardson has duplicated her London stage success on Broadway by doing what all great artists do: making the familiar bright and new. She has resurrected characters once forsaken to the dustbin of dramatic history, like the title role in Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie in which she made her Broadway debut for Roundabout (and received a Tony® nomination), and makes them live for a new generation. Or, more impressively, she has redefined roles haunted by indelible predecessors such as her Tony Award®-winning turn as Sally Bowles in Sam Mendes' remarkable Roundabout production of Cabaret. That's why audiences have a right to expect another mold-shattering performance when Richardson takes on Blanche DuBois in Roundabout's production of A Streetcar Named Desire. During a break in rehearsals, she spoke with Front & Center.
Much has been made of late about British directors showing up on Broadway and doing American classics...
I think people have been banging on about that for years. I don't define directors by their nationalities —I'm an American citizen who has lived in New York for 12 years now. I had a very peripatetic childhood. I spent a lot of time in England, in Italy, in France, in the States. Perhaps as a result of that, I tend to define people by their talent. There are good English directors and there are bad English directors. I just deal with that on a case-by-case basis.
“Sexual attraction might not always be practical, but it creates an awful lot of relationships.”
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Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson in Anna Christie.
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Do you look forward to the challenge of playing this kind of character?
This is the terrain that I like to explore —women who are in extremis. The scale of Blanche is huge —it's almost like the female equivalent of Hamlet.
You admire Williams as a writer of women?
I don't think there is another writer who writes for women like Tennessee. And that includes Shakespeare. Williams deeply, passionately cared about women. He made them fully drawn creatures of sexuality and loneliness, with all of their pain and their vanities. He just digs very deep and he does so with a certain wit.
You could argue that sex can blind Williams' women and make them vulnerable to ill treatment.
Sexual attraction might not always be practical, but it creates an awful lot of relationships. I belong in the category of people who are led by their passions. If you are of that inclination, that's where you get led. I just cannot think of relationships in terms of deal memos... and I don't like to moralize about other people's relationships... Tennessee Williams was not against progress. He was not embracing the horrors of the old South. In this play, he was aiming for the best of what human beings can be.
Natasha Richardson in Cabaret.
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You mentioned Hamlet. As with that character, some actors approach Blanche as if she is a full-blown eccentric. Others end up with a more normative character. What's your approach?
I don't know. I am trying to do what I always try to do, which is to make a living human person with a past, a present and a future. I simply can't approach it any other way. I have to make her live and breathe and true to life. Arthur Miller said about this play that it is a cry of pain —it's Blanche's cry of pain. She is in some way shattered, sure. But I would hope that within her brokenness there is a sense of her triumphing in some way, even if it is merely through her imagination... I suppose that if she has a tragic flaw, it's that she is a dinosaur who belongs in another age. She wants to be special. She wants to be treated a certain way. She's seeking a haven and protection in men. She does have some culpability. There are a lot of misunderstandings. She sends messages that Stanley, in particular, interprets in another way.
Many actresses have played this part before. Are you starting from scratch, as it were?
I'm not starting with a blank state. I've done a lot of research and reading about the play, about Williams' writing and what inspired him. This is a part that has lived in my imagination for some time now. As for the actresses who have played this part before, I believe you should be informed by the past but then take it to a new place and move on.
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John Benjamin Hickey and Natasha Richardson in Cabaret.
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Do you see her dilemmas as very specific to that time and place?
Blanche is very much a product of her time and upbringing —you really couldn't take this play and set it in any other time from the one for which it was written. Yet at the same time, she's a heightened, intensified version of all women and that's what makes her so fascinating now.
Do you feel like you have found her?
One minute I feel like I am drowning and failing and the next minute it feels like it's all just pouring out...
Chris Jones writes about theatre for the Chicago Tribune and Variety.
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