A Streetcar Named Desire review: Scottish Ballet’s clean-cut take on Tennessee Williams’s classic

The staging is fluid and the themes clear-eyed, but Nancy Meckler’s production dilutes some of the hothouse qualities of the 1947 play

Marge Hendrick as Blanche in Scottish Ballet’s ‘A Streetcar Named Desire' (Andy Ross)

Scottish Ballet’s A Streetcar Named Desire unpacks and extends Tennessee Williams’ play, looking back through its heroine’s past. It’s an approach that loses some of the simmering tension, but adds a dreamlike sense of the forces driving these characters.

Created in 2012, this Streetcar is an early example of Scottish Ballet’s approach to narrative dance, with fluid staging and a clear-eyed look at its adult themes. Director Nancy Meckler and choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, regular collaborators, move smoothly between scenes and dance styles, supported by Nicola Turner’s design and Peter Salem’s effective score.

Ballet is a present-tense art: since it’s hard for characters to refer to their pasts, Meckler and Ochoa go right back to the beginning. We see Blanche Dubois’ marriage, her discovery of her husband’s affair with another man, the deaths of her family and the loss of her home.