The New York Times - Highly Recommended
"This brave new 'Streetcar' takes a lot of risks, yet most of them pay off...Such an interpretation largely strips 'Streetcar' of its poetry. And there were certainly moments when I missed that poetry. But I was also willing to trade the delicate lyricism for genuinely original insights...This unusually dynamic 'Streetcar' plays more on our nervous system than with our hearts. But when Blanche finally goes down for the count, it's impossible not to feel a choking rush of compassion."
NY Daily News - Somewhat Recommended
"Anderson's star turn in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' is a mixed bag. So is the revival of the 70-year-old drama...Her overripe posturing and fresh-from-the plantation drawl feel out of place in a production so contemporary that you could call it 'A Streetcar Named Ikea'...The impulse to ask audiences to pay attention and shift perspective on a well-known work is a good one by Benedict Andrews, even if it isn't terribly enlightening."
Hollywood Reporter - Recommended
"Whatever the virtues and follies of director Benedict Andrews' self-consciously radical in-the-round regietheater staging, it gives us an incandescent Blanche...And in a production in which the actors' work is more consistently persuasive than the conceptual choices, it also gives us Ben Foster's distinctive Stanley Kowalski, a physically and psychologically considered characterization that sidesteps the long shadow of Marlon Brando."
Vulture - Somewhat Recommended
"Everything in Andrews's fascinating yet too-often-unaffecting interpretation aims big but in fact points toward smaller ways of understanding the play...The play is so phenomenally well written that there is much to gain from even an everted, objet d'art presentation like this one...Still, the production is too indulgent in sweeping away the implications of its choices, beginning with its stars."
New York Post - Not Recommended
"If only this London import were better...Anderson and co-star Ben Foster have little to no erotic rapport. There's a reason this play isn't titled 'A Streetcar Named Class War'...As for Benedict Andrews' production as a whole, it's often maddening, and not in a good way...Pop music, a high-tech white set, Blanche's Vuitton bag: The show displays all the signs of contemporary theatrical coolness. Yet there's little gut underneath that hip surface."
Entertainment Weekly - Highly Recommended
"Foster, who seems to have mixed Cross Fit with Häagen-Dazs in his prep for Stanley, unselfishly resists the charismatic impulses of the part, playing him more as a banal slob. And that allows the transcendence and meaning of Anderson's performance as Blanche to dominate...Anderson's Blanche DuBois is such a real creation...And the sonic thunder of applause that comes from the audience should leave her no doubt, now or ever again, that she can always rely on the kindness of strangers."
Newsday - Not Recommended
"This 'Streetcar' is a shocking disappointment. Clocking in at an overheated but glacially slow three hours and 15 minutes, the production is heavy with phony rawness, look-at-me histrionics and a see-through contemporary set...Everyone in the play talks about Blanche's refined demeanor, but Anderson's one-note portrayal is hard, shrill and slutty from the start...Tennessee Williams is the one here who could have used protection."
amNY - Recommended
"It's hard to endure the nonstop motion for 3½ hours. After a while, it comes off as an unnecessary gimmick...That aside, this is a great production. The play works unexpectedly well set in the present day and without the traditional Southern Gothic look...Anderson gives a wholly complete performance as Blanche that depicts the tragic character in all of her mental and emotional extremes."
Time Out New York - Somewhat Recommended
"There's a fiery revival of Tennessee Williams's great drama buried under the truckload of 1990s regietheater clichés that Benedict Andrews dumps all over...Andrews once more apes experimental staging tactics you find in productions from Thomas Ostermeier or Ivo van Hove—minus the intellectual or emotional engagement...Anderson's Blanche and Ben Foster's Stanley strike sparks, but they're quenched under cold design and drafty, portentous pauses."
The Wrap - Not Recommended
"The concept is a near disaster...In Andrews' 'Streetcar', it's not that Foster plays Stanley as a total brute. The bigger problem is that Anderson plays Stanley's idea of Blanche...Because she is a very talented actress, Anderson is always entertaining to watch. She mines the character's considerable humor, but not with a scalpel. She uses a jackhammer...Anderson's idea of illusion is all Maybelline and Aqua Net."
Village Voice - Not Recommended
"My reservations about Benedict Andrews's slick, vacuous production began with the set...The gleaming cube serves as a lavish but empty display case for a couple of rampant star performances...This production transpires in a vacuum, the play's markers of place and time ignored or misapplied...The production does have its rewards. Anderson's Blanche, aflutter with roiling tension, sighs her lines in singsong Southern cadences…Like Blanche herself, the production overstays its welcome."
The Guardian - Recommended
"Flashy, canny, poignant...What's remarkable in Andrews's production is how current and often vital the material feels...Anderson is a haunting Blanche, imperious and frail, vicious and injured...Foster inhabits Stanley's erotic fascination and violent temper without apology or ostentation. Andrews builds his production around their climactic confrontations, but some of the quieter moments register most strongly."
TheaterMania - Recommended
"This 'Streetcar' is fleshy, bloody, and completely alive...Anderson grippingly portrays a woman accustomed to surviving on her charms, now entering an economy in which such skills are not valued...As American society continues to grind forward, those left in the lurch by this rapid transition might be tempted to identify with a solid union man like Stanley; but upon closer inspection (which this production thrillingly offers), they're likely to find more empathy with Blanche."
Edge New York - Highly Recommended
"The acclaimed production is very tight, despite its three-hour run time, and presents a raw, brutal new staging…Anderson fits the bill perfectly as a woman who might be reaching the end of her saleable days…Powerhouse Ben Foster plays her antagonist Stanley Kowalski with an everyman violence that almost surpasses Marlon Brando in the role...But it's his vulnerability, especially in the scene where he cries and howls for Stella, that elevates him from mere caricature."
Epoch Times - Recommended
"The spareness and simplicity of Magda Willi's minimalist cream-and-white set engage the audience...Gillian Anderson's vivid Blanche is tougher than many other interpretations, making her downfall all the more extreme and meaningful as she gradually disintegrates...Ben Foster's Stanley struts like a proud rooster throughout, but was for my taste a bit too one-note...Altogether, a terrific theatrical offering and a fine Tennessee Williams rendition."
Huffington Post - Somewhat Recommended
"Although there's much to praise, the laurels go mostly to the cast. About other prominent aspects, there's much to question...The cast members behave for the most part as if they're in circumstances not compromised by the physical attributes provided here...The argument is being made that modernizing 'Streetcar' is a perfectly reasonable approach to new productions. That may be, but if so, the modernizing displayed here isn't the right modernizing."
Theater Pizzazz - Highly Recommended
"Sometimes a production comes along that shakes up a classic, and you feel that you're seeing it for the very first time. Such is the case of Benedict Andrew's stunning 'Streetcar'...The strength of Andrews's production lies in its rawness and primal energy. By stripping away the colorful atmosphere of New Orleans and paring the play down to the bone, Andrews focuses fiercely on the characters and their intense relationships."
WNBC - Recommended
"Anderson's interpretation strikes a note of dissonance with the other performances from this cast—it will surely be a polarizing point for audiences; I liked it. Inarguably, it's almost as if she were in an entirely different play from the other performers...This is an enjoyable interpretation of an American classic, unfrozen from its typical place in time. If 'Streetcar' doesn't expose the emotional crises of its central characters, there's no point watching it."
Exeunt Magazine - Somewhat Recommended
"Though these two may have a date with destiny, there is no spark between them. This proves to be the best thing Andrews could do with the play, by giving us a Blanche we can respect and a Stanley we cannot...It certainly finds new and welcome readings in Williams' classic, which is what the best adaptations do...Andrews and Anderson keep a tight hand on the madness card, but they play, unflinchingly, the woman card, and it feels like Williams would agree."
NJ.com - Highly Recommended
"Benedict Andrews' brilliant new production makes you feel as if this classic play was written just yesterday...The immediacy of this ‘Streetcar' comes from the galvanizing intensity of the actors, and from the genius of Andrews' staging...These actors leave nothing on the table, and in the end, neither does Andrews...It's that kind of show: transporting, thrilling, nerve-jangling."
