Paul Mescal freely admits that Stanley Kowalski is a wife beater and a rapist. The star of indie favorite Aftersun says he has “a lot of sympathy for him because that’s my job” — Mescal is playing the brutal antagonist in a revival of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire at London’s Almeida Theatre.
He quickly adds: “But no, I don’t like him. But I like playing him.”
Mescal describes Stanley as “smart, charming, dynamic and brutal,” adding that “there are parts of him that I would like being around,” though he’s well aware that Kowalski could “explode” at any moment.
In a production directed by Rebecca Frecknall, the revival is electrifying.
Mescal is brilliant as the thuggish war vet, really an animal in a T-shirt. He’s put out of shape when Blanche, his sister-in-law, camps out at the small apartment in New Orleans he shares with wife Stella, played well by Anjana Vasan (We Are Lady Parts).
“It’s my job to see him as somebody who is being encroached upon,” Mescal says.
And it’s Patsy Ferran (Living) who does the encroaching as Blanche.
In fact, both are animalistic, clawing at each other for their own spot of territory.
It certainly shakes away the winter blues to already have seen two of the year’s best stage performances before the end of January. It’s all the more remarkable when you consider that Ferran landed Blanche after the show had been in rehearsals for a few weeks with Lydia Wilson in the role. Wilson had to withdraw due to ill health.
Mescal says that he likes Stanley’s public persona. “There’s a coarseness to him which I think could be funny,” he says. “I think he’s somebody who draws you to him — and explodes, like he’s unpredictable.”
It’s clear that Mescal is the real deal. Not just because of the success of Aftersun, God’s Creatures, Normal People and all the rest.
It says a lot about him as an artist that he spent three years discussing doing the play with Frecknall (Cabaret), ensuring that time was found in his busy filming schedule to tread the boards at the Almeida.
I walked by the Almeida a couple of nights after the play opened (to rapturous notices) to find a line of hopefuls waiting for ticket returns. Every one of the Almeida’s 370 seats was spoken for that day.
You cannot get a ticket to see Streetcar for love or money. Unless you know Mescal really well. Like really well because he has access to two house seats a night. But populations of whole towns in England and his native Ireland have been after him for seats.
Mescal laughs and wonders if he hadn’t playing the title role in The Phantom of the Opera at age 16 whether he’d be in the profession today. “That was life-changing,” he says.
He’s enjoying theater because he loves “the routine of it.”
He continues: “I love the kind of fact that you can really immerse yourself in the rhythm of the play; you’re not kind of stopping for a lens of the cameras to turn around or sit around all day and night. You do the play and it’s different every single time, even though you speak the same lines. The audience is different, everything is slightly different every night.”
Today was different because he received a best actor BAFTA nomination.