They have to be the most daunting opening lines for any actress: "They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields" as they signal the beginning of an epic journey for both performer and audience into the dark heart of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE and in particular the character of Blanche DuBois.

It's a role that is so beautifully written by Tennessee Williams, that gives the actress so many chances to barnstorm that unless the piece is perfectly balanced between the four main characters it can overtip into a one-woman show. To be honest I have yet to see a perfectly balanced stage production and Rob Ashford's production at the Donmar does not break that run.

Of course there are omnipresent shadows lurking over any production: Vivien Leigh's beautifully multi-levelled performance as Blanche and the explosive Stanley of Marlon Brando from Elia Kazan's film version of his original stage production. The perfect supporting performances of Karl Malden and Kim Hunter are also hard to step out from under too.

The last time I saw it on stage was with Glenn Close at the National Theatre directed by Trevor Nunn. It was a highly mannered performance - she started off at frenzy pitch and continued unwaveringly for the next three hours. More than once I would have been happy to throw a bucket of water over here to calm her down. Iain Glenn was miscast as Stanley although Essie Davis and Robert Pastorelli (who died a few years ago from a drug overdose) were ok as Mitch and Stella.

I missed Jessica Lange in Peter Hall's Haymarket production but loved Sheila Gish's performance at the Mermaid Theatre back in the 1980s opposite the anonymous Paul Herzberg as Stanley but with excellent support from Duncan Preston as Mitch and a great Stella from a young Clare Higgins. Gish managed to cover the polar opposites of Blanche's character - the poetic, tremulous woman trying to find "a cleft in the rock of the world that I can hide in" and the steely pragmatist surviving a life of dying relatives and cruel reality.

Rachel Weisz was certainly the fiercest Blanche I have ever seen. From her first appearance, she is obviously damaged goods but with a steely resolve to survive and a tangible resentment of Stella getting away from the suffocating atmosphere of Belle Reve. She also made the most of Blanche's alcoholism - every time she knocked back a straight Bourbon she would lean back arching her neck as it gave her a moment's release. The first time she let her guard down was in the scene with the young man collecting for the Evening Star which she handled wonderfully.

She is the youngest Blanche I had ever seen but the description in the text is that she is in her early 30s so it worked remarkably well. It certainly ramped up the sexual tension which certainly didn't work in the Glenn Close version - you can imagine Weisz's Blanche enjoying having sex with Stanley if their circumstances were different.

You should always feel that Blanche has the possibility of escape from her fate - if Stanley had been kinder, if Mitch had not been tied to his mother, if the world was a more understanding place. So the tragedy of the final scene should hit hard and in this production it did, seeing Rachel Weisz's Blanche broken by life's cruelty was very affecting as the auditorium reverberated with her childlike sobbing.

It connected with an earlier line of Stella's when she admonishes Stanley for his heartlessness telling him that no one knew the Blanche she remembered from before, trusting and childlike. It was a brave performance as she did nothing to elicit the audience's sympathy but it was a particular triumph. I also saw her as Catherine in Williams' SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER produced by the Donmar in the west end in 1999 and she showed she had the potential to be a great Blanche. It's a pity we don't see this magnetic actress on stage more often.

Ruth Wilson was well cast as Stella. She is younger than Blanche by five years but is more balanced and more able to deal with life. I have never seen a bad Stella and Wilson brought great emotional warmth to this important role. Her resemblance to Weisz made them believable sisters and she had just the right astringent quality to her performance, especially in her rueful delivery of Stella's line about enjoying serving drinks to Blanche because it reminded her of the old days. She also has to be believable as the brow-beaten wife of Stanley and make you understand how this young girl from the South would withstand all Blanche's entreaties to leave her volatile husband and this Wilson did.

I also enjoyed Barnaby Kay as Mitch, Blanche's last chance for survival which is brutally closed off. He brought an easy affability to the role while also hinting at the ambiguity of being trapped in a relationship with his sickly, needy mother who is stifling his need for freedom. I had never realised the undertow of Blanche and Mitch's attraction in that her life too has been trapped with dying, emotionally-blackmailing relatives in Belle Reve which makes their stifled relationship all the more tragic. His drunken confrontation scene with Weisz was very powerful.

I also liked Danielle Nardini who made the most of her scenes as Eunice, the neighbour upstairs who has a loving, argumentative relationship with her husband which mirrors Stanley and Stella's.

Which brings us to Elliot Cowan's Stanley. One day I guess I will see an actor who makes a success of this role but it has yet to happen. Cowan was adequate but the sheer macho over-acting just started to grate after a while and his black and white reading of the role didn't mesh well with the nuanced performances of the other three leads. There is more to Stanley than his overbearing nature - played like this his attractiveness to the other characters is hard to believe.

Christopher Oram's design for the cramped apartment worked well on the Donmar stage with the design extending around and above the circle with New Orleans-style fancy balcony metalwork. The lighting design by Neil Austin was also hugely evocative and perfectly captured the shifting moments of Blanche's fantasy and reality.
Rob Ashford is an odd choice as a director as he is mostly known for his choreography but his production moved along at a swift pace - the only clunking moment came with the introduction on stage of figures from Blanche's imagination which was too literal and impeded the action.

But above all it was great to hear Tennessee Williams' magnificent prose of harsh truths and poetic imagery - a clarion call for tolerance of the imaginative dreamer. It is one of my favourite plays and I love to lose myself in it.