BLANCHETT DECKED BY TRANNIE

By Diana Simmonds

September 3 2009

CATE BLANCHETT, Sydney theatre’s most bankable property, was felled by a transistor radio mis-hurled by hapless co-star Joel Edgerton during a preview performance (September 2) of the Sydney Theatre Company’s already sold out run of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Blanchett and Edgerton are playing Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski in the Tennessee Williams classic and, according to the texts and Twitters flying around town within minutes, the star was hit in the back of the head and left bleeding and dazed – although at first prepared to try to continue – before leaving the stage and the audience being asked to exit the auditorium.

Almost as amazing as the accident is that across the city in Surry Hills, Company B’s opening night audience at David Hare’s Gethsemane already knew the basic Streetcar news by the approximately 9pm interval. By the end of Gethsemane at around 11pm, however, everyone at Belvoir St knew the full story and every available detail.

By midnight the SMH’s Richard Jinman had also managed to crack a quote from“a spokesman for the STC” which was that, “Cate's fine. I’ve just spoken to her and she's fine.”

And the show will go on, with Cate, for whom there is no substitute – in box office terms too. Although how STC will work out how to re-seat the ejected patrons remains to be seen as there isn’t a ticket to be had for the season, which opens officially on Saturday night.

A review of Gethsemane will appear here tomorrow.