Skip to main content

A Streetcar Named Desire review – slow-burning update strips back the classic

NST City, Southampton
Chelsea Walker’s intriguing take on Tennessee Williams’s play conjures illusions before cruelly dismantling them

I don’t want realism. I want magic!” cries Blanche Dubois, a drama queen who can’t stop pretending that she’s something she’s not. Everyone pretends in Tennessee Williams’s 1947 play, because the realities of their lives constantly remind them that they are not who they want, or claim, to be.

In director Chelsea Walker’s intriguing take, set in a contemporary New Orleans, Stanley (Patrick Knowles) is a violent loser who insists he’s a king, and Stella (Amber James) can’t see past the sex to the truth of her abusive marriage. In Walker’s production, Blanche’s arrival reveals what everyone is acting hard to avoid confronting.

Continue reading...

from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Gorp8E
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tracey Emin decorates Regent's Park and a celebration of Islamic creativity – the week in art

Emin and others survey the state of sculpture, Glenn Brown takes his decadent imagination to Newcastle and artists offer northern exposure – all in your weekly dispatch Frieze Sculpture Park Tracey Emin, Barry Flanagan and John Baldessari are among the artists decorating Regent’s Park with a free survey of the state of sculpture. • Regent’s Park, London , 4 July until 7 October. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IDCpPV
Post a Comment
Read more

When Brooklyn was queer: telling the story of the borough's LGBTQ past

In a new book, Hugh Ryan explores the untold history of queer life in Brooklyn from the 1850s forward, revealing some unlikely truths For five years Hugh Ryan has been hunting queer ghosts through the streets of Brooklyn, amid the racks of New York’s public libraries, among its court records and yellow newspaper clippings to build a picture of their lost world. The result is When Brooklyn Was Queer, a funny, tender and disturbing history of LGBTQ life that starts in an era, the 1850s, when those letters meant nothing and ends before the Stonewall riots started the modern era of gay politics. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2H9Zexs
Post a Comment
Read more