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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.

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

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