A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire is an intense and emotionally charged reinterpretation of Tennessee Williams's stage classic. We follow Blanche DuBois (Hannah Hoekstra), a young woman from the decaying American South who is trying to hold on to the last shred of her dignity after losing everything. She seeks shelter with her sister Stella (June Yànez) in New Orleans, who lives with her rough and domineering husband Stanley Kowalski (Minne Koole).

Frecknall’s Streetcar is a production for a new generation: seductive and dangerously charged, but also unrelenting in its view of masculinity and domestic violence. As The Financial Times wrote: “Frecknall’s production distills the tragedy to a bruising, intensely physical struggle, sweaty with desire, simmering with violence.”

In this remake the traditional New Orleans jazz makes way for a modern, pulsing soundscape played live on drums. It gives the production a nervous, almost hypnotic tempo. Frecknall also works in moments of stylised, almost dance-like movement and slow motion, which make the fear and despair visible in a physical and direct way. With her characteristic minimalist style and her sharp eye for the vulnerability behind human behaviour, Rebecca Frecknall proves once again that she is one of the most intriguing voices in contemporary theatre.