The American Struggle
✮✮✮ Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire Berliner Ensemble | Berlin directed by Michael Thalheimer When working on classic plays, Michael Thalheimer has a reputation for steadfastly cutting and condensing text, yet he never alters or adds to what he’s been given. We see the effectiveness of this method in this canny production of A Streetcar Named Desire. With a play that is so of its time, one would expect to hear references or turns of phrase that jar, but this is p
Mishaps in Tennessee's Mississippi
✮✮✮✮✮ Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke Almeida Theatre | London directed by Rebecca Frecknall Patsy Ferran won various prestigious new acting talent awards a few years ago. Here, it is easy to see why. Ferran captivates from the second she first appears sobbing and choking into a microphone as the fiendishly complex lead in director Rebecca Frecknall's rare outing for Tennessee Williams' beguiling, poetic exploration of love, desire, repression and pill-popping.
Even l
The Magic of Memory
✮✮✮✮ Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie Edinburgh International Festival | Edinburgh directed by John Tiffany Director John Tiffany is quickly gaining more widespread fame, thanks to his role in the long-anticipated Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Whilst that continues to stir up flurries of attention in London, his no less magical, 2013 production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie gets its European premiere up at the Edinburgh International Festival. The act
Director's Cut
✮✮✮ Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer Sydney Theatre Company | Sydney directed by Kip Williams The very nature of trauma is dramatic. It disrupts the heart and mind, and leaves in its wake, disorientation and damage. To repair and to move on, fragmented pieces must first be assembled so that a sense of narrative and coherence can be found. The business of theatre involves storytelling, but it also involves a representation and expression of the human condition. At its
Freedom and Its Opposite
✮✮✮ 1/2 Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie Belvoir St Theatre | Sydney directed by Eamon Flack Tennessee Williams refers to The Glass Menagerie as a memory play. The work is semi-autobiographical, inspired by events, people and recollections from his own life. The making of art often involves the search for an understanding of the artists’ self and their immediate environment, through the expression of subjects that are familiar and intimate. Williams’ story examines the
