SET in the stifling heat of New Orleans’s Latin Quarter, Tennessee Williams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire follows wilting Southern beauty Blanche DuBois as she attempts to escape her former life and past trauma.
Blanche takes up residence in her sister Stella’s cramped two-room apartment, much to the irritation of her boorish and abrasive brother-in-law Stanley. But as details of Blanche’s past come to light, she incurs the suspicion and then the wrath of Stanley, and her sense of reality begins to shatter.
Culminating in a violent clash of characters and natures, illusion and reality, 'Streetcar' brings the subjects of gender, identity, sexuality, desire and fate into stark light.
The last time the play was performed at the Lyric was in 1984 with Stella McCusker playing the tragic heroine. The latest Lyric production will be given a contemporary feel by award-winning director Emma Jordan.
The cast includes Aoibhéann McCann, Abigail McGibbon, Meghan Tyler, Seamus O'Hara, Julie Maxwell, Sean Kearns, Mark Huberman and Christopher Grant.
:: A Streetcar Named Desire continues at Belfast's Lyric Theatre until June 8. Lyrictheatre.co.uk.
