Paul Mescal and Patsy Ferran in A Streetcar Named Desire
(Picture: Marc Brenner)This wrenchingly sad, stark staging of Tennessee Williams’s play is the stuff theatrical myths are made of, and the first great London show of 2023. Starring Paul Mescal as the toxically masculine Stanley Kowalski, in his first stage role since Normal People propelled him to nice-guy TV stardom, it was delayed and recast when lead actress Lydia Wilson withdrew due to an injury.
The sublime Patsy Ferran stepped into the role of Blanche DuBois, the ageing southern belle whose gentility masks mental illness and sexual desperation, as if born to it. She, Mescal and Anjana Vasan as Stella, Blanche’s sister and Stanley’s wife, provide the core of emotional truth to Rebecca Frecknall’s production. All three act with their whole bodies.
