This Streetcar is transporting. The casting of Rebecca Frecknall’s production guaranteed a sellout, and has produced three bewitching performances: Paul Mescal in the part that Brando and his T-shirt played in the 1951 movie, alongside Patsy Ferran, stepping in late for an injured Lydia Wilson, as Blanche, and Anjana Vasan as sister Stella. Yet the central triumph is Frecknall’s ability to find the pulse of Tennessee Williams’s 1947 play. Confusion and desire are not embodied in a single performance: they sweep the stage, pushing the action along.
Frecknall has been most acclaimed for her massive production of Cabaret (still running at the Playhouse). Yet her real breakthrough was her 2018 reimagining of Williams’s little-known Summer and Smoke, also featuring Ferran and Vasan: Frecknall weirded the play, making it look both internal and like Streetcar’s twin. This production has a similar, though more far-reaching effect.
