Once again the Donmar has a well deserved hit on its hands with this atmospheric production of Tennessee Williams' powerful domestic drama – and not just because of the starry casting of Rachel Weisz as the febrile, alcohol dependant Blanche DuBois whose arrival threatens to disturb the balance of her younger sister Stella's marriage.
Slim, delicately pale and constantly topping up her liquor levels, Weisz's Blanche lives on her memories and her nerves – a restless, fading Southern belle, constantly preening in the last ditch hope of catching a husband before her age can no longer be concealed by a carefully shaded light, and unable to hide her shock at the Kowalski's cramped living conditions.
Ruth Wilson makes a superb Stella, wholesome, glowing with sexual fulfilment and torn between loyalty to her needy sibling and to her coarse, hot-tempered spouse. Elliot Cowan's accent tends to wobble, but he is a mesmerisingly virile Stanley, a man who sometimes thinks with his fists but can see right through his sister-in-law's superior pretensions and has no qualms about smashing through the illusion of the protective make-believe world she has created.
The contrast between him and Barnaby Kay's hesitant, mother's boy ‘Mitch’ (who seems to offer Blanche a final chance of security) could hardly be greater.
Christopher Oram's subtle design, dominated by a wrought iron spiral fire escape, cleverly suggests the cramped intimacy of the Kowalski's New Orleans tenement apartment and, over 60 years since the play's Pulitzer prize-winning premiere, Rob Ashford's perceptive revival reaffirms its lasting appeal.
Slim, delicately pale and constantly topping up her liquor levels, Weisz's Blanche lives on her memories and her nerves – a restless, fading Southern belle, constantly preening in the last ditch hope of catching a husband before her age can no longer be concealed by a carefully shaded light, and unable to hide her shock at the Kowalski's cramped living conditions.
Ruth Wilson makes a superb Stella, wholesome, glowing with sexual fulfilment and torn between loyalty to her needy sibling and to her coarse, hot-tempered spouse. Elliot Cowan's accent tends to wobble, but he is a mesmerisingly virile Stanley, a man who sometimes thinks with his fists but can see right through his sister-in-law's superior pretensions and has no qualms about smashing through the illusion of the protective make-believe world she has created.
The contrast between him and Barnaby Kay's hesitant, mother's boy ‘Mitch’ (who seems to offer Blanche a final chance of security) could hardly be greater.
Christopher Oram's subtle design, dominated by a wrought iron spiral fire escape, cleverly suggests the cramped intimacy of the Kowalski's New Orleans tenement apartment and, over 60 years since the play's Pulitzer prize-winning premiere, Rob Ashford's perceptive revival reaffirms its lasting appeal.
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