Photos

1st Night Photos: Weisz & Cowan Board Streetcar

Theo Bosanquet
London's West End

The Donmar Warehouse’s stellar revival of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire opened last night (28 July, previews from 23 July), with Rachel Weisz and Elliot Cowan leading the cast as Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski, the roles immortalised on film by Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando.

First seen in 1947, Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire centres on fading southern belle Blanche DuBois, whose arrival at the home of her sister Stella and her brutish husband Stanley Kowalski upsets their marital dynamic and sets Blanche and Stanley on a violent collision course.

Alongside Weisz and Cowan, the cast also features Jack Ashton, Barnaby Kay and Ruth Wilson (as Stella). The last major London production of Streetcar was at the National Theatre in 2002, when Glenn Close and Iain Glen played Blanche and Stanley in a production directed by Trevor Nunn. This time round, choreographer-turned-director Rob Ashford (Parade) is at the helm.

TO SCROLL THROUGH ALL OF A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE‘s 1ST NIGHT PHOTOS,
JUST CLICK ON THE “NEXT >” LINKS BELOW THE FOLLOWING FRAME.
PHOTOS BY DAN WOOLLER FOR WHATSONSTAGE.COM.

For 1st Night Photos, our Whatsonstage.com photographer Dan Wooller was at the Donmar, where the company were joined by guests including Lara Pulver (about to jet off to LA to star in Ashford’s acclaimed production of Parade), Joshua Dallas, Sally Ann Triplett, Judy Craymer and  Thea Sharrock (soon to be directing Mrs Klein at the Almeida).

A Streetcar Named Desire continues to 3 October 2009, and is followed by Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s Life Is a Dream in a new version by Helen Edmundson and featuring a return to the London stage for Dominic West, who recently rose to international stardom in acclaimed American TV series The Wire (See News, 17 Apr 2009).