“Individual life is a serialised capitalistic miniature crisis, a disaster bearing your name.” Tennessee Williams’ play, written in 1947, is an early, deeply American piece of evidence for Brian Massumi’s thesis. The question stated in the play is how much self-deception and lies are needed to put up with the disaster. There is no security or satisfaction in such a system. Only desire remains strong –and love, as long as it is unrequited love. Nobody comes out of it alive. This is the case of the traumatized teacher Blanche Dubois, who takes refuge in a dream world because she cannot put up with reality, as well as of Stanley Kowalski, “the beast”, who literally beats up on his life, of her sister Stella, who has installed herself in her slave-like dependence on Stanley, and also of Mitch, Stanley’s shy, helpless alter ego. “Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown”, men on the brink of unconsciousness.
With: Kathrin Angerer, Brigitte Cuvelier, Henry Hübchen, Milan Peschel, Silvia Rieger and Bernhard Schütz
Director: Frank Castorf
Stage Designer: Bert Neumann
Light Design: Lothar Baumgarte
Dramaturgy: Carl Hegemann
A Coproduction with Salzburger Festspiele
