A Streetcar Named Desire at the Royal Exchange: sweltering southern madness comes to Manchester
Andrew Anderson
Maxine Peake recently joked that she and Sarah Frankom planned to set Tennessee Williams’ classic ‘in Bolton.’ Alas, we’re not going to be treated to Blanche Dubois telling Stanley Kowalski that he’s ‘Belting.’ But what we will get is the latest round in a prolific creative partnership between Peake and Frankom that has already birthed The Masque of Anarchy, Hamlet and The Skriker – three plays that add up to a very impressive portfolio.
In many ways this is the most conventional work the two have undertaken. It doesn’t have the political passion of The Masque of Anarchy, the gender-swapping of Hamlet nor the downright lunacy of Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker.
But what it does have is Blanche Dubois’ emotional descent into madness, an experience that plays perfectly to the strengths of Peake as a performer and Frankom as a director. Expect incredible intensity, complex undercurrents and that nightmarish tinge that the two are so capable of capturing.
