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Tennessee Williams

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

Berliner Ensemble, Berlin, Germany

Director: Michael Thalheimer

Performed in German with Hungarian and English subtitles.

1 hours 45 minutes, without breaks.

Affluence is a thing of the past when the elegant Blanche arrives at her sister’s apartment. Stella lives in a humble dwelling with her husband, Stanley, an American whose family has Polish roots. Blanche carries deep secrets in her heart; her posh behavior, her daydreaming, her thirst for attention collide with Stanley’s raw masculinity. The two characters collide, and they destroy each other.

Tennessee Williams’s classic play, published in 1947 (and adapted into a world-famous film starring Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh), is set in New Orleans, a major city in the American South. Director Michael Thalheimer has chosen a method highly characteristic of his works: he takes the play out of its original milieu and focuses on the essence of the drama. He provides a brutally sharp picture of the decay of human and social relationships and the extremes of existential failure. 
Having seen the premiere last year, German critics were effusive with their praise, calling the performance grand, artistic, clever, captivating, a real feast, and an array of enthralling acting. After last year’s success with The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Thalheimer and the Berliner Ensemble again brought the best of contemporary German theater to MITEM.

Andreas Döhler (Stanley)
Sina Martens (Stella)
Peter Moltzen (Mitch)
Max Schimmelpfennig (ein junger Kassierer)
Henning Vogt (Steve)
Cordelia Wege (Blanche)
Kathrin Wehlisch (Eunice)
et al

 

Stage designer: Olaf Altmann
Costume designer: Nehle Balkhausen
Composer/Sound design: Bert Wrede
Dramaturge: Sibylle Baschung

Director

Michael Thalheimer

MS
Main Stage
Michael Thalheimer

Michael Thalheimer

He was born near Frankfurt/Main in 1965. From 1985, he studied Acting in Bern and worked as an actor at various city theatres in the German-language region, before presenting his first work as a director at Theater Chemnitz in 1997. From 2005 to 2008, he was head director and a member of the executive artistic team of Deutsches Theater Berlin. He has directed productions at the Vienna Burgtheater, Schauspiel Frankfurt, Residenztheater Munich, Thalia Theater, Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre and the Berlin Schaubühne among others. Since Oliver Reese became artistic director of Berliner Ensemble at the beginning of the 2017/18 season, Michael Thalheimer has been the theatre’s in-house director and a member of the executive artistic team. Michael Thalheimer’s productions have received numerous distinctions, among them the television channel 3sat’s Innovation Award, the Berlin Friedrich-Luft-Preis, the Moscow “Golden Mask” twice and the Nestroy-Award several times. Many of his productions were presented at the Berlin Theatertreffen, most recently “Medea” in 2013, and at international festivals like Salzburger Festspiele, Wiener Festwochen and Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro in Bogotá.

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