Streetcar Opens Tonight

Tonight, Tuesday, is the eagerly awaited opening night of the Sligo Drama Circle’s production of “A Streetcar Named Desire”. And while nerves are jangling, both the crew, the cast and the audience are looking forward to the performance. The Drama Circle have worked hard to bring this large-scale production to the stage. They have even enlisted the help of an American actor, Timothy Dillard, to play the lead role of Stanley alongside Máire Hynes and Ann Marie Byrne in the all-important role of Balnche DuBois. The cast also includes Eileen Higgins, Ultan Burke, John Rogers, Barry Deignan, Frances Ryan, Orla Mc Sharry, Deborah Barker and Fintan Whelan. In 1947 this Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire” opened on Broadway for a two-year run with Marlon Brando as star and Elia Kazan as director. In 1951 the famous play was made into a movie starring Brando and Vivian Leigh in the lead roles, with Kim Hunter as Stella and Karl Malden as Mitch. The story opens with Blanche DuBois coming to New Orleans to visit her sister, the pregnant Stella, and the sister’s husband Stanley Kowalski. To get to their seedy apartment, she has to take a streetcar named Desire. The play, set just after the Second World War in the French Quarter of New Orleans, deals with fantasy and illusion, the Old South and the New South, cruelty, desire and loneliness. “A Streetcar Named Desire” will be at the Hawks Well from tonight, Tuesday March 16th until Sunday March 21st inclusive.

from The Sligo Champion, March 16th, 2004