If a sign of what makes "event theatre" is how hard it is to get tickets, then Gillian Anderson in
A Streetcar Named Desire must be the biggest show of the year. Even for a ticket-booking ninja like me the experience was traumatic, featuring as it did a woefully unprepared and overloaded website, and nearly 24 hours' worth of assaults on the booking link before I could get anything. At least those who do manage to get seats will have as good a view regardless of where they end up, thanks to one of the most notable features of Benedict Andrews's production. Andrews was last at the Young Vic two years ago with a
Three Sisters that brought Chekhov both into the present day and out of the traditional trappings, and he does the same now for Tennessee Williams. The New Orleans of this Streetcar is decidedly modern-day white trash, Magda Willi's set the skeleton of a small prefab apartment that Stella Kowalski (Vanessa Kirby) shares with her husband Stanley (Ben Foster.)
