NEW YORK (AP) – If you can’t get to London in time to catch Gillian Anderson is constant motion onstage in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” her orbit is about to get larger.
Starting Tuesday, Fathom Events, National Theatre Live and BY Experience will broadcast to movie theaters worldwide the fresh, critically cheered take on Tennessee Williams’ classic tale from London’s Young Vic Theatre.
The production, directed by Benedict Andrews, is set in present day New Orleans on a stage that revolves constantly, offering viewers both the shifting perspective of the characters and their slow turns into madness.
Anderson, who plays Williams’ legendary desperate Southern belle Blanche DuBois, is joined by Ben Foster as Stanley, her lower-class nemesis, and Vanessa Kirby as his suffering wife. The spinning stage might sound like a recipe for motion sickness, but Anderson said most theatergoers get used to it.
“A good deal of people who see it say the revolve disappears for them and, if they notice it, it’s to notice the benefits of it and the benefits of the perspective that it gives,” said Anderson by phone from London.