Production directed by Frank Castorf and presented by the ensemble of Berlin's Volksbühnebased; it is a play based on Tennessee Williams's A Steetcar Named Desire.
Frank Castorf, a star of European stage directing, is coming to Poland with the ensemble of Berlin's Volksbühne. On March 29th, the Berliners will present ENDSTATION AMERICA at the Dramatic Theatre in Warsaw.
ENDSTATION AMERICA is a loose adaptation of Tennessee Williams's A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. In his version, Castorf brings the play up to date, setting it in a run down East Berlin apartment inhabited by the dim-witted Stella and her brutal, limited, failure of a husband, Stanley Kowalski. Kowalski, a Polish immigrant and one-time participant of the strikes at the Gdansk Shipyards at the side of Lech Walesa, currently makes a living appearing as a monkey in chewing gum commercials, something of a contrast to Walesa, who used instinctual media savvy to become president of Poland. The scenery of Castorf's long-time collaborator Bert Neumann (recognized as stage designer of the year by "Theater heute" magazine) depicts a studio apartment typical of the vast complexes of housing blocks that dot the landscape of post-Communist countries. It is this interior, supplemented with a large, bourgeois bed that is the setting for the action. Much as they might in a reality show, audience members observe the none- too-interesting activities of the characters in the bathroom of the apartment on a television monitor. The rhythm of the production follows the music, which was selected by German pop culture scholar Diedrich Diederichsen and is performed live by the actors.
Contrary to Castorf's abilities and past propensities, his interference in the text of Williams's play is far from brutal and the provocation inscribed in the production relatively subtle. Nevertheless, the inheritors of the estate of Tennessee Williams prohibited Castorf from using the title of the original play on all printed materials related to the production. ENDSTATION AMERICA was the theatre event of the year in 2000. Castorf "dusted off" Williams and parodied the famous film version that starred Marlon Brando. He created a sarcastic production saturated with irony. With the sensitivity of a seismograph, Castorf records and reveals the weaknesses of humans caught up in contemporary society and mass culture, unmasking their lies and disappointments and effectively telling the story of the universal downfall of individual longings and collective utopias. The Polish public will surely be interested to see the many and surprising Polish themes that the German director has built into his dramatization.
The production is being presented in Warsaw as an addition to the "MEETINGS" FESTIVAL OF THEATRE FESTIVALS.
- Volksbühne Berlin, Endstation Amerika, after "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams, adapted and directed by Frank Castorf, scenery and costumes by Bert Naumann. The Dramatic Theatre in Warsaw, March 29, 2003, 6:00 p.m.