Endstation Sehnsucht
A Streetcar Named Desire
Created on the 24th of February 2024 for the Cottbus Ballet (Staatsballett Cottbus)
Stage/Costume | Thomas Mika
Dramaturgy | Martin Chaix and Corinna Jarosch
Light design | Martin Chaix
Choreographic assistant | Eleanor Freeman
Ballet assistant | Denise Ruddock
Music | Veterinary Street Jazz Band, Florence Price, William Grant Still, Billie Holiday, George Walker, Ella Fitzgerald, Julia Perry
Original cast | Alessandra Armorina (Blanche), Fernando Casanova (Stanley), Kate Farley (Stella), Alessandro Giachetti (Mitch), Stefan Kulhawec (Allan Grey), Alyosa Forlini (Allan's lover), Clara Dufay, Yannick Neuffer, Laura Oakley, Rachele Rossi, Mario Barcenilla Rubio, Taro Yamada
When you enter the play "Endstation Sehnsucht" by Tenessee Williams, you can only feel a sense of apparent normality that surrounds the characters. Although Blanche doesn't fit into the neighbourhood she just came to, she has a very sunny and exuberant personality. Stella and Stanley seem like a “normal” couple, and their neighbours and friends are also rooted in an ordinary reality.
But as we dive deeper into the story, the first layer with which each character is covered begins to break out, and a much darker and more cruel personality appears in each of them.
In recent years, the feminist movements have revealed what this play—and thus also this ballet—represents. It is an intrusion into the intimate, into what should remain hidden but what these feminist movements want to reveal.
With this ballet I want to show what this play tells us about. The raw side of the characters, the aggression of the men towards objective women and the inherent attraction of these people to raw bestiality in intimate or uninhibited relationships.