Paul Mescal and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ Pull Into Brooklyn

While the weather in New York is inching toward being springlike, the temperature in Brooklyn was considerably hotter on Tuesday night thanks to the rapturous reception for the opening of A Streetcar Named Desire—which also features a sweltering New Orleans setting—at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater.

The highly anticipated production, which comes stateside after raves in London, stars Paul Mescal in a go-for-broke performance as the domineering, “STELLAAAAAA”-screaming Stanley Kowalski. Asked later that evening how Brooklyn audiences compared to those in London, Mescal made a definitive distinction. “They’re loud here,” the Oscar nominee remarked. “But it’s great.”

Alums of other shows were among those seated to see director Rebecca Frecknall’s take on the Tennessee Williams classic. Constance Wu, who appeared in the off-Broadway comedy Shit. Meet. Fan. last fall, was in attendance, as were Sydney Lemmon—who appeared on Broadway last summer with Job and is one of a number of Succession alums to recently take the New York stage, like Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin—and screenwriter-director-playwright Leslye Headland, whose play Cult of Love had its Broadway debut late last year.

After the standing ovations concluded, the cast and creative team celebrated at an after-party around the corner at the Adam E. Max Gathering Space upstairs in BAM’s Peter Jay Sharp Building. The New Orleans theme carried through from the moment partygoers stepped inside, with a brass band in the entryway, andouille sausage rolls and bags of mini beignets passed around the party, and apt cocktails like the classic Hurricane and a “Kowalski” (Brooklyn Gin, GuS ginger ale, lime juice, and mint) on offer at the bar. Feather centerpieces adorned the tables, and tarot card readers walked around delivering eerily accurate readings.

“It feels like a celebration for this cast,” Mescal said at the party, noting that this was the fourth opening night they’d had between the Streetcar runs here and those in London, with time in between to come back and consider the play anew. “You don’t normally get to put something down for 15 months and then pick it back up again. But I think the audiences are benefiting from the fact that this company of actors have worked incredibly hard on those characters, and I think this iteration of the show is the best that we’ve done.”

Patsy Ferran, who plays the fragile Southern belle Blanche DuBois, has been basking in the opportunity to perform in New York. “This is the best city in the world—full stop,” the actor said, adding, “As I walk around Brooklyn, I’m fantasizing about where I would live, and I love the people here as well. It’s great.” Anjana Vasan, who plays Blanche’s sister, Stella, is also loving her time in the play’s home borough. “I spend my days walking for hours and then I go to the theater,” she shared. “I’ve been to bakeries and cafés. I’ve not even left Brooklyn yet to see Manhattan because I’m having so much fun.”

Doing the show together over several runs has bonded the company, Vasan noted. “We warm up together. And even during the show, we find each other in the interval. We go into each other’s [dressing] rooms, we’re always checking in on each other. We’re kind of obsessed with each other.”

The play unfolds on a stripped-down stage, with a raised platform at the center that feels reminiscent of a boxing ring in which the physical and emotional blows of the story are thrown. “We liked the idea of it being almost this island that [Blanche] is kind of stranded on,” noted Frecknall, who also serves as director on the currently running Broadway revival of Cabaret. “She arrives into an arena that she’s not familiar with, and all the other characters are of that world—and ultimately that world is going to destroy her. So I loved having a central space where the play is told. Also, it’s quite stripped down. It’s almost like a rehearsal room. What’s real and what’s illusion, we play with that as well. It’s become very charged, that central space.”

Actor and director Whitney White hasn’t seen Streetcar yet—that’s a treat for next week—but the Brooklyn resident stopped by the party after a day of tech for her upcoming Broadway staging of The Last Five Years. Asked how rehearsals were going for that Nick Jonas– and Adrienne Warren–led production, she gushed, “Beautiful. I just feel so blessed to once again be in the room with such wonderful artists.”

Another Brooklynite, writer and comedian Phoebe Robinson, was a big fan of the short commute to the celebration (“It’s so nice because you don’t have to schlep to Times Square, which is a long subway. So I was like, Oh, it’s in Brooklyn, I can pop in!”), not to mention the play itself. “It’s a really cool, modern interpretation,” she said, watching the band perform for the mingling crowd.

With a career that started in stand-up comedy, she’s keenly aware of the power of live performance. “The in-person experience is so different, and I know it’s nice to stay at home, but something happens in the air when someone’s performing, you’re the audience, and that energy gets mixed,” Robinson noted. “You can’t replicate that.”

But one thing that will be replicated is the applause received by the cast. After all, Streetcar is running nearly every night through April 6.