As of: March 9, 2024, 7:15 p.m
By: Susanne Greiner
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Almost like in “Romeo and Juliet”: Franziska Beyer as Blanche and Justin Hibbeler as Stanley in the LTT production of “Endstation Sehnsucht”.
© Greiner
Landsberg – Take the tram to the “Sehnsucht” terminus, from there towards the cemetery and there it is, the “Elysium” – a candy-pink-colored tiny house in the poor district of New Orleans.
The Landestheater Tübingen (LTT) stages Tennessee Williams' “Endstation Sehnsucht” in an Instagrammable way: as a beautiful illusion that turns out to be a nightmare.
Best narrative theater that takes the necessary time (three and a half hours) for text and characters.
Blanche is educated, has a lot of ideas about it, comes from the upper class - and is broke.
Which is why she 'escapes' to Stella, to the two-room tiny house where she lives with her husband Stanley, a former staff sergeant and now a factory worker.
The problem: Stanley sees himself as a "real man" - and therefore as a ruler, the king in the pink 'palace'.
The conflicts with the self-confident Blanche, who makes Stanley feel his intellectual inferiority in every sentence, are inevitable: there is too little room in the small house for two people hungry for power.
The violence escalates in the rape of Blanche - and fizzles out in the consistent denial of the real.
Because everything is so beautifully pink here.
“Today, Tennessee Williams would at least write for Netflix.”
Tennessee Williams takes the time to develop his characters opposite each other.
And the director of the Tübingen production, Daniel Foerster, also lets himself do that.
The power constellations are played out: Blanche's competition with Stella à la Snow White's 'Who is the fairer one in the land'?
Stella's isolation and dependence on Stanley as well as her whitewashing of everyday life.
Stanley's machismo struggle for power.
And Blanche's failure in trying to build closeness to Stanley's colleague Mitch.
Because not only the residents of the trailer park, but also Blanche is stuck in a whitewashed version of herself.
The scenes are fascinatingly well written, the characters incredibly complex, says Foerster in an interview in the Schwäbisches Tagblatt: “Nowadays, Tennessee Williams would at least write for Netflix.” Accordingly, Foerster's characters always pose in a way that is suitable for social media - the cell phone is another part of the body indulge in the beautiful appearance.
Despite a plot that thrives on dialogue, tension builds.
Each of the seven-member ensemble is given their role.
Franziska Beyer is outstanding as the ardent Blanche, who balances on the line between sympathy and snooty.
Justin Hibbeler as 'King Stanley' and Emma Schoepe as Stella, who stumbles in a suggestive dream world, also impress.
Oppressive confinement
The production is made perfect by Miriam Haas' stage design: her pink tiny house - in the interview she calls it "the capitalized form of trailer park houses" - can be opened.
Bathtub next to the bedroom and living room: a narrow space that inevitably causes anxiety and thus caricatures the freedom of the mobile home.
It's also Barby pink, with a mattress and pillow made of Styrofoam.
As Haas puts it: “It all looks good – but it feels really shit.”
The 'tiny house dream in pink' is - of course - movable and is rotated by the actors between scenes.
As the film rotates, the viewer catches glimpses of quiet scenes through the windows: Stella cleaning the windows, Stanley lifting weights, Blanche bathing.
The 'turners' wear shrill masks - and thus consistently catapult the "Endstation Sehnsucht" into the realm of shrill nightmare.