The Week on Stage: From A Streetcar Named Desire to Watch on the Rhine

A guide to the week’s theatre

From L-R: ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, ‘Watch on the Rhine’, ‘Swan Lake’ (Manuel Harlan/Marc Brenner/Laurent Liotardo)

This week, Paul Mescal plays Stanley in the Almeida’s long-awaited Streetcar revival, the Donmar brings back a neglected Lillian Hellman play, and the English National Ballet starts the year with a confident take on a classic.

Watch on the Rhine – Donmar Warehouse ★★★★☆

History was about to be made when Lillian Hellman wrote Watch on the Rhine in 1941. The United States hadn’t yet entered the war when she imagined the story of an American woman who has crossed borders with her German family to seek sanctuary at her old family pile. Her husband is “an anti-fascist – and that doesn’t pay very well”, while their children are familiar with being in hiding and think breakfast is a novelty. Ellen McDougall’s revival at the Donmar, which marries classy performances with a great clarity of purpose and focus, is an unexpected pleasure.