Gillian Anderson, best known for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the TV series The X-Files is returning to the stage.
In Summer 2014, fans of Anderson can see her on the London stage. Anderson will play Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, the 1947 play written by Tennessee Williams. This version will be directed by Australian Benedict Andrews.
In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois is “a fading, though still attractive, Southern belle whose pretensions to virtue and culture only thinly mask her alcoholism and delusions of grandeur. Her poise is an illusion she presents to shield others (but most of all, herself) from her reality, and is an attempt to make herself still attractive to new male suitors.”
The character of Blanche DuBois was most notably played by Vivien Leigh in both the stage and film version. Cate Blanchett, Faye Dunaway, and Rachel Weisz have also played to iconic southern belle.
The play can be seen at The Young Vic Theatre, who took to their Twitter to announce the news.
Then Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, with the amazing Gillian Anderson as Blanche DuBois, directed by Benedict Andrews.
— Young Vic Theatre (@youngvictheatre) September 27, 2013
David Lan, the Young Vic Theatre’s artistic director, said, “This was Gillian and Benedict working together. They sought each other out, and went through what they’d like to do, and came up with Blanche. With these two people involved there are going to be fireworks on the stage.”
Andrews previously directed Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters at the Young Vic.
Anderson was last seen on the London stage in 2009. She portrayed Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s, A Doll’s House, at Donmar Warehouse in London’s West End. She was nominated for a Lawrence Olivier Award in 2010 for Best Actress for her portrayal. The Olivier Awards are the highest honor in British theater.
[Image via Anderson’s Twitter.]