The Australian
Matthew Westwood
September 25, 2009

 

SYDNEY Theatre Company has struck box-office gold with its steamy, sell-out production of A Streetcar Named Desire, and will be hoping for the same next year with a more genteel play, Chekhov's Uncle Vanya.

The lure to ticket-buyers is Cate Blanchett, actress and STC's resident muse.

Blanchett will tread the boards in Chekhov's gentle comedy with John Bell, Richard Roxburgh and Hugo Weaving.

"Good Chekhov is like being at an amazing dinner party, and I'd want to sit at a table with all of those men," Blanchett said of her co-stars.

Her husband and co-artistic director at STC, Andrew Upton, will write a new adaptation of the stage classic. The director, likely to be an international name, is yet to be announced, although Marion Potts is listed as associate director.

STC's 2010 season takes a long look at the US.

It includes American actor William Hurt and Robyn Nevin in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, and Philip Seymour Hoffman directs Sam Shepard's True West.

Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company brings its world premiere production of Tracy Letts's August: Osage County.

Australian plays in the program include Joanna Murray-Smith's Honour and The Grenade by Tony McNamara.