Belle Reprieve

Belle Reprieve (1990)

Collaborating with legendary gay/drag performers Bloolips, Shaw and Weaver take on Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire and the mythic proportions of Stanley and Blanche. Both steamy and hysterical, Belle Reprieve looks at gay and lesbian sex in the 1940’s and both honors Williams and turns him on his head. Functionally, Belle Reprieve is a deconstructed version of Tennessee Williams’ Street Car Named Desire. Each performer played their identities against each character in the play: butch lesbian-Stanley; femme lesbian-Stella; drag queen-Blanche and male fairy-Mitch. The events of Williams’ play were taken as a framework on which to hang the individual performers’ autobiographies.  

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Belle Reprieve was co-commissioned by the Drill Hall in London and LaMaMa ETC in New York and toured venues such as Drill Hall, London (1990 and 1991); LaMama Etc, NYC (1990); Rhinoceros Theatre, San Francisco (1991); Out on the Edge Festival, Boston (1991); CCA, Glasgow and Green Room, Manchester, UK (1991); Boston Center for the Arts, Boston; Victory Theatre, San Francisco; On the Boards, Seattle (1991).

The company won a Village Voice OBIE Award for Ensemble Production in 1991 and the script was published in Modern Drama (Bill Worthen, editor, published by Harcourt Brace, 1994) and is used as a text alongside A Streetcar Named Desire as an exemplary use of deconstruction of both theatrical form and gender. 

Footage of the performance can be found here.