Since its première in 1947, Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire has become one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated plays. The demanding role of the tragic Southern belle Blanche Dubois has been played by some of the world’s great actresses, including Vivien Leigh, Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert, in Polish director Krysztof Warlikowski’s extraordinary reimagining at the 2012 Adelaide Festival. In Anne-Louise Sarks’s Melbourne Theatre Company production, Nikki Shiels, in a masterclass battle between strength and vulnerability, steps into the role and makes it her own. In her remarkable exploration of desire, deception, and double standards, Shiels creates an exhilarating Blanche for our times.