Although I hinted at it in my last post, no one picked up on it. Last night, we went out to Reperatory East Theatre in Saugus to see one of the classics of the American theatre, “A Streetcar Named Desire”. This was my first time seeing the play. I don’t recall it being in Southern California in a while; according to the program, this is the first time the play has been released for a production in northern Los Angeles County in 20 years!
I’m not going to attempt to summarize the entire plot of this powerful play — the Wikipedia article provides a good summary. In general, the play captures a summer in the lifetime of three principle characters: Blanche DuBois, a fading Southern belle escaping Laurel MS; Stella DuBois Kowalski, Blanche’s sister; and Stanley Kowalski, Stella’s husband. The story takes place in a poorer section of New Orleans (Faubourg Marigny, off Elysian Fields Ave), and begins when Blanche arrives to visit her sister and put her past behind her. As the story progresses, we see the clash between the facade of a fading Southern belle and a brutish hard industrial working man. We see that man’s violent but loving relationship with his wife and how it is affected by the visit. We see Blanche’s desires, including a desire to escape Laurel and find something better — no matter what it takes to do it: lying to be with a Texas man, or disguising her life to entice Stanley’s friend, Mitch, into marriage. But we also see how the truth ultimately comes out, and how in this case the truth leads to Blanche’s breakdown. As you can see, there are lots of things going on in this story.
I’d like to discuss some of these lines, as this story just seems to invite them. While researching this review, I ran across the line in the play where Blanche says, “I don’t want realism, I want magic.” This is one essence of Blanche: she doesn’t want to live in reality, she wants to live in her Southern chivalrous fantasy. But it brought to mind a similar line from another favorite play of mine, “Harvey”: “Well, I’ve wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it.”. Both plays concern essentially chivalrous and gentle characters who have decided they prefer to live in their fantasy worlds. Elwood remains in his, and the characters around him evidently join him; Blanche, on the other hand, descends further into madness. I think the distinction in how the characters end up is based on how they are handled: gentleness vs. violence. Harvey is gentle, and gentle madness doesn’t descent. Stanley only knows violence and physical power. His relationship with his wife, Stella, is violent, intense, and physical. That’s how he relates to everyone, and that violence and intensity break Blanche. It scares her, and makes her fear for her sister (as evidenced by her belief her sister needs to escape Stanley, without understanding that dynamic). Fear is one of those raw emotions — like desire.
Blanche has the major character arc of the play: We see her move from this genteel creature we can’t understand to one with secrets we don’t know. As we learn those secrets, we learn there is a lot of pain behind them. We see, throughout the course of the play, how the pain, the fear, and the desire rip away the mask of genteel and expose the underlying descent, the alcohol abuse, the people abuse. We see Blanche lose her grip on what is real. Stanley and Stella’s violent but loving relationship almost mocks the loving relationship Blanche could never find. As Blanche says in her last line, she has always depended on the kindness of strangers. Stanley and Stella haven’t dependend on kindness; they’ve made their own life.
Stanley is the second center of the story. An intense powerful character who doesn’t change. He loves his wife — fiercely, and passionately — and will do anything to protect her interests and his interests. He senses something is wrong right away when he hears about the loss of the family plantation. So, as the pitbull he is, he digs in his teeth and shakes until the truth outs. In doing so, he destroys not only Blanche, but her budding relationship with Mitch. Stanley would view this as protecting his friend, but it is questionable about what would have been better for Mitch in the end. Could Mitch have helped Blanche through tenderness? We’ll never know.
The third leg of the stool in this family is Stella, Stanley’s pregnant wife. Although her situation isn’t the greatest, she doesn’t see the violence with Stanley as a problem: she sees the love. It is their dynamic, and it works for them (and as we know, there are families in which violence and intensity is the norm — you would think something was wrong if there wasn’t screaming and yelling). Stella tries to help: she tries to help her sister, she tries to calm Stanley, she tries to keep up the facade and balance inbetween. She, too, is ultimately hurt by what happens, but in ways we never see.
As you can see, this is a complicated story with much depth, and I could probably go on and on. I should note that there are other characters in addition to Stanley, Stella, Blanche, and Mitch… but they fade more into the background. There are upstairs neighbors of the Kowalski’s: Eunice and Steve Hubbel. There are Stanley’s poker playing buddies: Mitch, Steve, and Pablo Gonzalez. There’s a young newspaper collector, a doctor, and a nurse. There’s also an old black women (Mazzie) who in the original play provides some meta-insights at the beginning of acts — in this version, the director chose to have her singing songs that echoed those accents acapella. The songs worked, although they did confuse me a bit in placing the time of the play.
Rep East continued its tradition of developing an excellent production, with strong cast and execution. This is one reason why we really enjoy this small company, and encourage everyone we know to go see their productions (yes, this means you — so go — Saugus isn’t that far away). Under the direction of Brad Sergi (assisted by Bill Quinn), the cast makes this play just stun you in the small Rep East space. It leaves you speechless.
Also leaving us speechless were the performances. Leading the cast was Erin Michaels as Blanche DuBois, who descended from belle to breakdown before our eyes. The powerful roles of Stanley was personified by Ted Jonas, also doing an excellent job. His Stella was Nicole Dionne. Stella initially came off as mousey, but as the play went on you saw that her intensity and devotion was as strong as Stanley’s. I should note that these three reminded me of a short story by Kurt Vonnegut in “Welcome to the Monkey House called “Who Am I This Time?”, about a local community theatre and a shy and nerdish actor who can’t talk to girls — unless it is part of a role. The key play in the story is “Streetcar”, and the story discusses how this actor morphs into Stanley, and falls in love with Stella as they move from role to role. But I digress.
Rounding out this excellent cast were Jack Impellizzeriæ as Mitch, Lori D’Itri as Eunice Hubbell, Tyrone “Tippy” Washington as Steve Hubbell, Mary Watson as Mazzie, Carlo Pietrosanti as Pablo Gonzalez, Nolan LeGault as the young collector, Bill Quinn as the doctor, and Laura Clark Greaver as the nurse.
Turning to the other side of the stage… the REP’s small space was transformed into a decaying New Orleans apartment through the magic of Jeff Hyde’s scenic design (I’m always amazed with what small theatres can do). The lighting design by Tim Christianson served to set the mood and direct the focus well. The sound design by Steven “Nanook” Burkholder captured both the madness and the neighborhood quite well. The costumes by Lynn McQuown and props by Pat Robinson completed the mood setup. Ever-present behind the scenes were Johnny Schwinn as the stage manager, assisted by Lauren Pearsall.
“A Streetcar Named Desire” continues at Rep East until February 21. Go see it. Tickets are available from Rep East or through Goldstar Events.
As for us, next Sunday brings us to a community theatre production: the afternoon matinee of “Caberet” being done by the Aerospace Players at the Torrance Cultural Arts Center. Sunday 2/8 @ 1pm brings “Minsky’s” at the Ahmanson Theatre. Nothing is currently scheduled for Valentine’s weekend, which brings us to. [ETA: Valentine’s weekend takes us to Burbank and “Candida” at the Colony Theatre on 2/15 @ 2pm. The following weekend brings us to Pasadena , where on] 2/21 @ 8pm [we have] “Stormy Weather” at the Pasadena Playhouse. March will also bring “Little Shop of Horrors” at Van Nuys HS. That’s all I have booked so far (other than season tickets, such as “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” at Rep East 3/13 through 4/11), but there a number of “shows of interest” I plan to ticket, including “big” at West Coast Ensemble (5/9-6/28); “The Green Room at Hermosa Beach Playhouse (5/19-5/31); “Is He Dead? at ICT Long Beach; and “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at Theatre League Thousand Oaks (4/28-5/3).