A Street Car Named Desire

A Street Car Named Desire

With images of a charismatic, but mumbling, Marlon Brando and lines like “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” burned into our minds; A Street Car Named Desire is now engrained as part of our collective theatrical memory. Its most recent reimagining is currently on stage in Ojai.

A Street Car Named Desire was written in 1947 by Tennessee William and opened on Broadway December 3rd of that year. It was met with critical acclaim and was awarded the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as several Tony nominations and winning for Best Actress. It has multiple times been adapted for film and stands as one of the most produced dramatic plays still today.

The well-known story revolves around the lives of Blanche DuBois (Tracey Williams Sutton), Stanley (Ron Feltner), and Stella Kowalski (Vivien Latham). Blanche, the very embodiment of the aging southern belle with delusions of grandeur, comes to visit her sister Stella after losing the family plantation. However, animosity quickly grows between Blanche and Stella’s husband, Stanley, putting them at odds and trapping all three in a violent and contentious battle for respect and control. As the tension builds within the Kowalski apartment where the three struggle to dwell together, Stanley learns of Blanche’s shady past and uses it to try to destroy her. It is a destruction that puts the lives and sanity of all three at risk and brings the audience into a world of hostility, anger, and blue collar frustration. If Miller’s Salesman tell us that there are men leading lives of “quiet desperation,” then Williams’ Street Car asserts that there are woman doing exactly the same thing.

In this production, Blanche, Stanley, and Stella take on a decidedly different feel.  Director Tom Eubanks removes much of the youthful hot-headedness often associated with the play, electing instead to project an image of maturity among the three. In doing so, Eubanks injects a sense of sadness and forlorn entrapment that fruitfully evokes another level of empathy for the trio. Whether or not that was intended in the original penning of the script could be debated. What cannot be argued is that Sutton, Feltner, and Latham acquit themselves well in their roles and combine with Eubanks to offer a new slant on the oft-played characters. Sutton and Latham relate well together, displaying both the closeness and separation experienced between adult sisters. Feltner’s explosive and brutal depiction of Stanley provides well the conflict and volatility the role demands. Likewise, the supporting cast is effective for the most part in their respective roles holding the audience’s attention for the duration of the lengthy three act American epic. The authentic-feeling set and period costumes are efficient in manufacturing the time, place and socioeconomic standing in which the Kowalskis live, and the small theatre in Ojai proves to add a kind of ambiance of its own to the intimate nature of the work.

Justice is, without a doubt, done to both the characters and the script in this production. The pace slows at times during some of the transitions and many of the physical encounters lack the desired crispness, although Eubanks’ able direction and the commitment and talent of the three lead performances carry the show forward to its compelling and dramatic conclusion. This version of Street Car plays well and gives playgoers an opportunity to see a classic work presented with care, dedication, and a kind of theatrical proficiency necessary to tackle such an iconic work. It is not to be missed for local theatre goers!

A Street Car Named Desire runs through Sept. 29th in Ojai at the Art Center Theater http://www.ojaiact.org

Oklahoma!

Oklahoma! opened on Broadway more than seventy years ago, but the iconic Rogers and Hammerstein musical still holds weight with theatergoers of all ages.

The script is dated and simplistic, the music repetitive and hokey, and the characters one-dimensional - and at times, almost inconceivably bland - by our modern standard.  Still, Oklahoma! is buoyed by something that supersedes any of these weaknesses and lifts the oft-told tale up even today as it has for more than half a century.  The well-known characters of Laurey, Curly, Ado Annie, Will, Aunt Eller, and the dark and menacing Jud Fry continue to hold enough genuine feeling on the page to convince theater companies to once again bring them to life in hopes that their audiences will react with the same positive connection to them as they have so many times before.  The most recent company to reanimate this musical battle for love, statehood, and economic accord is the Ventura based Comedy Tonight Productions.

The historical conflict that existed between the western territory cowboys who wanted open range and grazing rights and the ever-growing number of homesteading farmers who flooded the Oklahoma grasslands in the days before statehood serves as the loose background for the play.  In truth, however, it is the common love story between the reluctant to settle down Curly and the civilized and modern Laurey that is at the musical’s heart.  It is their relationship that gives the show its universality and relegates the time, surroundings, and subplots to merely a means to an end, which proves to be a blessing and the key to Oklahoma!’s longevity. Comedy Tonight Production’s successfully delivers that primarily due to the five lead performances.

In this production, staged at the Poinsettia Pavilion in the city of Ventura, Curly (Noah Skultety) and Laurey (Dawn Notagiacomo) appropriately convey the needed romance and further bring out some pleasant, subtle tones of the relationship that allow the show to flourish as the audience-pleasing piece that it should be.  Additional well-played performances by Tamarah Ashton-Coombs as Aunt Eller, Jeff Berg as Will, Becca Lawson as Annie, and most notably by Damian Gravino in the role of Jud Fry add to the enjoyment.  The choreography by Rudy Larrazolo is effective and executed respectably well by the young dancers in the cast.  The costumes covey well the time and feel of the show, and support the capable and more seasoned actors in the leading roles. Additional credit should be given to the cast as a whole for giving the performance what it needs to entertain audiences who come knowing exactly what they want from the show.

The Poinsettia Pavilion while charming as a community hall is, without a doubt, an odd venue for a big musical standard like Oklahoma!. With no in house lighting or sound capabilities and a seating configuration similar to that of a converted high school cafeteria, the cast was faced with certain insurmountable obstacles.  The general lack of direction for the work, woeful fight choreography, and an uneven musical feel further hampered the presentation and most likely limited the cast’s ability to reach their full potential.  However, the age-old tale of a man coming of age and settling down for the love of a good woman remains intact, and audiences will find gratification and satisfaction in the story and the characters as well as the familiar music and some very fine performances.

The selection of Oklahoma! may be a bit of a toothless choice for a thriving and artistic city such as the beautiful Ventura California.  However, as an educational and community based endeavor the show is a nice fit providing one has the talent to deliver upon the audiences long standing expectations.  This cast does exactly that.