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