A Streetcar Named Desire

Critiqued by Holly Bartges

Tennessee Williams’ indelible character, Blanche DuBois oozes sensual sexuality even when she says Good Morning to the cat. if there was a cat, in the beloved well known play A Streetcar Named Desire. Williams set high deliberate standards for his “people”, and whoa to the director/actors who cannot meet those standards head-on. Not to worry, no disappointment surrounds the Vintage Theatre’s current production directed by Craig Bond.

Haley Johnson as Blanche and Kurt Brighton as Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire. Photo by Ellen Nelson

Marlon Brando, Vivian Leigh, and Kim Hunter, may be fried into our brains as the ultimate epitome of Stanley and Stella Kowalski, and Blanche Dubois in the 1951 movie, but Haley Johnson as Blanche, Linda Williams as Stella, and Kurt Brighton as Stanley take the breath away while the mouth flips wide open. Johnson does a magnificent job incorporating her entire being into Blanche. Her darting eyes, twitching eyebrows, taunt nervousness, reflects the disturbed Blanche, while her words to Stella attempts to deliver signs of peace and harmony. Too Stanley her words speak one language, while her body titillates with quite another.

Williams’ poetic ability to capture the human predicament in the specific “Southerized” culture remains legendary. His truth will be encircled for hundreds of years to come.

Nick Kargel encompasses the flavor of the New Orleans French Quarter with a clever intricate design. Although most of the stage includes Stella and Stanley’s small two room apartment, flavor of the outside street and neighboring apartments seep in through windows, doorways and cut away walls. His design proves just about any play can be performed on any size stage when the stage itself is taken into account and included in the discussion. The New Orleans set is breathtaking. One of the finest for Streetcar I’ve ever seen.

From the moment Johnson appears, she disappears. Hiding a frightened psyche, suitcase in hand, weariness flows throughout the body. Weariness, naiveté, anxiety, fears, and a childlike dream for everything to be all right electrifies the eyes, while a hungered sensuality drips through her muscles. This isn’t Haley Johnson. Before you, stands Blanche DuBois. Johnson claimed Blanche for her own.

Williams counteracts Blanche as Stella giving her a sense of contentment. She knows the apartment is drab, small, and not in the best part of town. To Stella, it doesn’t matter. She’s with Stanley. Because of his forced naive masculinity, proven by obnoxious brutality, this true to life scenario always raises questions as to why anyone would put up with, live with, and tolerate brutal treatment, especially when portrayed in such honest believability. Why and how human beings stay in brutalized relationships is always difficult for those on the outside to comprehend. For those caught in the battered syndrome, it’s a different animal altogether. It’s been explained by psychiatrists and psychologists a million times, and will continue to be each time a new situation arises.

Williams does a masterful piece of work incorporating Stella’s quiet simplicity, with her love and anxiety for Stanley, her justification for Stella, her pregnancy, her jolted nerves for Stella’s immanent breakdown. Williams makes Stella her very own creation.

Barbaric. Living in a lower case world of animal instinct, Stanley lives by his underdeveloped brain south of his neck. At the same time he has eagle eyes picking up on the slightest conflicted invitation to ignite his flammable loins. Kurt Brighton couldn’t be Brando; he doesn’t have to be. He can be Stanley, and he is. He provides a simple, macho, insecure, aware, brutal, loudmouth Stanley.

Jen Orf’s lighting design highlights the significant and apparent insignificant moments. Having Blanche walk into a bright spot in her dream state resounds with brilliance, in more ways than one, speaking as poetically as Tennessee Williams’ words. A bright spot on the Mexican Flower Woman (Maru (Maria) Garcia walking the street outside the apartment adds an eerie and yet down-home flavor grabbing its own attention.

Patrick Collins turned Harold “Mitch” Mitchell into a highly significant role. Slumped in confusion, off in a corner, Collins wears Mitch’s heart on his sleeve. Mitch’s falling in love with Blanche, his turmoiled confusion, lostness, and disillusionment reflect through Collins’ expressive eyes and crest fallen face. Collins draws the audience to him with his charisma, even when Stanley takes center stage. He doesn’t distract from Stanley or anyone else, but adds flavor to every one of his scenes.

Linda Williams as Stella and Kurt Brighton as Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire. Photo by Ellen Nelson

Clara Evans and Patrick Hurley as Eunice and Steve Hubbell define the neighborhood, the carved masculined macho atmosphere, the nosey, caring neighbor-friend.

Outside the tiny apartment, the minor characters flicker with New Orleans life with Stephen Rangel as a sailor and young collector, Veronica “Roni” Lee as a Neighbor and Nurse, Bill Thompson as a Man On The Street, and Doctor, and Garcia also as a Women of the Evening. Vital details were spent cultivating the characters even though they may be on stage for only a few seconds. That can easily be taken for granted. It’s no small trick to give minor characters full-blown significant attention. This production colors the insignificant moments with bright colors shading them into a stunning portrait of deceit, denial, betrayal, fear, anxiety, and flowing sexual tension.

A Streetcar Named Desire is a magnificent production, demonstrating the growth of Vintage Theatre, Bonds as a Director, continuing to feed into human nature’s insight engulfing, the good, bad, ugly and wondrous. Not to be missed. The penetrating story grips. The actors create their own detailed personifications melding together in electrified energy. The stage takes you to a quiet corner of New Orleans where a volcanic time bomb sizzles in wait for Blanche to slip through the windowless front door.

A Streetcar Named Desire
By Tennessee Williams; Directed by Craig Bond