ACTORS THEATRE HAS ANOTHER HIT ON ITS HANDS



A Steetcar Named Desire…….brilliantly realized, moving and uncomfortably real.

Human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton

This drama, like so many of Tennessee Williams' plays, contrasts the brutality of the real world with our need to believe in the potential of beauty and goodness in the human experience. Williams was born in Mississippi in 1911 in the kind of dysfunctional family that is reflected in all his writings. One theme throughout his work is the victimized “southern belle” most apparent in Laura in The Glass Menagerie but even more so in his characterization of Blanche DuBois (Rachel Klyce) in A Streetcar Named Desire. His portrayal of the cruelty and aggressive conflict in heterosexual love is reflective of what he saw in his own home. The “love” that Stella (Jennifer Welch) has for someone as insensitive and brutally selfish as Stanley (Vlad Sayenko) is as frightening as it is true. Stanley shouts, “I am the king around here, so don't forget it!” as he sweeps the dishes to the floor and Stella does not question his behavior. She accepts it.

This production, directed by Christian Phillips, the co-founder of Actor’s Theatre and its artistic director, is a work of art. Phillips has preserved a somber countermelody beneath the dialogue and movement as the characters interact with one another. Yet, he manages to achieve a miraculous balance between the brutality, sensitivity, fantasy and dreams each character displays by his very positioning of them on stage. We see the scenes outside the bedroom of the Kowalski home as a counterpoint to the conflict within. This play can easily slip into melodrama, but the production at Actor‘s Theatre maintains its validity on every level. We KNOW these people. They exist even today because they are what we all could so easily become.

We see Blanche’s hold on hope and reason disintegrate when all her defenses are brutally snatched from her, the very fantasies that have kept her alive. She says, “I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don't tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth.”
We see Stella trying to protect her sister from unwarranted, unjust attacks yet unwilling to tarnish her relationship with her husband because, the truth is that he is what she has…and the security he gives her is exactly what Blanche does not possess and needs to find if she is to continue her life. Stella defines her need for her husband as love and her lust for him its raison d’art. Williams makes it very clear that women are defined and ruled by the men they marry in a heterosexual world and without those men, they will be lost. Stella tells her sister, “I wish you'd stop taking it for granted that I'm in something I want to get out of.”
Stella cannot give the sense of security she has found to her sister and Blanche is not strong enough to find it for herself. We question the validity of a relationship driven by Stanley’s brutality, temper tantrums and need to dominate, but it is very clear that Stella accepts what he is and loves what he gives her. She believes in him and tells herself he will give her a secure future. “Stanley's the only one of his crowd that's likely to get anywhere.” she tells Blanche.

The pace of this production is just right, despite its length (three acts with two 15 minute intermissions) and our attention is riveted on the drama unfolding before us. The set is vintage 1948, thanks to Biz Duncan’s design, with a view of the outside world from Blanche’s bedroom. The ensemble interacts with one another as if choreographed for a dance. But the drama that elevated this production into a masterpiece is the relationship between Blanche and Stella. Rachel Klyce and Jennifer Welch create characters that are true in gesture and movement so eloquent one need only look at the two of them to feel their shared history, the love that they have for one another and the heartbreak Stella endures because she realizes that despite the injustice she sees in Stanley’s belligerent viciousness toward the defenseless Blanche, in Stella’s world, she must sacrifice her weak, defeated sister for the dominant strength of the man she married. He is her destiny now.

Don’t miss this mesmerizing production of one of the all time great American dramas.
A Streetcar Named Desire continues through Saturday, May 28, 2011, Wednesdays-Saturdays @ 8pm at Actors Theatres of San Francisco, 855 Bush Street,
Tickets: $38-$26. (415)345-1287 or www.DramaList.com
More information: www. Actorsthearesf.org.