It seems, as of late, that producers and directors of plays of the past need to somehow underscore a message of the fraught times we are in now – political unbalance, racial bias, abortion bans. (In 2016, a production starring Gillian Anderson in Brooklyn reset the masterpiece to the 21st century) But, as New City Players so smartly does with its production of the classic Tennessee Williams drama “A Streetcar Named Desire,” it remains firmly in its place: The late 1940s, the same time that the play opened on Broadway, in 1947.
The other magic in this production is that the characters are not overemphasized – copies of what’s been done so many times on stage and in the Oscar winning 1951 movie. Actor Marlon Brando was forever equated and cemented in the American psyche with the brutish Stanley Kowalski, which he originated on Broadway, but then firmly planted his place in Hollywood with his unforgettable cries of “STEELLAAA” on a rain soaked New Orleans street in Elia Kazan’s movie adaptation of the play. It won him his very first Oscar nomination and launched Brando’s movie career.
How difficult is it to take a play-movie that has become a bit of a caricature of itself, bring it into the 21st century, and present it as fresh. New City Players has done just that with its current production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” running through Sunday, Aug. 4.
The play’s tension starts early when newlyweds Stanley and Stella Kowalski get a surprise visit to their small two-room apartment from Stella’s sister, Blanche DuBois, a Mississippi Southern belle who arrives without notice. The French Quarter apartment is sparse — Aubrey Kestell’s scenic design has two levels. The Kowalskis live on the first floor. At the back of the stage, straight back wooden chairs are lined up representing a porch of a second floor – off stage above is the apartment of neighbors Eunice Hubbell (Sheena O. Murray) and her husband, Steve (Russell Kerr). The couple’s apartment, which Blanche scoffs at, is utilitarian. A kitchen table which doubles as a poker playing area for Stanley and his drinking buddies.
This is clearly Stanley’s man kingdom – “What do you think you are? A pair of queens?,” he yells at the sisters in one of the scenes in the play. “Just remember what Huey Long said – that every man’s a king – and I’m the King around here and don’t you forget it.”
The bed in the second room is represented only by chairs and when Blanche inhabits the room, she covers a stark yellow light bulb hanging from the ceiling with a Chinese lantern. Jemeelah Bailey’s post World War II props and set dressing, an antique tube radio, photographs, an old telephone, add to the ambience.
The apartment, the neighborhood and the neighbors, are representative of the stark disparities between Stanley, Stella and Blanche, and it will be the building upon contrast after contrast that director Stuart Meltzer so wisely emphasizes and what Williams so deliberately built into his Pulitzer Prize winning play.
Never for a moment does Meltzer let us forget that this is a play of contrasts between Blanche and a world she enters, judges, but ends up being what uncovers her own superficiality.
While some actors could fall into the trap of portraying Blanche – the many monologues, the flashbacks, Elizabeth Price, who has said this is a dream role for her – never resorts to corny cliché but breathes real life into Williams’ character. She is the star of this “Streetcar.” Price takes you with her into the places she escapes to when she goes back in time. She makes every word of Williams’ dialogue count – taking in all that the words mean to the character and the world of her own she’s wrapped herself up in. Price as Blanche keeps her audience on a tightrope with her – carefully trying to balance: it makes for edge of your seat drama. Her character’s descent is real, never dramatized, and by the end of the play when she shows up completely lost in a make-believe world, you’re right there with her.
To Timothy Mark Davis’s credit as Stanley, he doesn’t try to be Brando. His Stanley is tall, lanky, maybe the guy who was bullied in grade school, but now has found his way as the leader of the pack. Blanche challenges him and Price and Davis dig their heels into it and play an intriguing game of cat and mouse that’s exciting to watch throughout. With Stella, his Stanley is a man child. His “Stella” scene finds its own drama, nothing copycat about it – a psychotic break, a boy wanting his “mother” and captivating on so many levels.
Meltzer’s direction adds to the pivotal scene as he has Sacco come to rescue him – she’s angelic – walking across the row of chairs as she slowly descends the stairs to comfort him.
As Stanley’s friend Harold “Mitch” Mitchell, Jesus Reyna plays the lonely man who lives with his mother and is convinced he’s found in Blanche the woman he wants to marry, with complete earnestness, but when he discovers the skeletons in Blanche’s closet, Reyna brings a believable hurt along with a palpable anger.
Where the actors’ strengths lie is in their two person scenes. Sacco and Price as sisters, Sacco and Davis as co-dependent lovers, Reyna and Price as the two sad sacks using each other to fill some void.
The production is not without flaws. The ensemble (Barlatier, Murray, Kerr, Juan Gamero, and Alex Joyel) seems extraneous like window dressing: the poker buddies, the upstairs couple, the neighbors and the flower seller never feel entirely embedded in the Kowalski’s existence. When the upstairs neighbors have fights and are dealing with infidelity, it feels more like a break in the action from what’s been happening in the chaos of the downstairs apartment rather than drama that is tied to the story.
And although there was tension built throughout, there was a fever pitch missing when it came to the pressure cooker that led to the final scene of Stanley’s takedown of Blanche.
On the production side, Laura Turnbull’s costumes, so much of what Blanche’s identity is wrapped up in, are precise – silk robes for Blanche. For Stanley, a prized bowling shirt, and for Stella, cotton dresses.
There are times when recorded music is played, but another element is introduced in this “Streetcar” where, during scene changes, the supporting cast, led by the wonderful Inez Barlatier as Edna Jean, sing a capella songs, “La Vie En Rose” is one interlude after Blanche has been showing off her French and dreaming of Paris with her new paramour Mitch.
What becomes, as if, another character in the play is the incredible sound design by Ernesto K. Gonzalez, from the rumble of the streetcar named Desire that shakes the entire Island City Stage building to the sounds of Mardis Gras outside of the Kowalskis apartment to trumpets and to the haunting and repeating polka music that reminds Blanche of a tragedy from her past.
Lighting design by Annabel Herrera brings in the yellows of the French Quarter hot summer, the reds of passion burning between Stanley and Stella, and the multi colors for Blanche’s memory scenes and the stark white when Mitch wants to see her for who she truly is.
There is so much special about this “Streetcar,” especially how it is treated with reverence and care – letting the characters develop as Williams intended without reinterpretation.
As Blanche says, “I don’t want realism. I want magic!” New City Players has managed to achieve both.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: “ New City Players’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”
WHERE: Island City Stage, 2304 N. Dixie Highway, Wilton Manors
WHEN: Runs through Sunday, Aug. 4. (Sold out but wait list available, call the theater to inquire.)
TICKETS: $25-$40
INFORMATION: Call 954-376-6114 or newcityplayers.org
