By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out”)
It has taken nine years for the Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans (TWTC) to tackle one of the biggest and most intricately constructed of their namesake playwright’s works, A Streetcar Named Desire, the first to garner him the coveted Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
This latest production, directed by Augustin Correro with supporting sound designs by fellow co-artistic director Nick Shackleford, might be the pinnacle of what they have thus achieved throughout their past nine seasons of independent works.
That is not hyperbole given earlier outstanding productions that include Vieux Carré, The Night of the Iguana, Camino Real, Suddenly Last Summer and Sweet Bird of Youth.
Correro has penned his own treatise on the subject of the playwright titled “Tennessee Williams 101.” In it he gives an overview of Williams’ famous characters, especially those strong-willed females, central in his well-known plays. Through the years of research and lecturing, he has come to know his subject matter well and it shows.
Correro’s first duty to helming this production was in finding the best cast to take on the three major roles of the faded Southern gentlewoman, Blanche DuBois; her wayward younger sister Stella; and Stella’s craggy and common New Orleans husband, Stanley Kowalski.
Blanche is played to absolute perfection by Charlie Carr, a recent transplant from New York who made her presence known in last year’s Spring Storm produced by TWTC. Blanche is trying to hold onto her sanity as her world in Laurel has spun out of control. Literally at the end of her rope, she has come to the seamy and steamy section of the 1940s working class New Orleans neighborhood that Stella calls home with her newlywed husband. Blanche has no options left but to throw herself on the mercy of the Kowalskis, who are expecting their first child.
As Blanche, Carr is manipulative and an opportunist. She informs Stella that their ancestral home, Belle Reve, has been “lost,” deflecting that the house had been sold for taxes on her watch and blaming her sister in absentia for it having slipped through her fingers. Audience members can see the gears turning in Blanche’s head as she schemes to gain her sister’s trust.
Elizabeth McCoy, another TWTC veteran player (Summer and Smoke and Suddenly Last Summer), imbues her character with the passion and drive of a woman in love. She is overly trusting of her sister, even when given opportunity to doubt Blanche’s dubious intentions. But whether we blame it on desire or the hormones raging in her body with the approach of her first-born, she places her faith in her sister and her trust in her husband. It is Stanley (Sean Richmond) who sees through Blanche’s subterfuge.
McCoy and Carr are quite effective in their scenes with one another. But Richmond, featured as Chicken in the very first TWTC production of Kingdom of Earth in 2015, returns to take on what is a riveting performance as Stanley. Blanche uses her words, while Stanley rages with raw animal energy. She captures the manners of Southern gentility using her language as her virtual armor in jousting with Stanley and in trying to deflect his boorish behavior.
Stanley is Williams’ depiction of a rugged man unashamed of his virility nor capable of controlling his emotions. When Blanche gets between him and his wife, there is an unprovoked, violent outburst, which he regrets. Audiences looking for a powerful primeval scream as Stanley calls for his wife will not be disappointed. He is beyond remorse and only the soothing influence of Stella will calm him.
Blanche schemes to make Stanley’s co-worker and Army buddy Harold Mitchell, known as Mitch, fall in love with her. Robinson J. Cyrpian portrays Mitch tentatively. He is a mama’s boy unknown in how to deal with the manipulative Blanche, who uses her every opportunity to tease and entice him without giving in to his pursuit of her. She would leave him under the impression that she is chaste and pure.
But it is Stanley who is tipped off to his sister-in-law’s sullied reputation and the pack of lies she has spread about her former life in her home town.
But of all the secrets she keeps firm and inviolate in her breast, the one that she finds the most difficult to come to terms with is the reason behind the breakup of her own very young marriage several years earlier. It is her unexpressed guilt over her own actions which torments her and a specific device Williams uses to point to the possible reasons behind her own lurid behavior back in Laurel.
In the ultimate showdown between Blanche and Stanley – when the immovable object meets the unstoppable force – there is fire and passion and, yes, desire. Ultimately, Blanche finds the magic she is seeking, but it drives her towards lunacy as no one will believe her .
“I’ll tell you what I want. Magic! Yes, yes, magic!,” she says to Mitch. “I try to give that to people. I misinterpret things to them. I don’t tell the truth. I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!,” she says earlier. As we see at play’s end, the realism she tried to avoid results in the magic of lunacy that finally surrounds her.
Supporting players Tracey E. Collins and Robert A. Mitchell as Eunice and Steve Hubbell, an old married couple who embrace Stella and Stanley, are both excellent in their roles. Quinn Lapeyrouse is also notable as a newspaper collector who unwittingly calls on Blanche while no one else is home. We see how her veneer of propriety is so easily discarded when opportunity presents itself.
The set design by Steve Schepker at the Marigny Opera House is wonderfully executed and the lighting designs by Diane K. Bass are especially effective, evoking a dark underbelly for a New Orleans of the not-too-distant past. Shackleford’s music and background sounds masterfully magnify the actions and work hand in hand with the very talented actors on stage.
Correro’s brilliant direction, creative team designs and stellar cast make this a most satisfying production and one that will propel the company into its forthcoming tenth season featuring new productions of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Orpheus Descending. Word of mouth has already spread to sell out houses and extend the run all the way through August 11.
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (2 hours and 45 minutes with a 15-minute intermission) continues at the Marigny Opera House, 725 St. Ferdinand Street in New Orleans, LA., and is now extended a final time through August 24 For tickets, click here. For more information call, 504-264-2580.
