Of all the mid-20th Century playwrights, Tennessee Williams is the one I would say who most consistently seems fresh and modern. Perhaps this is because his themes are not dependent on a particular setting or political situation. Rather, they are deeply human and personal, and thus universal.
I had been looking forward to this particular production because I have never seen A Streetcar Named Desire before, and I must say, Bakersfield Community Theater followed up last year’s performance of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with another gem. BCT’s best work as of late has been with classic works - The Crucible and The Lion in Winter come to mind in addition to the above mentioned ones.
I mean no shade to their other productions, which have been good, just that these classics have been a cut above, simply excellent.
A Streetcar Named Desire follows the mental breakdown of Blanche Du Bois as she spirals out of control following the death of most of her relatives and the loss of the family plantation to debt and decay.
After she loses her job as a teacher under disreputable circumstances, she arrives at her sister Stella’s apartment for a short visit, until she can find a way back on her feet. This stretches to months, much to the irritation of Stella’s husband Stanley, who resents Blanche calling him “common” and “an ape.”
Blanche tries to charm Stanley’s war buddy Mitch into marrying her, but her past catches up with her, and she loses what she sees as her last chance, leading to a complete mental breakdown.
The characters in the play are, like most Williams characters, loosely based on his own family. The characters, not the plot, and not the relationships the characters have to each other. Thus, the same basic “types” appear in different plays, but interact differently with the other characters and circumstances.
In this play, Stella and Stanley are thought to be based loosely on Williams’ own parents. His father, like Stanley, was working class, married to a women above him in social status. In the real-life case, however, it was Williams’ mother who used this as a weapon, not the sister-in-law.
Blanche, like Laura in The Glass Menagerie, is based on Williams’ sister, who suffered from mental illness, and was sadly reduced to grave disability from a lobotomy.
There is also a reference to Williams himself, but not as an actual character. Blanche’s husband was gay (like Williams), and killed himself when she discovered his secret.
There are so many memorable lines in this play, and not just “Stella!”
“What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.”
“I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And it that's sinful, then let me be damned for it!”
“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
“I shall die of eating an unwashed grape. One day out on the ocean I will die--with my hand in the hand of some nice looking ship's doctor, a very young one with a small blond moustache and a big silver watch. "Poor lady," they'll say, ‘The quinine did her no good. That unwashed grape has transported her soul to heaven.’”
“I don't believe in "original sin." I don't believe in "guilt." I don't believe in villains or heroes - only right or wrong ways that individuals have taken, not by choice but by necessity or by certain still-uncomprehended influences in themselves, their circumstances, and their antecedents.
This is so simple I'm ashamed to say it, but I'm sure it's true. In fact, I would bet my life on it! And that's why I don't understand why our propaganda machines are always trying to teach us, to persuade us, to hate and fear other people on the same little world that we live in.”
“And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths—not always. Sometimes their breathing is hoarse, sometimes it rattles, sometimes they cry out to you, Don’t let me go! Even the old sometimes say, Don’t let me go! As if you were able to stop them! Funerals are quiet with pretty flowers. And oh, what gorgeous boxes they pack them away in!”
“I never was hard or self-sufficient enough. When people are soft--soft people have got to shimmer and glow--they've got to put on soft colors, the colors of butterfly wings, and put a-- paper lantern over the light.... It isn't enough to be soft. You've got to be soft and attractive. And I--I'm fading now! I don't know how much longer I can turn the trick.”
“I'm not going to be hypocritical, I'm going to be honestly critical”
“They told me to take a streetcar named Desire and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at - Elysian Fields!”
That last one is so important to the metaphor of the play and its name. The “Desire” streetcar line did in fact exist once, although like so many historic routes it has since been replaced with a bus.
But the directions are all about the promise of desire. In reality, for Blanche, and arguably the other characters, desire leads nowhere good. For Blanche, it led her to heartbreak with her husband, her chasing of sexual pleasure and a hoped-for rich marriage led her progressively to ruin and a breakdown. For Stella, her desire means she tolerates violence from Stanley, and even decides to disbelieve that Stanley raped Blanche, because otherwise, how could she live with him?
Even Stanley, the closest character to a villain this play has, is led astray by his desires, letting himself be drawn to drink and boorish behavior, and eventually raw animalistic brutality toward Stella and Blanche.
I want to say a few words about this particular production. The cast was superb, particularly the main characters, who had to capture the emotional nuances that Williams envisioned.
For example, Stanley is a brute, a horrible person by most modern standards. But he is more complex than that, if played well. He is a war veteran with what we would now understand as PTSD, which is a factor in his blackout rages. He is also of Polish descent, which back then was not considered “white” like it is now. He deeply resents Blanche using a racial slur on him, and the disrespect she gives him based on his class. And he has a valid point.
Nick Ono, who has been a fixture of local theater for years now, gave a stunning performance. He inhabited the character to an uncanny extent, and visibly projected the full range of Stanley’s emotions. I was pleasantly surprised to see how well Ono humanized the character, never letting him become a mere caricature or pure villain.
Ono and Tessa Ogles have been the “cute young couple” in local theater for a long time - they have great chemistry. At some point they will become the “cute middle aged couple” but that is a few years off still. In this case, they are the young couple, but one with a complicated, dysfunctional yet oddly functional marriage. The reason that Stella never seemed merely an abused wife is that Ono and Ogles genuinely made the chemistry of the characters palpable. There was an inner dance going on that only the two of them understood.
Filling out the triangle was Faith Thompson, as Blanche. Her going to complete pieces gradually over the course of the play was completely believable and painful. You could see every snap of her mental strings writ large on her face, in her limbs, and in her posture. It was a slow crumbling, a dissolution of the faculties.
I think this is the first time I have seen Thompson in a lead role, and this was a good one. After seeing the range of emotions from both Thompson and Ono in the most harrowing roles, I rather suspect both of them needed a few hours after the performance to detox and feel human again.
The rest of the cast filled their parts well. Josh Carruthers as Mitch; Mandi Root, Troy Fidis, Daniel Lizarraga Ramos, Charlin Pabalate, Karla Young as various friends and neighbors; Cody White and Cori McGinty as medical staff.
Stanley (Nick Ono), Mitch (Josh Carruthers), and Pablo (Daniel Lizarraga Ramos)
The amount of work that went into the set was obvious, from the water stains on the walls to the various bric-a-brac to the literal hundreds of props that had to be in specific places at specific times. (And a lot of dishes to replace the broken ones…)
With three acts and two intermissions (old school!) it was impressive to me how the overall narrative arc and emotional intensity was maintained. From start to finish, the story unfolded in a compelling and thoroughly believable way, driven by the characters and their traumas.
I am a big fan of Tennessee Williams, and also of our fine local theater. The fact that many of those involved are friends may make me a bit prejudiced, but I find it enhances my enjoyment to see people I know become, for a few hours, entirely unlike themselves, telling stories that move me.
A Streetcar Named Desire runs two more weekends. You can get tickets at bctstage.org or at the door.
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