Having read A Streetcar Named Desire three times but never seen the play, I was excited to see it being performed at the Playcrafters’ Barn Theatre in the Quad Cities. The genius of Tennessee Williams’ writing is making complicated, damaged characters who are still sympathetic. I don’t think that’s an easy feat to accomplish and I did not want to see a production that failed to do Williams justice.
Upon entering the theater (which I hadn’t previously been to and would suggest visiting just for its unique layout) I assumed the lack of a set was a budget decision — these things happen — but whether or not that’s true, it was reconciled expertly. The audience cannot be distracted or informed by Stella’s decorating or the furniture or the accuracy of depicting the post-war French Quarter. We are forced to reckon only with the action. It was absolutely inspired to have a sort-of chorus, nearly invisible to the audience, acting as props. When cigarettes were lit, we saw a flame in the background. When someone grabbed a drink from the fridge, it almost materialized out of nowhere. When the few set items needed to be changed between scenes, or when we were on the street, these actors already seemed like set pieces, so it didn’t interrupt anything.
This production, ongoing at Playcrafters Barn Theatre (final performances are Sept. 20-22), is one of the most well-performed plays I have ever attended. I say this as someone who was lucky enough to have friends with season tickets to the performances at the Seattle Shakespeare Company (for eight years). I say this as someone who is very familiar with the text of this play. It is hard to surprise someone who knows what is coming.
Yet, when Blanche (played by Kate Farence) enters her sister’s apartment, all of my preconceived feelings about the characters disappeared. I felt bad for Stella (Leslie Day) whose overbearing sister interrupted her marital bliss. I understood — despite knowing him to be the villain — why Stanley (Cole McFarren) was so frustrated with Blanche’s presence. She called him “common,” insulted his home, and asked to stay indefinitely. I cannot believe the talent and restraint these actors (and credit to the director, Mike Schulz) exhibit in making me forget a play I know and love so well.
That said, from her opening moments on the pared-down, nearly set-less stage, my heart went out to Blanche. This was clearly someone in distress. Each criticism came with a wistfulness, her face broken with concern and hope for her sister, fear that her sister was suffering. Each time Stanley picked at her — his face all innocence, his tone all malice — I flinched for her. When he became violent with Stella, I gasped. I begged her not to return from the neighbor’s house. And when he screamed for her and she returned to him, I almost believed, as Stella believed, that he was sorry.
Being some decades removed from the writing of Streetcar, I know that my tolerance for intimate partner violence is much less than your average audience in the 1940s, but I cannot imagine being faced with a man — however charming — who beats his pregnant wife (in front of his friends) and accepting it as a fact of life. Here, the other characters express a concern for Stella that they don’t act on, but brush aside. This is important, I think; a production with a different team may have had only Blanche react to her sister’s abuse to highlight how she’s more emotional, more naïve, but this production suggests the Kowalski’s friends and neighbors share Blanche’s moral outrage if not her willingness to condemn Stanley, adding layers to the dynamic.
Farence’s Blanche is desperate, traumatized and deeply sympathetic. She pulls at her face to ward off wrinkles, pleads on shaking knees to her sister and her suitor (Mitch, portrayed beautifully and with great melancholy by Jeremy Mahr), her voice cracks when she remembers her first love. Blanche is onstage for almost the entirety of the show and Farence lets us see who Blanche is when she’s performing for her sister, her brother-in-law, the Kowalskis’ friends, compared to who she is when that facade slips. The Playcrafters’ layout allows the audience to sit on three sides of the stage, so when she faces the audience during a line of questioning, we see her nearly fall apart, just for a moment, until she has to respond. When her story is revealed, we already felt sorry for her, and it becomes overwhelming to see her give in to the emotions she’s been hiding throughout the play.
In the climactic scene, which I was incredibly nervous to see (that part happens off-stage, for those worried about it), Blanche knows Stanley intends her harm, and McFarren’s Stanley seems to feign innocence in this interaction with Blanche, maybe already gaslighting her. His tone and words don’t match. He is aggressive and entitled to take from her what he believes he is owed.
When the scene shifts, Blanche hasn’t gone mad, but has become undone. She has no motivation to maintain appearances when everyone insists that she is wrong about her reality. Seeing this unraveling in real time, so raw and visceral, was enough to make me want to see this play again and again. Rarely have I been so moved.
