Streetcar rolls in for another steamy run
Theatre Calgary focuses this production of Kate Newby's Blanche Dubois
REVIEW
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
Theatre Calgary
Runs until October 5
Max Bell Theatre (CPA)
There’s a decaying southern belle spinning her web of "magic." There’s a sweaty guy in his undershirt bellowing for his wife. There’s an entire dingy neighbourhood transported from post-war New Orleans, complete with tough guys, noisy neighbours and nagging wives. There’s a streetcar named Desire endlessly rolling on and on through the steamy night.
A Streetcar Named Desire is classic Americana, a period piece that scandalized post-war audiences. No longer quite as shocking today, the current production at Theatre Calgary still sizzles with sexual tension. It’s a marathon evening in the theatre, built entirely around Kate Newby’s captivating performance as Blanche Dubois.
From the moment she arrives at the two-room flat of her sister Stella until her final tragic exit, the lady of Belle Reve dominates the stage. Playwright Tennessee Williams created many famous characters throughout his career, but Blanche is quintessential Williams – a lady of culture and refinement dethroned from the family estate, she couldn’t be more out of place as she desperately clings to a world gone by.
For better or worse, she is incapable of being in a room without being the centre of attention, and Newby’s performance demands ours. Frivolous, flighty, whining and manipulative, she is a woman hanging on to life by her fingernails. She is a little girl obsessed with perfume and jewelry – a torch singer with a scandalous past, unable to come up with the right song. She is an alcoholic in training, and a man-eater looking for prey.
Director Ian Prinsloo brings together a strong ensemble to create the vibrant pulse of this working-class neighbourhood. Deeter Schurig’s cutaway set design of the two-storey French Quarter apartment block conveys the period and place while providing an atmosphere of French farce as neighbours come and go, laugh and squabble. David Trimble and Elizabeth Stepkowski are well-cast as the Kowalski’s battling upstairs neighbours, providing support for Stella and her husband Stanley, as well as welcome comic relief.
It’s impossible to think about Streetcar without Marlon Brando’s famous film performance coming to mind. Tony Nappo as Stanley Kowalski is so similar to the young Brando that it’s spooky. This isn’t simply an imitation or impersonation of Brando, but it’s eerily close. Still, Nappo's Stanley does not have the magnetism or the subtlety to be a worthy foil for Newby’s Blanche. He is a menacing presence – volatile and dangerous – but there is nothing too complex behind his actions toward Blanche.
A Streetcar Named Desire is a marathon production. By the time we reach the end of Act 3, it’s been a long emotional journey. The production’s strict focus on Blanche is both its strength and the source of its only weakness. Newby’s performance is striking throughout, but Blanche is a fascinating character, not one who inspires sympathy. She is so different from the rest of the characters, so out of place, that her downfall appears inevitable from the very outset. There is not even a slim chance that she could fit in with her sister and her friends. What could be the source of tragedy, or even horror, is simply taken for granted. |
