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Theater Review: BarnArts delivers a penetrating ‘Streetcar Named Desire’

By Jim Lowe
TIMES ARGUS
“They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at — Elysian Fields!”

Thus begins the fall of Blanche DuBois, the faded southern belle in Tennessee Wlliams’ 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Streetcar Named Desire,” one of the great American theater classics. You might think long and boring, in this day of 90-minute intermissionless shows, but that was hardly the case at the South Pomfret Grange Theatre Friday evening.

BarnArts opened its production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” and it was genuinely exciting. There was hardly a dull moment in the taut two and a half hours as Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski battled it out for supremacy in a squalid New Orleans tenement, tempered only by Stella, Stanley’s wife and Blanche’s sister.

What made Friday’s performance so riveting were some convincing and irresistible characters. It was nearly impossible not to live this dark drama with them. And this is not professional theater.

In the story, Blanche DuBois arrives at her sister Stella’s dumpy two-room flat in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Blanche is aghast, considering their upbringing on a Laurel, Mississippi, plantation. She is even more unhappy with Stella’s decidedly blue-collar husband Stanley. Blanche calls Stanley “common,” and thus begins their battle for the denomination of Stella.

Stanley’s reaction to Blanche’s sophisticated put downs escalates to violence when drunk, threatening the baby Stella is carrying. He repents and Stella accepts, but it’s not long before Blanche’s taunts get Stanley going into another rage.

Still, Stanley is not stupid. Blanche has ostensibly taken a leave of absence from her high school English-teaching position “because of her nerves.” Stanley becomes suspicious and investigates. What ensues is a peeling away of the layers of Blanche. Making her a complex, fascinating and irresistible character is her psychological depth. We are at once repelled by and love her — Blanche remains one of theater’s most fascinating characters.

There is a small difference between the ending of the play and also-classic 1951 film, though Williams co-wrote the screenplay. Fortunately, both share Blanche’s most famous line: “Whoever you are — I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

The BarnArts production, directed by Linda Treash, owes most of its success to some fine ensemble acting and three excellent performers. She set the 1940s-1950s play in the nebulous now, which seems to make no big difference.

Katie Cawley delivered a stellar portrayal of Blanche. Not only did she manage the haughty southern belle, she subtly and gradually revealed the growing cracks underneath. Occasionally there was a tendency to maintain the character without “breathing” rather than to be the character, but this is a tour de force role, and Cawley delivered in spades.

The charismatic Aaron Michael Hodge’s Stanley had depth and went from tenderness to rage in 0 to 10. And he was so believable I dare say nobody in the theater wasn’t scared by him at one point or other. Erin Bennett was delightfully ordinary and sympathetic as Stella, a foil to both Blanche and Stanley. Noor Taher was extra-sympathetic as Blanche’s frustrated suitor Mitch.

There were two areas that gave away that the BarnArts production was community theater. One was that the fringes of the cast were either inexperienced or imperfectly cast. And the other was that the physical production wasn’t managed well for such an intimate theater.

That said, after 15 minutes, those limitations were easily forgotten. BarnArts’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” is a powerhouse theater experience.

jim.lowe @timesargus.com

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