Spy Theater Review: Tennessee Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’

The Factory describes itself as a “community arts project [providing] creative space for individuals to explore their passion for the performing arts.” And although I didn’t get a chance to see this stunning company debut in the “evocative atmosphere of our open-air venue,” I can say that the performance lived up to The Factory’s promise “to deliver a fresh and captivating interpretation” of this great American classic.

A rainy Friday – which put a damper on opening night of the 20th anniversary of Plein Air Easton – forced the company to scramble for an indoor venue. Thankfully, the Avalon Theatre accommodated The Factory after raffling off prizes to deserving Plein Air Easton volunteers.

But “Streetcar” was scheduled as a double feature with The Factory’s rollicking riff on Wild West gender roles – “The Ballad of Jesse Devereaux Radio Play” as the opener. Take-down of one set and replacing it with another pushed the Williams masterpiece, which runs 2 ½ hours, into a late-show time zone. I strongly encourage those of you who missed the Friday performance or left it early to see it in the Talbot Historical Society gardens before it closes on July 21. It’s too good to miss.

The 1947 Broadway original, as well as the 1951 movie starring Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, is a taut and fraught love-hate story involving sisters and the husband of one and brother-in-law of the other. We encounter the first main character as she arrives at her destination on the title streetcar. Blanche DuBois is shocked to find what she considers the squalor her sister Stella lives in with her husband Stanley Kowalski. Stella returns home shortly after to greet her and suffer Blanche’s complaints about sleeping arrangements consigning her to a couch. Because it is his bowling night, Stanley shows up just in time to wolf down his supper before reporting for his overnight job.

That gives the sisters more time to talk, which proves painful as Stella learns the real reason for Blanche’s sudden arrival. The family plantation, Belle Reve, has been lost to profligate spending by previous male heirs and likely by Blanche herself, who brought a trunkful of once glamorous gowns and accessories, including a rhinestone tiara that Stanley later mistakes for diamond. “Death is expensive,” Blanche says, further explaining that funeral expenses of family elders cost her the plantation mansion and the remaining 20 acres.

Citing what he calls the “Napoleonic Code,” that which belongs to the wife (or her family) belongs to him. This motivates Stanley to ask questions about Belle Reve and Blanche’s side of the story and why she now has no place to turn to but the Kowalski second-story walk-up. If you aren’t already familiar, never mind the spoiler answers his investigation reveals.

All of which transpires in the apartment, appropriately unprepossessing but hardly squalid as Stella has kept it as presentable as she can for Blanche’s arrival. The two love each other but are appalled by their sibling’s circumstances. Ben VanNest’s set design somehow captures all this along with the center of attention on poker nights – the kitchen table with seating for four. That’s where Blanche catches the eye of one of Stanley’s guest gamblers. Among the foursome, Mitch, as they call him, is the only gentleman. He’s lonely and easily taken in by Blanche’s flirty, lady-like solicitations. Anchoring the other side of the set is the Kowalski marriage bed, around which most of the sisters’ conversations take place. Whether intentional or not by the set designer, it appears to be long overdue for a new mattress.

Running virtually the length of the rear wall of the Avalon stage is a black-and-white photo of rowhouses, long-ago broken up into multiple apartments, upstaged by a commuter train. There’s a streetlight visible just outside the Kowalski bedroom window, which we imagine is about the size of a bathroom mirror.

Costumes by Jeri Alexander – mostly for the sisters – speak volumes about where one comes from and who the other has become. Flimsy dresses Blanche steps in and out of are of no professionally appropriate use for a schoolteacher. In one amusing opening night scene, the rear hem of Blanche’s dress clings to the slip, leaving it exposed where no one seems to notice except anyone in the audience. Inadvertent wardrobe malfunction.

By contrast, Stella wears loose-fitting gingham or print dresses barely hiding what Stella has yet to tell Blanche: She’s pregnant. Her short sleeves and, in one dress-up case, a diving neckline, myriad tattoos on her arms, legs and along her collarbone are meant to reveal – effectively – perceived new class distinctions between the sisters.

The lighting, relatively dim as Blanche prefers, also plays a shifting role implying the drama of the moment, credited to Factory producer Cecile Storm. And uniquely, except of course for the film version, are instrumental overlays performed offstage by the “Ballad of Devereaux” combo. Movies deploy music to accent whatever is happening on-screen. Here, as directed by Willoughby Buxton, the instrumentation indicates dramatic moments – pay attention – or to provide sound effects such as a passing train whistle. My only complaint on opening night was that at times the incidental music obscured lines spoken from some parts of the stage. Perhaps it was designed for an outdoor venue where the show now moves – weather permitting.

The theatrical accessories were far more pertinent to than distraction from the storytelling, which in this case, inspired Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece. But all are nothing without actors who seem to live the lines rather than just speak them.

Here are the leading suspects in making this happen. Cavin Moore as Blanche achieves such an astonishing transformation, particularly as we had an hour or so earlier caught her as a radio-play singer and deliverer of zingers. In “Desire,” we see her struggling to relive her long-past post-graduate schoolgirlish days like those of ones she later taught. But she can’t hide behind badly told jokes to lift her spirits after an unhappy birthday cake-and-candles ritual. As Stella, Liv Litteral tries to hide desperation for her sister but also for herself in that, with a baby coming, she has no better way forward than Blanche if the bully in her husband overtakes his professed love for her.

Another key player is Mitch, played by Noah Thompson with both the infatuation and disillusion of a jilted lover who was neither jilted nor a lover, though he wanted to be the latter. But the suitor side of his equation and the plaintive side come through viscerally in Thompson’s deft interpretation of his character’s conflicted emotions.

One other in a fine cast, all worthy of mention, is aforementioned costume designer Alexander, doubling as Stella’s downstairs neighbor who figures in supportive roles in both the crucial opening and closing scenes.

So there could only be kudos for director Iz Clemens. Whatever these fine actors brought to the table in this challenging psychological/sociological drama, Clemens has brought out the best in them. So far. Maybe they can be even better next time. Following the “Shakespeare in Love’ royal directive, it might as well be a comedy or musical.

In the meantime, try not to miss this “Streetcar Named Desire” before its last stop on July 21.

A production by The Factory, a community arts project in Easton. Remaining performances at 7 p.m. July 19-21 in the Talbot Historical Gardens, 30 S. Washington St., thefactoryproject.org. Photos by Henley Moore.

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.