Thursday, June 30, 2005
The cries for Stella still shock the audiences of A Streetcar Named Desire
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Our former neighbor the Roundabout Theatre, who once sort of embraced T&V Country, with the Union Square Theatre on 17th Street in the old Tammany Hall headquarters for many years, and the Gramercy Theatre on 23rd Street, and has since expanded to three Broadway locations, is probably the best repertory theatre extant. It has proven its value time and again, year after year, as this long-time subscriber can attest.
My current enthusiasm is the reprise of A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams’s second great play – it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948, after the success of Glass Menagerie in 1945. The play and particularly the subsequent movie was, electrifying, with the overwhelming sexuality of Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski, and the torn tee-shirt and the scream for Stella became iconic.
The play itself, the arrival of Blanche DuBois in the low-class French Quarter hovel of sister Stella and her Polish husband, disrupting their squalid but sexually gratifying life with her Southern gentility that conceals horrid secrets, was a shock. It is sadly valid in the 21st century, presenting vivid flashbacks to the current true life schoolteacher-seduces- teenager dramas, and the plots centering on fantasy life and denial of reality in much of today’s theater.
The stars of the stage drama were virtually re-cast in the 1951 movie, with Brando, sweet Kim Hunter as sister Stella and Karl Malden as the simple Harold “Mitch” who wants to marry Blanche until the secrets are revealed. Only Jessica Tandy was replaced by Vivian Leigh’s clinging Blanche (in later life the actress, bipolar herself, was sometimes unable to distinguish between her persona and the role of Blanche). Three of the actors won Oscars – only Brando was outscored, by Humphrey Bogart in African Queen - and there were eight more nominations. The movie plot, shortened from the 2-½ hour play by Oscar Saul and director Elia Kazan, was sharpened. My recollection of key phrases, “ I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” and “I don’t want reality, I want magic!” comes from the movie version, although the play also brings back to mind the poignant throwaway “Don’t bother to get up” and “are these grapes washed?” lines. The strength of the drama came from the author’s youth; Tennessee Williams had series of life experiences with his mother and sister, who was unsuccessfully and tragically lobotomized, to build the character of Blanche, as well as other tragic heroines, notably Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie.
The revival at the Roundabout has Natasha Richardson, daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and the late director Tony Richardson, uttering the long outbursts of Blanche DuBois streams of consciousness , with sometimes only the emotion sensed rather than the words conveying the meaning. It is a difficult role, and Richardson has chosen to portray the forceful, insistent Blanche, who only collapses at the end, walking out on her way to the future in an asylum under the guise of a resort vacation, seduced by her own denial of reality and the kindness of the doctor who raises his hat and offers her his arm.
Altogether, the Roundabout revival can count as my most memorable theatrical experience in a long while. The play itself transcends the standards of drama, such as the works of Ibsen and Hauptman, in its timeliness, and the strong acting firms up the experience. Amy Ryan as Stella has earned the kudos of the critics and the Outer Circle Award, portraying the sympathetic and long-suffering sister with good restraint. The veteran John C. Reilly as Stanley shocks you, screaming the house down with his long drawn-out shouts for Stella, whom he has hurt and scared away in his drunkenness, and chokes you up with his embrace and kissing of her feet. The Mitch of Chris Bauer wins your sympathy, with his simplicity and deference (“you should not play cards in a house with women”)
.
The theatre itself is interesting. Formerly Studio 54, famed as the dance and drug palace of the 70s, it marks the beginning of Ian Schrager’s empire. The entrepreneur, who has made a career as the reviver of trendy boutique hotels in the US and England, is currently rebuilding the Gramercy Park Hotel. I remember the house after its rebirth as a Roundabout venture, set up as dinner theatre, with tables, when it was the venue for the musical Cabaret, also with Natasha Richardson as Sally Bowles (winning a Tony in 1998). It has been since rebuilt, with rows of seats. The stage has an iron staircase and open steel mesh galley overhead, very effective for the street setting of the Streetcar’s Latin Quarter, with street people moving up and down and roaming the isles of the orchestra. The play is of the late 1940s, after World War Two, and the setting was familiar to the author, who had lived in New Orleans for some years, before moving to Key West, where he died in 1983, at 71, under strange circumstances.
The Roundabout revival, running since late March, is closing on July 3.
Our former neighbor the Roundabout Theatre, who once sort of embraced T&V Country, with the Union Square Theatre on 17th Street in the old Tammany Hall headquarters for many years, and the Gramercy Theatre on 23rd Street, and has since expanded to three Broadway locations, is probably the best repertory theatre extant. It has proven its value time and again, year after year, as this long-time subscriber can attest.
My current enthusiasm is the reprise of A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams’s second great play – it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948, after the success of Glass Menagerie in 1945. The play and particularly the subsequent movie was, electrifying, with the overwhelming sexuality of Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski, and the torn tee-shirt and the scream for Stella became iconic.
The play itself, the arrival of Blanche DuBois in the low-class French Quarter hovel of sister Stella and her Polish husband, disrupting their squalid but sexually gratifying life with her Southern gentility that conceals horrid secrets, was a shock. It is sadly valid in the 21st century, presenting vivid flashbacks to the current true life schoolteacher-seduces- teenager dramas, and the plots centering on fantasy life and denial of reality in much of today’s theater.
The stars of the stage drama were virtually re-cast in the 1951 movie, with Brando, sweet Kim Hunter as sister Stella and Karl Malden as the simple Harold “Mitch” who wants to marry Blanche until the secrets are revealed. Only Jessica Tandy was replaced by Vivian Leigh’s clinging Blanche (in later life the actress, bipolar herself, was sometimes unable to distinguish between her persona and the role of Blanche). Three of the actors won Oscars – only Brando was outscored, by Humphrey Bogart in African Queen - and there were eight more nominations. The movie plot, shortened from the 2-½ hour play by Oscar Saul and director Elia Kazan, was sharpened. My recollection of key phrases, “ I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” and “I don’t want reality, I want magic!” comes from the movie version, although the play also brings back to mind the poignant throwaway “Don’t bother to get up” and “are these grapes washed?” lines. The strength of the drama came from the author’s youth; Tennessee Williams had series of life experiences with his mother and sister, who was unsuccessfully and tragically lobotomized, to build the character of Blanche, as well as other tragic heroines, notably Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie.
The revival at the Roundabout has Natasha Richardson, daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and the late director Tony Richardson, uttering the long outbursts of Blanche DuBois streams of consciousness , with sometimes only the emotion sensed rather than the words conveying the meaning. It is a difficult role, and Richardson has chosen to portray the forceful, insistent Blanche, who only collapses at the end, walking out on her way to the future in an asylum under the guise of a resort vacation, seduced by her own denial of reality and the kindness of the doctor who raises his hat and offers her his arm.
Altogether, the Roundabout revival can count as my most memorable theatrical experience in a long while. The play itself transcends the standards of drama, such as the works of Ibsen and Hauptman, in its timeliness, and the strong acting firms up the experience. Amy Ryan as Stella has earned the kudos of the critics and the Outer Circle Award, portraying the sympathetic and long-suffering sister with good restraint. The veteran John C. Reilly as Stanley shocks you, screaming the house down with his long drawn-out shouts for Stella, whom he has hurt and scared away in his drunkenness, and chokes you up with his embrace and kissing of her feet. The Mitch of Chris Bauer wins your sympathy, with his simplicity and deference (“you should not play cards in a house with women”)
.
The theatre itself is interesting. Formerly Studio 54, famed as the dance and drug palace of the 70s, it marks the beginning of Ian Schrager’s empire. The entrepreneur, who has made a career as the reviver of trendy boutique hotels in the US and England, is currently rebuilding the Gramercy Park Hotel. I remember the house after its rebirth as a Roundabout venture, set up as dinner theatre, with tables, when it was the venue for the musical Cabaret, also with Natasha Richardson as Sally Bowles (winning a Tony in 1998). It has been since rebuilt, with rows of seats. The stage has an iron staircase and open steel mesh galley overhead, very effective for the street setting of the Streetcar’s Latin Quarter, with street people moving up and down and roaming the isles of the orchestra. The play is of the late 1940s, after World War Two, and the setting was familiar to the author, who had lived in New Orleans for some years, before moving to Key West, where he died in 1983, at 71, under strange circumstances.
The Roundabout revival, running since late March, is closing on July 3.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 4:09 AM 
