If not for community and university theatres, the River Region would be hard-pressed to find significant attention to the standard and classic repertoire, and Prattville's Way Off Broadway Theatre's challenging season includes Shakespeare's Twelfth Night [coming in July] and its latest production of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire.
First-time director Kaden Blackburn has curiously re-set the play some decades after its original 1947 time period, and his set is so bright and open that it works against Williams's gritty claustrophobic post-World War II New Orleans location.
That notwithstanding, and though uneven in pace and conflict, Mr. Blackburn has elicited strong performances from his able cast -- particularly his principal players -- who provide a number of powerfully sensitive moments during the two-and--half-hour running time.
When a confused and damaged Blanche Du Bois [Alex Rikerd] arrives at the dingy apartment of her pregnant sister Stella [Maggie Kervin] and working-class brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski [Douglas Dean Mitchell], she disrupts their lives by contrasting the gentility of her Southern-belle social status with the boozy grit of Stanley's "common" upbringing. -- Clearly all is not well with Blanche, and Stanley sets out to uncover the truth about her reduced circumstances. Ms. Rikerd's admission of Blanche's many failures comes at a cost. Even the potential of developing a relationship with Mitch [Josh Williams], one of Stanley's poker-playing friends, seems doomed from the start.
These four actors deliver multi-layered characterization with consistent vocal and physical commitment. Though Stanley is sometimes abusive towards Stella [perhaps from what is now known as wartime PTSD], both Mr. Mitchell and Ms. Kervin are convincing in their characters' love for one another. Ms. Kervin and Ms. Rikerd show a truthfulness of sibling rivalries and misunderstanding with a strength that is unusual in many productions. Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Williams enliven scenes of male bonding and friendships. Mr. Williams and Ms. Rikerd are heartbreaking in scenes that test and ultimately break up the romance between Mitch and Blanche.
But the tension between Blanche and Stanley builds throughout the play to its violent conclusion that sends Blanche over the edge to pitiable compliance in agreeing to institutional help and "the kindness of strangers"; well done.
