They've dropped the "Kowalski" from Stanley's name in new Streetcar revival- Page 2

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 4:53pm

I agree about the ages of the actors, although it may be less of an issue since though they are all arguably too old, the cast is compatible age wise to each other.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 5:05pm

I saw a production with a white Blanche, a morbidly obese Eskimo as Stanley, a Golden Retriever as Stella, a hand puppet as Mitch, and RuPaul as the Newspaper Collector.

They all played musical instruments and it was brilliant.

Was this a John Doyle production?

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 5:07pm

Hmm...it might have been the recent production in Paris at the Comedie Francais.

From the review:

As if the harrowing play weren't strong enough on its own, he not only adds multiple jazz interludes with a piano-and-horn trio and several singers, he also swamps it in Japanese theatrical techniques: Black-garbed stagehands move furniture and dispense props as in bunraku marionette theater. Sliding dogugaeshi screens snap back and forth with images of Japanese animal and warrior prints. Costumes evolve from vaguely 1950s jeans and biker leathers to a voluminous, brilliantly embroidered satin court kimono for the battered Blanche, while Stanley gets a whiteface mask of shaving cream. And when the drunken Stanley lurches into his legendary scream for Stellahhh!, she wafts down on a flywire from on high, in billowing yellow satin, to give him a ride back up to the rafters. It's a long way from New Orleans, and from Tennessee. More like a "Tramway Nommé Délire."

Gotta love the French..
Updated On: 4/2/12 at 05:07 PM

[Idiot]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 5:18pm

Hearing that Williams was supportive of this certainly softens my distaste for the choices being made here, but it's not really STREETCAR if Stanley's not a roughneck Pole and Blanche isn't a damaged Southern belle (who, in period, has to be white). It's an alternate version of the play. If Stanley's ethnic origin was unimportant, Williams wouldn't have mentioned it in the first place.

I do understand the sentiment of a playwright saying "Well, I don't want to FORBID other races from performing my work." It's certainly his right to take whatever position he wants to about it -- it's his play.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 5:22pm

We've seen countless productions where a (considerably) older Blanche works brilliantly. Williams nails her at about 30, which admittedly is awfully young for our acceptance of all the references to discomfort being seen in the sunlight, etc. Yet Blanche can reasonably stretch toward 40 and even somewhat beyond, because plot-wise (and even thematically) it's appropriate. The dynamic between Stanley and Blanche is in part based on his youthful "brute" sensibilities, age-determined in the dialogue. Yet here we technically have a Stanley who's the oldest actor on stage, and Underwood is a sophisticated presence. A double challenge looms.

The photo in Sunday's paper looked like an earnest Tyler Perry movie about middle-aged African-Americans, set in another era. It didn't conjure up the Willliams world. I can easily imagine four other African-American actors in these roles, or at least a different Stanley and Stella, which might give us that sense of the old world vs. a new order. Daphne's especially troubling, as she's always seemed older than she is -- her Mimi seemed the most mature and world-weary denizen of RENT (does anyone think she was ever remotely viable for the film version?) 15 years later, she's playing Williams's ingenue, the young bride besotted with a new life with a new husband who literally breathes change in a changing world. How will Mitch be a staid contrast, played by an actor who certainly appears younger? I'm baffled by these choices, and after the John C. Reilly Stanley feel cheated that the next production hasn't at least made an effort to find Brando-like game changer.

Updated On: 4/2/12 at 05:22 PM

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 5:26pm

Definitely an alternative take on the material, but frankly for the 9th Broadway production (yes 9th) of the play, I think a different take on the material is justified.

I haven't seen any production photographs of the play but I think the photograph they are using on the poster is just a publicity shot (its very similar to what these producers did in their advertisements of CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF and didn't really resemble the actual costuming etc used on stage.)

[Idiot]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 5:31pm

Michael Bennett -- did you by chance see the production in the late eighties at CIRCLE IN THE SQAURE with a lithe Aiden Quinn playing Stanley? I even found THAT distracting! Also, when Stella (Frances McDormand) steals the show, you have a problem.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 5:33pm

Since I'm the first to go after naysayers who weigh in before the fact, I vow to post a heartfelt mea culpa slash retraction of above stated reservations if it all works. I've been startled by casting decisions in the past, and this may be a case were Emily Mann knows something (or rather, several things) about the alchemy of actors and roles that I do not.

(I believe I'm scratching my head in advance because last time out, I was determined to trust the truly out-there casting of Reilly -- a born Mitch if there ever was one, taking on Stanley -- all the way through the first act. When I finally accepted my disappointment, I felt cheated, especially in light of Richardson's Blanche.)

Updated On: 4/2/12 at 05:33 PM

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 5:37pm

The Circle in the Square production with Danner and Quinn was tedious and ill-conceived. Danner was the biggest let-down in that staging. My favorite remains the touring edition of the Lincoln Center production (post-Rosemary Harris) when the late great Lois Nettleton found a startling new approach to Blanche. Saw it at the Kennedy Center, and it still lingers in my mind.

[Idiot]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 5:40pm

Oooo, I wish I'd seen that one, Augie.

And yes, Danner was atrocious as Blanche. I just like her in general and was trying to leave her out of it. And now I've failed.

[jayinchelsea]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 5:59pm

Lois Nettleton was the butchest Blanche I have ever seen, but she was very powerful. Talk about a neglected, underrated talent.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 6:51pm

"it's not really STREETCAR if Stanley's not a roughneck Pole and Blanche isn't a damaged Southern belle (who, in period, has to be white)."

As Blanche says, "I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give
that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don't tell truths. I tell what ought to be ..."

* * *

Moreover, I agree with you when you go on to say:

"It's an alternate version of the play. If Stanley's ethnic origin was unimportant, Williams wouldn't have mentioned it in the first place."

It is, unabashedly, an alternative version of the play, in the sense of an adjustment, but that doesn't mean it isn't still Streetcar at its core (whether it is a success or not, and whether the degree to which it succeeds or fails is a reflection on this alteration is completely speculative until it is seen).

As I said before, my understanding is that the politics of perceived eugenic inequality is important in this production but it is transposed to a light complexion (in this case French Creole)/dark complexion dynamic, which has a tradition within the African American community as unfortunate and hateful as the tradition of claims of ethnic superiority by some European Americans over others which infuses Streetcar.

This parallel just might prove a highly effective analog - in this alternative version - for what we know well from the canonical text: the superiority Blanche feels to Stanley because of her French Old South heritage and his New Immigrant Slavic one.

* * *

"but it's not really STREETCAR if Stanley's not a roughneck Pole and Blanche isn't a damaged Southern belle (who, in period, has to be white):

For reasons stated above, I disagree with you that this is necessarily the case. Finally, there were in fact affluent and college-educated African Americans in the mid 20th Century South. No reason there might not have been a genteel damaged teacher who has lost her property among them.



Updated On: 4/2/12 at 06:51 PM

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 7:34pm

In one of the many previous threads about this production I complained that the characters of STREETCAR arise out of specific socio-economic conditions and historical trends (specifically Old South/New South). Blanche, Stella and Stanley aren't just poetic flights of fancy. And while I normally approve of color-blind casting, I was suspicious of the result here.

But the change to a light skin/dark skin dichotomy is an attempt to ground the play in an equivalent dynamic and makes perfect sense for an African-American cast.

I hope it works.

[Idiot]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 7:47pm

Henrik, you say:

"Finally, there were in fact affluent and college-educated African Americans in the mid 20th Century South. No reason there might not have been a genteel damaged teacher who has lost her property among them."

This is another place where our opinions diverge. Belle Reve is an ancestral Southern plantation. If it was owned by a black family, there's a giant plot point missing from the play. Actually, an entire play would be missing from the play if this were the case.

Updated On: 4/2/12 at 07:47 PM

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 8:05pm

I'm pretty sure the gens de couleur of New Orleans and environs owned property, plantations included.

[Miranda3]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 8:05pm

Auggie: Did you see Rosemary Harris as Blanche in the Lincoln Center production you mentioned above? If so, will you comment on her interpretation/performance?

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 8:06pm

From Wikipedia:

"In places where law or social custom permitted it, some free coloreds managed to acquire good agricultural land and slaves and become planters themselves. There were free colored-owned plantations in almost all the slave societies of the Americas. In the United States, free people of color may have owned the most property in Louisiana, which had developed a distinct creole or mixed-race class."

[Little-Lotte]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 8:16pm

This production still irks me, no matter how much you grasp at straws to make it work. Primarily because you NEED to alter text to make it work. And yes, Williams' approved of it but still, you are changing the dynamic greatly. You want to ruffle feathers? Keep Blanche and Stella white and make Stanley black! Granted most producers wouldn't want to touch that with a 50 foot pole because those types of race issues still exist today with mixed race couples.

It's an interesting idea they're using with the light skinned vs. the dark but I just feel that those differences are too subtle when dealing with this play, you need that shock for Blanche when she sees who her baby sister has married.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 8:16pm

Alas, no. But the Nettleton performance made a truly indelible impression. And Alan Feinstein was a perfect Stanley opposite her. Riveting.

Updated On: 4/2/12 at 08:16 PM

[3bluenight]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 8:18pm

First, I really appreciate the temperance of this conversation!

Second, thank you reg and henrik for that fine point. While wealthy african americans were certainly rare, they were not non-existent. Moreover, if one of the themes we're talking about (concerning the loss of culture that the plantation represents) is loss, is changing times, then that certainly applies to the specific culture of wealthy african americans. because it would have to be considered a sub culture.

I think one of the problems with colorblind casting is the audiences' expectations. I have a very dear friend who LOVED August, but couldn't wrap his mind around the logic of Phylicia Rashad. He just couldn't rationalize how that situation could have occurred.

I think establishing those relationships and that history is important in the rehearsal process. But Polish Americans were immigrants to this country, just as African Americans were new to this country (under vastly different circumstances, but both new populations). The struggles that each population faced may have been different, but the evolution of their culture into something new in this new world was not only simultaneous, but interconnected.

For me the specificity is important for the actors and directors to address. But i don't have a problem conceptually because they're all stories of a group of populations that evolved through history together. their stories are all interconnected. Different expressions or permutations of productions are good. is healthy. in my opinion.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 8:24pm

To me, it's not a leap at all for Violet to be a woman of color. The OSAGE story is too multi-layered, the family too unpredictably diverse. I can imagine it working with our accepting Violet as bi-racial or African-American.

The period-specific world of STREETCAR presents other challenges, and it will be interesting to see how this interpretation works.

[Idiot]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 8:36pm

Reginald, Belle Reve was in Laurel, Mississippi, not Louisiana.

[Idiot]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 8:48pm

Ha! I did not realize that Blanche DuBois' married name was 'Grey'. So when she married a gay man, she went from just white to grey. Interesting. I don't recall this being established in the text, but now I want to find it.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 8:58pm

Idiot, I'm sure you're right. It's been ages since I've seen or read it.

Still, it says "almost all the slave societies of the Americas"; I'd be surprised to find that Mississippi wasn't among them.

[Idiot]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 10:08pm

Reginald, I do hear what you're saying, it just stretches the material in a way that I don't care for. If they were wealthy black plantation owners, it would be addressed in the exchanges about the property I think, at length. Can you imagine a Creole Stanley's outrage over such a loss? (That's what I meant about a 'play' missing from the play STREETCAR becomes with these changes.)

I haven't read it in forever either, but it's been just long enough that watching the movie again may be a thrill. I've never seen a stage production that I prefer over the film and I'm envious of those who have. The Cate Blanchett turn is something I'm very bothered about having missed.