THEATER | "A Streetcar Named Desire" at the Guthrie: Tennessee lite
Ricardo Antonio Chavira in A Streetcar Named Desire. Photo by T. Charles Erickson, courtesy Guthrie Theater.
Correction 7/12/10: When I wrote this review, I was unaware that the script dictated the use of sound effects. This fact clearly puts the effects' use in the production in a new light, and I apologize to any readers who were misled by my review. I have written a blog entry reconsidering this review.
My friend Nicky has a bacon beard, created for a beard contest. (She won fame, but not the contest.) After weaving the cooked bacon into a beard, Nicky laminated her creation so that the bacon is forever preserved in its original succulent state. When you see the bacon beard up close and hold it, though, it's rather grotesque. You can see that the bacon was originally cooked to perfection, but the hard glossy coating turns it into something weird, and wrong.
The laminated bacon beard could be a metaphor for the character of Blanche in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire—born to privilege, later hidden beneath an impermeable façade of pretension and delusion—but unfortunately it also makes for an apt comparison to the Streetcar production currently playing on the Wurtele Thrust Stage at the Guthrie Theater. The play itself remains intact as one of the towering classics of American theater, but this production adds a commercial sheen that's completely unnecessary and for which the word "distracting" is inadequate.
| a streetcar named desire, presented through august 29 at the guthrie theater. for information and tickets ($24-$60), see guthrietheater.org |
Unlike Stanley Kowalski, I'm man enough to admit when I've done wrong—and I did wrong to wait until Saturday night's performance to properly acquaint myself with Streetcar. (It's just one of those things that slips by you. I've never seen Glass Menagerie either, and you are welcome to take that as justification to stop reading now.) Still, the play is such a cultural landmark that it's like visiting New York City for the first time when you grew up in Minnesota—for somewhere you've never been, it seems oddly familiar. Stanley sweating in his t-shirt, Blanche DuBois as the epitome of obnoxious entitlement, lines like "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers" and "Stella!"
So for better or for worse, I had a pretty clear idea of what impression these characters were supposed to make, and for better or worse, the actors cast by director John Miller-Stephany fit my mental bill. As Blanche, Gretchen Egolf stays the course and remains resolutely a diva, properly confident in the material to carry her, in due time, to the edge of madness. Stacia Rice makes a superbly down-to-earth Stella, touching in her steadfast devotion to her brusque husband. As Blanche's beau Mitch, Brian Keane takes a while to summon much gravity, but by the play's conclusion he's convincingly tortured.
Ricardo Antonio Chavira (known nationally for his role in Desperate Housewives) has a Brando-size t-shirt to fill as Stanley—one of theater's most famously erotic characters—and he doesn't. (My friend Leslie observed that Chavira's shirt actually hangs loose on him, making him seem physically small. It would be interesting to know whether this was a conscious decision by costumer Matthew J. LeFebvre.) Chavira excels at comic bantering and playful flirting, but when it comes time for him to throw women on beds, he's unconvincing. As his wife, Rice has a subtle slow-burning sensuality that might have been used to make things a little more interesting—but in this missionary-style production, she's left to lie back and think of Target.
The casting is one of the many aspects of this production that are relatively safe, but when it comes to sound and lighting, Miller-Stephany—with sound designer Scott W. Edwards and lighting designer Peter Mumford—places some high-stakes bets that cost the show dearly. In a play as superbly-written as this, there's absolutely no need for melodramatic sound effects and showy lighting cues to underline dialogue and events. When an audible gunshot accompanied Blanche's reminisce about a past tragedy, I had to look around me to confirm that I was watching a classic play at the Guthrie and not a made-for-TV movie on Lifetime. At one point an echo effect is used behind an ominous line of dialogue, a move so cheesy it makes the mischievous turkey in A Christmas Carol look avant-garde.
Overall, is this a terrible production? Certainly not. Could it have been worse? Yes, in so many ways. Like Nicky's bacon beard, Streetcar is still impressive, even in laminated form. But if I were Nicky, I wouldn't keep that thing lying around.
Guthrie Theater
818 S. 2nd St.
Minneapolis, MN 55415
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Jay Gabler (jay@tcdailyplanet.net, Twitter @JayGabler) is the Daily Planet's arts editor.
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Comments
Bacon Beard
It's still lying around. I'm saving it for you, Jay!
-Nicky
Sound cues
As a frequent reader of this play, I need to point out an inaccuracy in your review that does injustice to the Guthrie's production in particular.
Actually, the sound effects used in this production are used because the TEXT, as written by Williams himself, DICTATES that these sound effects (the cat, the music, the gunshot, the streetcar) are completely necessary. Williams notes all over his script exactly where the music should begin to creep in. Even in that final scene with the Matron, Williams directs that..."The greeting is echoed and re-echoed by other mysterious voices behind the walls, as if reverberated through a canyon of rock" (scene 11). This is called for until the Doctor arrives in the bedroom several pages later. The echoing sound effect in the Guthrie production is thus an interpretation of the playwright's direction.
This article should be doctored, as it is an unfair, and altogether inaccurate place to criticize the production.
bacon beard? Really?
Apparently Mr. Gabler didn't "properly acquaint" himself with the play after all. The melodramatic lighting and sound effects he derides are Tennessee Williams doing. i.e.;
"a locomotive is heard approaching outside.The headlight of the locomotive glares into the room as it thunders past."
"A distant revolver shot is heard, Blanche seems relieved."
"She rushes past him into the bedroom. Lurid reflections appear on the walls in odd sinuous shapes. The Varsouviana is filtered into a wierd distortion, accompanied by cries and noises of the jungle."
MATRON: Hello Blanche. (The greeting is echoed and re-echoed by other mysterious voices behind the walls, as if reverberated through a canyon of rock.)
Read the play Jay. I must say your bacon beard metaphor rivals the beauty of any Mr. Williams' finest writing.
bacon beard
I have to hand it to you. Without having seen the production, I can still say the "bacon beard" is, hands down, the best metaphor I've ever heard for overcooked, overly glossy theater. (Even though just thinking about it still makes me hungry. Damn.) Kudos.
COMPLETELY DISAGREE
I guess there are some critics that feel they need to be critics all the time - in this case, a "bacon" analogy...I saw the show on opening night and thought it was a true work of masterful art. The acting, across the board, is nothing short of a revelation, especially in a theater whose casting I'm not always behind. The production values are wonderful, and make the world real--almost breaking the fourth wall, and making the giant Wurtele Thrust seem like a 10-person occupancy theater. In this production, the street life, the weather, the set, and the characters are fantastically informed, and make it a really poignant experience for the audience. I was sweating by the end, and this WILL be a production that goes down in history for its effect. Don't listen to this article! Not everyone has a chip on his/her shoulder and can immerse oneself in a great night of theater.
live theater vs. TV vs. film vs. Jay
Jay, Jay, Jay,
You had not read or seen the play before, but you wrote "So for better or for worse, I had a pretty clear idea of what impression these characters were supposed to make."
No. They're not supposed to make your preconceived notion of an impression. They are supposed to make the impression they make. Go see it again, listen to the dialogue, take in the view, listen to the sound effects, follow the story, and be open to the sense the actors make. Then, if you don't like it, okay. But just because you remember the most famous lines and have a stereotype in your head of what a Tennessee Williams play is supposed be like (and clearly you do), that does NOT do justice to all the hard work that went into the production or into the writing.
As far as the sound effects are concerned--you're reviewing theater, not television or film. Theater does not need to be smoothed over and neat and entirely realistic, it can be theatrical. If you want to watch drama without cheesy sound effects you can find it any night at home on TV.
C'mon, man.
And one last thing: go read The Glass Menagerie immediately.
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