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| Amy Kowalczuk (Blanche DuBois) - Alex Hoskinson (Stanley Kowalski) in "A Streetcar Named Desire |
Written by
Tennessee Williams – Directed by Anne Somes
Set design
by Dr Cate Clelland and Ron Abrams – Costume Design by Fiona Leach
Lighting
Design by Craig Muller – Sound Design by Neville Pye
Vocal and Dialect
Coach: Sarah Chalmers – Intimacy Co-ordinator: Karen Vickery.
ACT Hub 19 – 29 June 2024. Performance on 22nd June reviewed by BILL STEPHENS
Despite
having had many different interpreters, to many the 1951 film of Tennessee
Williams’ searing examination of marital relationships which starred Vivien
Leigh as Blanche DuBois, Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski and Kim Hunter as Stella
Kowalski has become the template and definitive interpretation of this play.
With her
powerful production for Free-Rain Theatre in the ACT Hub, Director Anne Somes proves
that there are other ways to skin a cat by casting three of the city’s finest
young actors in Amy Kowalczuk as the delusional Blanche DuBois, Meaghan Stewart
as Blanche’s sister Stella Kowalski, and Alex Hoskison as Stella’s Polish
husband Stanley Kowalski.
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| Meaghan Stewart (Stella Kowalski) - Amy Kowalczuk (Blance DuBois) in "A Streetcar Named Desire"_ |
Somes has
drawn finely delineated performances from all three actors and surrounded them
with an excellent cast of supporting actors to portray the friends and neighbours
of the Kowalski’s.
When Blanche
(Amy Kowalczuk) unexpectedly comes to stay with her sister Stella (Meaghan
Stewart) and her husband Stanley (Alex Hoskison) in their tiny two-roomed
apartment in a run-down tenement, she quickly makes her distaste for Stanley,
his poker-playing friends, and the couple’s cramped apartment, evident.
Stanley
resents Blanche’s intrusion into their life and makes little effort to hide his
feelings or make Blanche feel welcome. Newly pregnant, Stella finds herself
walking on eggshells as she tries to keep the peace between the two.
Amy Kowalczuk
is simply riveting as Blanche DuBois. Her depiction of Blanche’s slide into madness
is fascinatingly detailed allowing the audience to empathise with Blanche’s
predicament as her web of lies begins to unravel, while understanding the havoc
her presence is wreaking on the Kowalski’s marriage.
Similarly
impressive is Meaghan Stewart’s nuanced performance as Stella, initially
delighted by Blanche’s visit but increasingly unsettled by her husband’s
response to her. Stella is eventually
torn between her loyalties to her husband and her sister when Stanley discovers
that Blanche has been less than candid about her past, and his treatment of
both Stella and Blanche becomes increasingly more violent.
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| Meaghan Stewart (Stella Kowalski) - Alex Hoskison (Stanley Kowalski) in " A Streetcar Named Desire" |
While totally convincing in his depiction of Stanley Kowalski’s unapologetic oafishness, Alex Hoskison remarkably impels the audience to feel sympathy for Stanley’s predicament in having his life intruded upon by Blanche while at the same time being repelled by his brutish treatment of her.
As the
cuckolded Harold ‘Mitch’ Mitchell, who Blanche expects to marry as a way out of
her own situation, Lachlan Ruffy creates a sympathetic and believable
character.
Tim Stiles
and Sarah Hull portray the Kowalski’s neighbours, Steve and Eunice Hubbell, who
live above the Kowalski’s in an apartment with walls so thin that Blanche is
bothered by their love-making.
Lachlan
Elderton, James Morgan, David Bennet, Olivia Wenholz, Rina Onorato, Rica Oyolla
and Mercy Lelei play various other characters that populate the Kowalski’s
world.
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| Alex Hoskison (Stanley Kowalski) - Meaghan Stewart (Stella Kowalski) in "A Streetcar Named Desire". |
Fiona Leach has created a fascinating wardrobe for Blanche to provide clues to her squandered wealth, as well as a variety of period clothing for the rest of the cast to compliment the carefully selected furniture and properties with which Cate Clelland and Ron Abrahams have furnished the Kowalski’s claustrophobic apartment.
A pity then that distracting changes in lighting states midway through scenes, and some misjudged set changes, especially following the rape when for no logical reason the neighbours suddenly burst in and begin cleaning up the debris and setting up the card game as Stanley changes clothes in full view of the audience, completely evaporates the shock value of the preceding scene, marred this otherwise impressive production by Free-Rain Theatre.
Images by Jane Duong.