‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ opens Nov. 20
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Widely regarded as one of the defining plays of the 20th century, Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" will open Nov. 20 at the Maui Academy of Performing Arts' Naylor Theatre.
With the lead roles of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski played by Jennifer Rose and Derek Talbott, the new production is directed by Maui stage veteran Sally Sefton.
Set in New Orleans post World War II, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play explores the clash between a fading Southern aristocracy, embodied by DuBois, and the forceful industrial modernity represented by Kowalski.
Sefton was drawn to directing the play because, "Williams gives me the kind of human being I am most interested in directing, and asks you to protect the humanity of people who could easily be judged," she explained. "I don't want Blanche to be played as fragile, or Stanley simply as brutal. I want to discover the human being underneath each of them. What they need, what they fear, what they're protecting and what they're fighting for."
Familiar with William's work, she directed "Glass Menagerie" three times and "Streetcar" twice. "I am also the only director I know who ever attempted a production of 'Night of Iguana,'" she noted.
"Streetcar's" cast also includes Tara O'Hanley as Stella, J. Scott Melleselland as Mitch, Amelia Nelson as Eunice and Mike Werner as Steve, along with Bennett Guzman, Lucy Boone-Gess, Kapono Goring and Paul Janes Brown.
When it premiered on Broadway in 1947, the play starred Marlon Brando as Kowalski, with an emotionally charged, naturalistic performance that popularized method acting.
"Both times I've directed 'Streetcar,' I've told the actors right from the beginning I don't want to see Marlon Brando or Vivien Leigh," said Sefton. "Brilliant as they were and as iconic as those performances have become, we're not trying to recreate them. I want us to tell this story with an authenticity that allows the audience to recognize themselves in these people and in their daily struggles."
The play and subsequent film were controversial at the time because it dealt with taboo themes like sexual assault, domestic abuse, mental instability and promiscuity that shocked audiences of the 1940s and 1950s.
Directed by Elia Kazan, the film version was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency, which forced an edit. The legion found one sequence "too carnal." It became the fifth highest-grossing film of 1951 and won four Oscars.
Inspiration for Williams' characters in the play came from his own life. He once suggested, "I am Blanche DuBois," explaining that her desperate reliance on illusion to mask harsh realities mirrored his own internal vulnerabilities, anxieties and struggles with addiction.
Sefton explained that the play was deeply personal for Williams, shaped by his relationships with his sister Rose, his father and his experiences in New Orleans. Williams' older sister, Rose, suffered from severe mental illness and was institutionalized, inspiring the fragile, fracturing mind of Blanche DuBois, while his father was an aggressive drunk that was reflected in Stanley Kowalski's raw masculinity.
"That history gives Blanche an added tenderness," said Sefton. "She feels less like a character Williams is judging and more like someone he is trying to understand and protect."
Setting the play in New Orleans, "Williams found a kind of freedom there that contrasted sharply with his more restrictive upbringing," she said. "That tension between repression and desire runs through 'Streetcar,' and gives the city itself an almost living presence in the play."
"Streetcar" marks Sefton's last directorial production on Maui. After decades of teaching and directing on the island, she is moving to the mainland.
"After more than 40 years of directing theater on Maui, it somehow feels right that my final production here should be 'A Streetcar Named Desire,'" she said. "Williams wrote about people longing to be seen, understood, forgiven and loved. Those are the stories I have always been drawn to telling. Perhaps that is why this feels less like an ending than a final invitation to do what theater has always asked of us: to look at one another a little more closely, and with a little more compassion."
"A Streetcar Named Desire" will run Nov. 20 through Dec. 6 at the Maui Academy of Performing Arts' Naylor Theatre in Wailuku, with shows at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. on Sundays. Tickets are $25 to $45 at MauiAcademy.org.