Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company is staging a sizzling production of Tennessee Williams “A Streetcar Named Desire” through July 12th.
Starring Megan Carmitchel as Stella Kowalsky, Jessica John as her sister Blanche DuBois and Francis Gercke as Stanley Kowalski, Stella's husband, this dynamic trio shouts excellence.
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| Megan Carmitchel and Jessica john |
Under Rob Lutfy’s self -assured direction, Williams’ ‘Desire’, which has not been produced in San Diego since 2008, sheds a different, more sexy, physical and sensual undercurrent on its characters.
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| Jessica John and Francis Gercke |
This is not your 1947 movie that made Marlon Brando a star. No! This is an in your face production, where in the end, you are exhausted; spent and heartbroken to see this wounded image of a woman, hoping to find a place for herself among a dysfunctional family far from the illusionary life and grand plantation, Belle Reve, she once called home. She is also broke and out of work as an English schoolteacher.
With no place else to go Blanche is forced to live with her sister and her husband in a rundown section of New Orleans in a two bedroom downstairs apartment (Yi Chien Lee) with little or no privacy.
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| Francis Gercke and Megan Carmitchel |
Blanche is constantly criticizing Stanley’s brawny behavior, calling him bestial and animal like. She aggravates him with every move she makes, cascading around like the Southern bell she used to be. Would that she could know the consequences of the nit picking! And little did she understand the deep feelings Stella has for Stanley.
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| Francis Gercke and MJ Sieber |
In her own self -absorption, she missed the clues around her and fell into a trap of her own making. Stanley was not done with her yet.
With a solid gold cast, BYR has stretched the limits of what a perfect production can be when the entire cast is in harmony with each other and under Lutfy’s direction one doesn’t just watch the characters in ‘Streetcar’ develop, one feels it from the knot in your stomach to the hair raising follicles in your arms.
When Gercke’s Stanley tells Blanche to stop calling him a Polack, every vein in his forearms to his neck strains with rage. Blanch looks horrified and in her own inimitable southern belle way, excuses herself to the bathroom to take a relaxing bath.
As talented and gifted as John is, she has sunk her teeth into this roll and never looked back. Her heartbreaking recollection of how her first husband killed himself, to her softness in almost desperation, having her own ‘gentleman caller’, one of Stanley’s poker buddies, Mitch (MJ Sieber), to her falling deeper into the abyss when Stanley rapes her to her submitting peacefully the doctor at the end of the play, it’s difficult to top her performance.
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| Jessica John and MJ Sieber |
Megan Carmitchel’s Stella is also at the top of her game as she struggles with Blanche’s love and Stanley’s possessiveness, trying to balance the two, like being on a seesaw. Unlike Blanche, Stella takes Stanley’s abuse only to come back for some heated sex. The passion between them sizzles.
Gercke never tries to imitate Brando. That would be his undoing. No, Gercke’s Stanley goes deeper than the S T E L L A A call of the wild. Gercke’s Stanley is a planner, always thinking of what harm he can do to Blanche’s psyche.
Rounding out the cast, the ensemble includes: Markuz Rodriguez, Dianne Yvette, actor/singer Faith Carrion, Layth Haddad, William Huffaker. They play multiple roles
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| Megan Carmitchel, Francis Gercke and Jessica John |
Lighting designer Curtis Mueller brings both light and darkness as needed, costume designed by Hannah Meade and Jessica John Gercke, and dialect instructor Susanne Sulby gets an A+ for John’s southern accent and co sound designers Evan Easton and composer Steven Leffue create an impressive soundscape including that never ending ‘Streetcar Named Desire’.
Just as an FYI. The production runs a bit over three hours with two fifteen minute intermissions. It’s worth it ‘because I can’t imagine anyone else taking on this great of a project.
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| Jessica John |
Hat’s off to Backyard Renaissance Theatre.
Enjoy
See you at the theatre.
When: Thursdays through Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays. (Also 7:30 p.m. Wednesday July 2 and 7 p.m. Monday July 7; no performances July 4-5). Through July 12.
Where: Tenth Avenue Arts Center, 930 Tenth Ave., San Diego
Photo: Daren Scott
Tickets: $20-$50
Phone: 760-975-7189
Online: backyardrenaissance.com
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