Soulpepper opened a run of a revival of their 2019 production of Tennessee William’s A Street Car Named Desire at the Young Centre on Tuesday evening.  It’s a terrific production and performance but, as usually happens to me with Mr. Williams’ plays, I found myself admiring it more than enjoying it.  Showcasing dishonest, violent people living lives of noisy despair without any form of redemption, however brilliantly portrayed, leaves me wondering what the point of it all is.

That said this production is very well done.  It’s designed to make New Orleans very much a character in the drama.  A raucous jazz band plays behind a window in the stage or processes noisily through the auditorium.  The annual cycle of New Orleans life is vividly portrayed and the unique character of that splendidly squalid palimpsest on the Mississippi really does frame and add spice to the personal drama of Blanche DuBois and the Kowalski’s.  It’s enhanced by first class lighting (Kimberly Purtell) and sound design (Debashis Sinha) and original music by Mike Ross.

Weyni Mengesha’s direction of the interpersonal drama is tight and effective.  She draws performances from the main characters that may not make them sympathetic but at least makers them believably awful.  That’s backed up by strong acting.  I guess, in a way, a character like Blanche DuBois poses the same sort of challenge as Hamlet.  We all know her but there’s endless room to flesh out the character.  Amy Rutherford does this extremely convincingly.  She manages to convey the sense of someone who is deluding herself almost as much as the people around her.  Her Blanche is ghastly but we can’t help feeling just a smidgeon of sympathy for her.  One feels that Stanley Kowalski is written pretty much just as a foil for Blanche.  He’s violent and vulgar and if he has a redeeming feature I’ve never identified it.  Mac Fyfe manages to make him human; an unpleasant human, but not just a cardboard cut out.  That’s impressive.  Shakura Dickson’s Stella is far the most sympathetic character in the piece.  She brings out the resignation and realism of her character very well and is also extremely sexy.

Gregory Prest makes a decent fist of “Mitch” Mitchell too.  This is another character who doesn’t feel fully fleshed out.  (Maybe that’s the basic problem with Williams.  His male characters aren’t nearly as interesting as his women?) Nonetheless Prest is convincing enough.  Of the supporting cast I was impressed by Divine Brown’s exuberant and funny Willie-Mae.

Streetcar is a classic of the Southern Gothic genre.  It’s well constructed and this is a fine production… but it’s still three hours of horrible people shouting at each other.  You pays your money, as they say.

A Streetcar Named Desire runs at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts until July 7th.

Photo credit: Dahlia Katz