As one of the most iconic plays in the American and modern literary canon, I was surprised to learn that A Streetcar Named Desire hadn’t been shown on stage in Los Angeles for 20 or so years. It seems that the William estate does not allow many productions of the play, and I was suddenly quite glad that I had decided to attend.

Rewind a bit.

Tonight I was up in Valencia to see A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams at the Repertory East Playhouse. The theater is a small but cozy venue with close ties to the community. While sipping wine and chatting with patrons before the show, I learned that it was more like a four-degrees-of-separation among the audience, cast and crew.

I always like to see canonical and classical plays on stage because they open your eyes to the substance behind their fame. It’s like with Casablanca. People are able to quote more than a few lines from the movie even without having seen it. But when you finally do sit down and watch that old black and white, you know why “we’ll always have Paris,” that “this is the start of a beautiful friendship”, how “you’re shocked SHOCKED to find gambling in this establishment” and “how she had to walk into mine.”

Such is how I feel about Tennessee Williams’ play. My only background with it before seeing the production tonight was the famous Elia Kazan movie with Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski and Vivian Leigh as Blanche Dubois. I guess I could also add in the numerous references made to the play by Pedro Almodavar in his beautiful film Todo Sobre Mi Madre.

Anyway, the production was excellent. I left the theater full of thought because I’ve always been bothered by how I knew the play ended. In writing classes, teachers usually instruct students to create stories that change. Characters have to change. In plays specifically, playwriting books instruct that what characters really want has to be hidden up  until the point when it happens or doesn’t, causing change that affects the play. I’ve never really understood what exactly the pivotal change was in Williams’ play. Yes, Blanche goes crazy, but nothing else seems to really change because Blanche is still lost, Stella is still with Stanley and Stanley is still Stanley. Critical analysis and precedence would have me believe that it’s a battle royale between Stanley or Blanche. But I’ve always felt that the person with the most to lose or gain was Stella. Who’s the most affected by the change? Who should the audience be focusing on in the end when doctors drag Blanche away to the nuthouse and leave Stella crying on a chair and Stanley playing poker with his friends?

Then I began to think on the play’s strange name. The streetcar is only mentioned about three times in the play. But I wondered if the play wasn’t so much about the characters as it was about how desire is a streetcar that clanks back and forth back and forth on the same tracks for years and years and years. I also thought about how Blanche, even from the beginning, tries to open Stella’s eyes and show her sister that she is living in a trap. And then I wondered if the whole play was about how desires are a cage? Stanley and Stella are mutually codependent on their physical desire for the other. Blanche’s desires have taken everything away from her and left her in the power of Stanley; now her own desires aren’t strong enough to save her, but rather they’ll only destroy her. And I wonder if at the end, when Stella’s desires to protect her sister are finally stronger than her desire for Stanley, if she finds herself trapped on the street haunted by Desire by a husband who won’t physically let her leave and by a baby? But then I wonder if Williams’ intended for desire to be so stark? Blanche tries to paint the world with watercolors but a bucket of reality easily washes away her pictures. Stella’s life is full of her desire for Stanley until Blanche intrudes and reminds her of other responsibilities. And Stanley….Stanley is such a hard character because I wonder if Williams wanted to be a thug of a romantic?

Anyway, I’m so glad I finally saw this on stage. It reminded me why it’s famous and why it’s classic. And it makes me sad that so few people get to enjoy it on stage. I don’t know if I’d agree that less is more in the case of plays. Plays were meant to be played out and it seems a crime to rein in and closet such forces as those found in Williams’ play on desire.