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1992-09-10
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REVIEWS, Page 93THEATERMore Heat Than Desire
TITLE: A Streetcar Named Desire
AUTHOR: Tennessee Williams
WHERE: Broadway
THE BOTTOM LINE: Star power isn't enough to get this
vehicle rolling.
When a critic and fellow tippler suggested to Tennessee
Williams that he might be a better playwright if he stayed off
the sauce, Williams patted his companion's forearm and with a
satisfied smile challenged, "Improve A Streetcar Named Desire."
The discussion stopped right there. The years since its debut
in 1947 have only intensified the relevance of Streetcar's
vision of sexual passion as a force so powerful that the
principal characters must all lie to themselves about it. But
if Streetcar emphatically belongs back on Broadway, it deserves
far better than this starry but mostly wan and torpid
production.
No revival of recent years has been more eagerly
anticipated than the pairing of movie stars Jessica Lange as the
desperate, delusional Blanche DuBois and Alec Baldwin as her
brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski, the feral hunk who rapes her
in body and mind. From the moment they meet, there should be a
sense of yearning and of doom, as when Jessica Tandy and Marlon
Brando legendarily created the roles. Alas, there are no sparks
between the current team.
Baldwin, a fine actor in emotionally reserved roles,
cannot summon enough of Stanley's musky sexual appeal or his
apish brutality. His voice is too light, his features are too
aristocratic. Above all, he cannot uncork the character's
volcanic ego. The violent fits and howls are all there, yet feel
calculated. Lange gives Blanche an initial strength that makes
her breakdown all the more overpowering, and provides the few
moments of real magic, describing the breakup of her family home
and her hopeless marriage to a closeted homosexual. These
scenes, however, are with Amy Madigan, able if stolid as her
sister Stella, and Timothy Carhart, woefully miscast but game
as the amiable lug Blanche beguiles. The real fault lies with
director Gregory Mosher, who achieves the languorous pace of a
New Orleans summer -- but not the steam.
By WILLIAM A. HENRY III.