Blank Canvas Production's interpretation of classic play, A Streetcar Named Desire, takes audiences into the seedy, sultry, and sweaty heart of New Orleans in the 1940s. Blanche Dubois (Mary Higgins) has fallen from grace and riches, yet still accustomed to finer things. Taking refuge in the home of her sister, Stella (Madeleine Walker), she's unnerved first by the 'common' surroundings, and second by Stella's husband, Stanley (Jason Imlach), who is brutish and violent, and pays no attention to Blanche's sensitivity.
The play is punctuated with heart-pounding abuse and angry words, but its overall shape goes towards despair and Blanche's emotional unravelling. Ultimately, Blanche cannot escape her past and the fates, in Stanley's hands, lead to a tragic future.
But it's not just Blanche's story. The character of Stella is also fascinating, her loyalties move between Blanche and Stanley, who irritate each other. Stella is good natured, perennially waiting on both these figures and cleaning up after them, even when heavily pregnant. She struggles to find her own voice in the household that isn't a mere echo Blanche's or Stanley's views. It is there, but it is weighted by conflict and ambiguity – she's the only one able to realise the complexity of the drama unfolding in her household. No solutions are adequate, and she is the lone character left to deal with this fact.
Playwright Tennessee Williams provides demanding source material, calling actors to draw on the greatest depths of their emotions, but likewise to enjoy moments of levity and humour. While audiences learn intricate details of the characters' lives, they're also called to reflect on wider themes: societal pressures, madness, the cycles of abuse, the failure of dreams. Blank Canvas has done a superb job at meeting these challenges in Keble College's O'Reilly Theatre, with compelling acting, hypnotising sound, and effective lighting, staging and scenery.
The execution wasn't perfect, with the odd confusion with lines and the occasional failure of actors to project, it is nonetheless an impressive production that takes the essence of a classic and transforms it into lively, yet chilling drama.