‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ staged at UW-Stevens Point
“A Streetcar Named Desire,” Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning drama filled with complex characters, deep human emotions and conflict, will be staged at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point March 2–4 and 8–10.
Marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of the playwright, the Theatre & Dance Department will perform “A Streetcar Named Desire” in the Jenkins Theatre at the Noel Fine Arts Center, 1800 Portage St., at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 2; Saturday, March 3; and Thursday through Saturday, March 8–10. A matinee performance will be offered at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 4.
Tickets are $17 for adults, $16 for senior citizens and $12 for students (or free with a UWSP student ID if tickets are available the day of the show) and are available at the Information and Tickets Office in the Dreyfus University Center, online at http://tickets.uwsp.edu or by calling 715-346-4100 or 800-838-3378. The show is not appropriate for young audiences.
Universally thought of as one of the greatest plays in the American canon, “A Streetcar Named Desire” is the story of Blanche DuBois (played by Mona Maclay of Richland Center), a woman trying to find her place after losing the family home in Mississippi. She moves to New Orleans to stay with her sister, Stella (played by Kate VanderVelden of Belgium), and brother-in-law, Stanley (played by Jake Horstmeier of Random Lake), where all is not as it appears to be.
“This is a family in chaos,” says the play’s director, Tyler Marchant, a UW-Stevens Point assistant professor of theatre. “In their conflict there are lies and deceit. Unmasking that takes its toll on everyone.”
Williams’ prize-winning play “was beautifully written, with complex characters,” he added. “Audiences will experience a dramatic evening, in which the play explores deep human emotion and vulnerability. It’s a great character study of the human being.”
Due to these highly-charged emotional characters, the 11 student actors are being asked to go to complex places, which takes focus and stamina, Marchant said. “Getting these emotions out of the actors has been a real joy. It’s exciting, exhausting and rewarding.”
The stage in Jenkins Theatre reflects New Orleans in a large, two-story set that has a fractured quality to it “as an extension of Blanche’s fractured psyche,” said Marchant. Period clothing from the late 40s and the varying dialects of New Orleans will also give the audience the sense of walking into a different time and place.
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