‘Streetcar’ Director Strives to Expand Stanley’s Role

To Walter Brown’s way of thinking, Stanley Kowalski has been reincarnated too often as white trash, the ghetto ape “who drools and drags his knuckles” across the American stage.

It’s not that Brown is disenchanted with the brutal linchpin of Tennessee Williams’ classic drama “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Like everybody else, Brown feels that Kowalski, in all his overheated vulgarity as Williams originally portrayed him, is one of theater’s great characters.

But Brown believes he’s open to interpretation, with radical slantings. So the Stanley in the Eastern Boys Productions contemporary staging of “Streetcar,” directed by Brown and opening today in Santa Ana, is less “a steamy, sensual person” than a “boisterous man, something like a boy who hasn’t grown up.”

He’s also black.

Brown, who is white, cast R.A. Blankenship Jr., the actor who runs Eastern Boys Productions, as Stanley. He also picked another black actor, Mellow Martin, as Mitch, Stanley’s best friend and the suitor of Blanche, the soiled Southern lady whom Stanley ruins.

A white actress, Deirdre West, plays Blanche. Intriguing, yes--but would Williams approve or would he think it too subversive? Highly arguable, but Brown said he has no reservations.

“I think he wouldn’t be upset because I’m not into distorting his vision, but trying to enhance it and make it more (accessible) for a general audience,” Brown said. “This isn’t like putting ‘The Mikado’ on the moon. This tries to be true to the theme of ‘Streetcar.’ ”

Brown cited several reasons for the casting. Primarily, he thinks that too many stage standards play mainly for white audiences, usually “disenfranchising” black theatergoers from the experience at hand. There are several works that, through some creative tinkering, can reach a wider range of people, and Brown obviously feels “Streetcar” is one.

“I hope we can break the idea that Tennessee Williams is only for white audiences and white actors. As a director, I hate being cut out of a large talent pool (of black performers) and (restricted) to an audience that is primarily white.”

He also contends that modern audiences, more liberal-minded than those when “Streetcar” was first staged in 1947 with Marlon Brando as Stanley, may find the social status-based tensions between Blanche and Stanley quaint and unconvincing.

But the notion of the interracial marriage of Stanley and Stella, Blanche’s younger sister, and the subsequent sexual tension between Stanley and Blanche is bound to generate drama, Brown said.

“We talk about it originally having impact because of the social mismatch,” he explained. “But now in Southern California, I doubt that would impress most people. But you put a black man and a white woman together--that has impact.” Also, Brown believes that because there are more interracial relationships these days, “most people would see the casting as believable.”

At first, Brown leaned toward finding an Asian-American actor, possibly Vietnamese, to play Stanley, mainly to reflect the ethnic makeup in Orange County. But he decided on Blankenship because “he really knew what to do with the role.”

For his part, Blankenship said he feels comfortable with the role and prepared for it in only the usual ways. “I don’t look at this as a black-white issue,” he said flatly. “I think he can be played by anyone who understands the character.”

Brown did concede that the choice of Martin as Mitch is “more of a gamble, an experiment really.” He said it will probably be difficult for some to accept the idea of the affected and proper Blanche seeing a black man as her romantic savior.

The director was so unsure that he didn’t settle on Martin until this week. He considered using a Latino actor as a compromise that would maintain the racial element but be more acceptable in keeping with Blanche’s character.

“We may be stretching it with Mitch; it’s really up in the air, and we won’t know if it works until later on,” Brown said. “But I don’t think we’re gambling with Stanley, not at all.”

The Eastern Boys Productions of “A Streetcar Named Desire” opens tonight and plays Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. through March 31 at the Santa Ana City Hall Police Annex Auditorium, 23 Civic Center Plaza, Santa Ana. Tickets: $15, with $5 of each ticket to be donated to the homeless. Information: (714) 998-2199.