‘Streetcar’ Makes Another Stop : Theater: Director hopes the timely production at Cal State Fullerton will put the screen version in perspective.

“STELLA!”

It’s a cry that has become part of theater and movie lore. Ever since Marlon Brando screamed the name on Broadway in 1947 and punctured a film soundtrack with it four years later, those two syllables have been imprinted on the culture. Stanley Kowalski’s plaintive call to his wife is what many remember most about “A Streetcar Named Desire,” arguably Tennessee Williams’ greatest drama, and easily one of the best American plays ever.

Now, following the reissue of Elia Kazan’s 1951 Oscar-winning adaptation, there has been a surge of interest in Williams’ work. You have to go to Los Angeles to see the movie, but the play is closer: Cal State Fullerton’s revival of “Streetcar” opens tonight in the campus Performing Arts Center Arena Theater.

Gretchen Kanne, the CSUF theater arts professor who directed the production, enjoys putting the play in perspective and echoes what many critics have been saying for years--that “Streetcar” is not only a highly poetic and revealing work, but also represents something of a breakthrough for American theater.

“It is simply wonderful because it’s so passionate, with such sensuality,” Kanne says. “The mythic proportions of the characters, the poetic yet realistic language. I’d put it up there with (Arthur Miller’s) ‘Death of a Salesman’ and (Eugene O’Neill’s) ‘Long Day’s Journey into Night.’

“It had such impact because of its sexuality and the psychological repercussions of that. And in Blanche, we have one of the most important roles ever written for an actress.”

In Blanche Dubois, a princess of the South who has fallen on bad times, Williams offers a symbol of crushed dreams everywhere. When she arrives at her sister Stella’s tenement home in New Orleans, Blanche tries to keep up appearances, but Stella’s husband, Stanley, is a hurricane ready to blow her down. “Streetcar” chugs from one clash to another until Stanley rapes Blanche, pushing her into madness.

Kanne says Blanche has such a strong effect on audiences because Williams was so adept at writing about women. He understood them, more so than most playwrights, she feels, because it was easy for him to reach his own feminine side.

“My feeling is that he was speaking of himself (via Blanche), both of his femininity and his tragic artistic side. It made for a very revealing role. Besides Blanche,” Kanne notes, “he created other great female characters, like Maggie the Cat (from ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’) and Amanda” from “The Glass Menagerie.”

Of course, Kanne continues, one can’t ignore Stanley, whose impact was as profound as Blanche’s.

“Stanley is really the first ‘angry young man.’ He predates Jimmy Porter in (John Osborne’s) ‘Look Back in Anger.’ He really is a major figure in our literature.”

Almost everyone is familiar with Blanche and Stanley, largely because of Kazan’s movie. Brando still is considered the quintessential Stanley and Vivien Leigh the quintessential Blanche. Kanne concedes that those preconceptions can make it difficult for her student actors but says she is confident that they’ll bring their own interpretations to the stage.

The film, she says, “never really came up” during rehearsals. “I’m sure the cast has seen the film at one time or another, but I’m also sure they’ll be professional” in not being too affected by it.

Meanwhile, she hopes the restored version of the film (which includes provocative moments that were cut by censors in the ‘50s) will generate interest for her production among people curious to see the differences in the cinematic and theatrical approaches. She says she’s motivated by the movie, not intimidated by it.

“People will compare any rendition (to the picture), and that has a negative side, but the positive is that you can bring ‘Streetcar’ more alive in the ‘90s with more direct confrontation than you could (when it first was produced). And the Arena is a small, intimate space, so the audience will be right there, in on the action.”

* Cal State Fullerton’s revival of “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams opens tonight at 8 in the campus Performing Arts Center Arena Theater, 800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton, where it will continue Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m. through Oct. 24, with matinees at 2:30 Oct. 16 and 23. $6-$8. (714) 773-3371.