THEATER REVIEW : Some Strong Performances Power This ‘Streetcar’ : Casting Kandis Chappell as Blanche is a gamble, but the first-rate production showcases some memorable portrayals.

“Blanche DuBois, c’est moi ,” said Tennessee Williams, more or less, admitting that he wrote himself into the heroine of what is arguably his most powerful work, “A Streetcar Named Desire.” And now South Coast Repertory has honored the playwright with a searing, first-rate production that opened, incredibly, hours before the death of Jessica Tandy, the incandescent actress who first played Blanche in 1947.

This production, however, takes too literally the author’s identification with his crushed Southern belle, who was also based partly on Williams’ mother. Specifically, the casting of Kandis Chappell as Blanche either shows enormous faith in its star by handing her a role for which she is physically completely unsuited or it is a misguided attempt to underline the homosexual author’s autobiographical impulses. A gifted actress, Chappell has captured the soul of Blanche DuBois, but, to borrow a Stephen Sondheim lyric, it looks as if “she plays Medea later this week.”

Blanche is a delicate mix, a liar and a poet, pathetic and dignified, desperately miming a vanished gentility that may have existed only in her mind anyway. As an aging single woman, her mature sexual needs sit uncomfortably with her kittenish affectations. Even in the hands of the petite Vivien Leigh, who was incomparable in the film version, Blanche walks the line between touching and embarrassing.

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Chappell is a big woman with almost masculine features whose stature is mocked by the frills that costume designer Walker Hicklin has no choice but to dress her in. When she coquettishly wraps a long lace shawl about her head to seduce a boy who has caught her fancy, one half expects him to rewrite the text and run screaming from the room. Blanche may be pathetic, but she’s not ridiculous.

At least part of the time, Chappell manages to overcome this shortcoming with a compelling performance that emphasizes Blanche’s growing horror as she waits for the inevitable act of her “executioner,” her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski (Jeff Meek). For all of her sensitivity, Blanche invites brutality from Stanley by only seeing the brutishness in him. The brilliance of Meek’s performance as Stanley is that it enables us to see him not as Blanche does but with the loving eyes of his wife, Stella.

In the famous scene where he screams his wife’s name, Meek’s Stanley is mesmerizing. Goaded by drink, a poker loss and Blanche’s incessant insults, Stanley has struck his wife and now stands stripped of his male bluster, crying out for the arms of his “baby.” Very slowly, Stella descends from the safety of a neighbor’s apartment, down to where her husband waits on his knees, sobbing and begging her forgiveness.

Elizabeth Dennehy’s Stella beautifully straddles the role of doting sister and passionate wife, torn between self-respect and an addiction to her husband’s desire. While he is kneeling before her, she first comforts him maternally, then submissively bends herself over his shoulder to return to him the role of possessor. This is one of several scenes so exquisite that the audience seems to hold its collective breath.

Another is the scene between Blanche and her suitor, Mitch (Jimmie Ray Weeks), that ends act two. In another superbly modulated performance, Weeks’ Mitch courts Blanche with so much shy honesty that Blanche, the compulsive fabricator, responds honestly. The act ends on a bone-chilling note with her last line as they embrace, “Sometimes--there’s God--so quickly!”

K.T. Vogt is terrific in the small role of Stella’s surprisingly sensitive white trash neighbor Eunice.

There are small missteps in Martin Benson’s largely unerring direction. The music and ominous drums that emphasize the play’s most poetic passages are heavy-handed, no matter how softly they’re played. Otherwise, composer Michael Roth’s dissonant score, used to evoke the sound of the passing streetcars, works well.

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Designer Michael Devine wonderfully paints the play’s hothouse French Quarter setting, with intricate ironwork balustrades, wooden shutters, and opaque curtains and dark floral wallpaper that climbs up a high wall, appearing water-stained and ruined at the top. Jane Reisman’s ambitious lighting creates a nice, moody ambience, but it is often too harsh in the foreground, providing exactly the kind of light that Blanche has made an art of avoiding.

Director Benson’s motivation for shining a harsh light on the inappropriate physicality of his star is anybody’s guess. One can imagine both aesthetic justifications and personal loyalties for the casting of his longtime colleague Chappell as Blanche. But it’s an odd choice, a gamble, and one that jars an audience to ponder questions outside the drama on stage. One can’t help but wonder what Tennessee Williams would have made of it.

* “A Streetcar Named Desire,” South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, Tuesday-Saturday, 8 p.m., Saturday-Sunday matinees, 2:30 p.m., Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Ends Oct. 9. $30-$36. (714) 957-4033. Running time: 3 hours.

Lea Charisse Woods: Neighbor

K.T. Vogt: Eunice Hubbell

Jeff Meek: Stanley Kowalski

Elizabeth Dennehy: Stella Kowalski

Mikael Salazar: Steve Hubbell

Jimmie Ray Weeks: Harold “Mitch” Mitchell

Vetza Trussell: Flower Seller, Matron

Kandis Chappell: Blanche DuBois

Art Koustik: Pablo Gonzales

Nolan Yates: A young collector

Don Took: Doctor

A South Coast Repertory production. By Tennessee Williams. Directed by Martin Benson. Scenic Design by Michael Devine. Costumes by Walker Hicklin. Lighting by Jane Reisman. Original music and sound design by Michael Roth. Production manager Michael Mora. Stage manager Bonnie Lorenger.