Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about Ion Theatre Company’s production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” is the amazing multi-level set created by the director, Claudio Raygoza, who promised it would be a “fever dream of New Orleans.” Raygoza’s creation as well, the lighting (myriad visible fixtures, some street lanterns and the bare bulbs Blanche DuBois so abhors) is a character unto itself, and so is Tom Boyce’s exceptional sound design, which suggests noisy streets as well as the pavilion by the lakeshore where Blanche’s young husband shot himself.
The overall effect is dreamlike, moody and damp (the humidity outdoors helped) and the final visual effect, stunning; but however breathtaking the fever dream may be, it’s almost a case of overkill, as if Raygoza did not trust his actors and the Tennessee Williams classic to deliver on their own. This may change over the course of the run, after the jitters of opening night are past, and there are indeed textual revelations.
Monique Gaffney delivers a Blanche that possesses more overt steel than the usual, making all her lies and machinations a surprising part of the character’s indomitable desire to survive despite the demons that torment her. Her tormenter in reality is Stanley (Matt Scott), her sister’s husband. He is the embodiment of all the secrets that Blanche can no longer keep at bay.
As she visits sister Stella (Sara Beth Morgan) and Stanley in their tiny two-room apartment in New Orleans, Blanche paints herself a paragon of refined gentility and purity, especially in her desperate attempts to will Stanley’s friend Mitch (Brian Mackey) into marriage. Eventually, as she remarks he would be, Stanley is Blanche’s destroyer.
The demons triumph over her steel, and she is totally undone.
The pregnant Stella strives to help her sister and simultaneously to love her husband, but she is truly torn and weak when it comes to the brutal Stanley, the ultimate survivor. Morgan, who played Nina in Raygoza’s recent Chekhov adaptation, “La Gaviota,” is revelatory as Stella.
Others in the company are Morgan Trant, Bebe Black, Rich Carrillo, Colin Simon and Kevin Koppman-Gue.
“A Streetcar Named Desire” continues at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 7 p.m. Sundays through Aug. 11 at The Lab at the Academy of Performing Arts, 4580-B Alvarado Canyon Road, San Diego.
For tickets and information, visit www.iontheatre.com or call (619) 374-6894.