Event Article

The 1951 film version of “A Streetcar Named Desire” made Marlon Brando (who played Stanley Kowalski) an instant star. The same can be said about Fullerton College student Kalinda Younger Gray who steals the show as Blanche Dubois in the school’s production of the classic drama.

In this Pulitzer Prize winning play written by Tennessee Williams, three imperfect characters try to live in imperfect harmony. Stanley Kowalski (Agostino Bommarito) is a working-class brute who uses sex for power. Stella Kowalski (Timorah Brown) is Stanley’s devoted wife and sister to Blanche (Gray,) an aging Southern belle with a questionable past.

“Streetcar” is set in 1947 New Orleans where Blanche arrives at the doorstep of the Kowalski’s apartment, leaving behind the family’s plantation Belle Reve in Mississippi, which she claims was “lost.” Stanley doesn’t believe Blanche’s story and won’t stop until he gets to the bottom of it.

Like Brando, Bommarito bares Stanley’s overbearing sexuality; you can’t take your eyes off him. His violent outbursts and his surrender to Stella as he falls to his knees with his t-shirt torn and tears in his eyes as he moans, “Stell-lahhhhh,” is captivating.

Stella is torn between being a wife and a sister because she can’t do both without upsetting the other. Brown does a good job of incorporating the desire to please her husband and the willingness to nurture her lost sister.

As the star of the show, Gray brings Blanche’s instability and charm to life and masters the southern aristocratic accent that would make Vivien Leigh proud.

But the true climactic scene in “Streetcar” is when Stanley arrives home drunk and by then has exposed the dishonorable life Blanche left behind. He knows she’s vulnerable and he takes advantage of it. Stanley approaches Blanche slowly, like a lion after his prey.

“Stay back! Don’t you come toward me another step or I’ll …” Blanche says as she smashes a bottle for defense.

“What did you do that for?” Stanley asks with a devilish grin.

“So I could twist the broken end in your face!” she screams with such emotion you can feel her fear.

I was skeptical to review a college version of a highly-recognized play, popularized by some of Hollywood’s key players: Brando, Leigh and Elia Kazan. How could you do justice to such a work of art?

But after watching Fullerton College’s performance I nearly swallowed my tongue. The cast’s delivery was on-point and compelling. I would desire nothing more than to watch it again.