Thank you Tennessee Williams for the pathos and the passion of profound proportions in Streetcar Named Desire.
Thank you George Gugleottio for brilliant direction of an equally brilliant cast and technical team. This production is compelling and intense and a real knockout evening at the theater.
Thank you to the board and supporters of The Waterfront Playhouse and what a 62nd season!
Like so many Key West theater goers, I am fortunate to see live performances in DC, NYC and San Fran. Truth be told, I have a bit of an attitude about Key West theater. The attitude is SUPPORT IT ; ATTEND IT , ENCOURAGE IT and be ready to be SURPRISED.
Years of being in the audience and sensing the signs of fire in the cast allow me to have an opinion. I know when the company is in sync and absolutely lost in the world on stage.
This group of actors and the production grabs you and does not let go until long after you have left the theater. I am excited and feel eager to return a second time.
All theater is good. Some is simply mindbogglingly excellent. Who among us doesn't have a bit of Blanche and Stanley in us? Tennessee Williams dialogue is like a streaming video. Eloquent in its phrasing, memorable lines and masterful in the syntax; earthy, humorous and philosophical all at the same time.
Congratulations to the cast for grasping and embracing it and making it not just delivered but presented with an authenticity all the result of personal ownership and collective delivery.
The names attached to this magic include Diane Gilmore, Stage Manager and Properties, Terry Tucker, Set & Light Design, Meta Rettew, Costumes. Congratulations all around!
Every nuance and detail has been carefully researched and tended to. The set creates the truth of staging that allows the actors to be in the moment. The set is drearily depressing . . . and in this case that is a good thing!
The use of blackouts for the scene shifts is most effective. The technique of fast to dark and slowly up again actually allows the audience to exhale. Some scenes are so intense that you are holding your breath. The confrontation and the physical fights have been pain-takingly timed and are grippingly genuine.
Each member of this company is perfectly cast, unselfish and appears to be having a wonderful time. The combination of Eugenia Andruchowicz's Stella to George diBrand's Blanche captures your heart, worries your soul and is magic.
Tennessee Williams loved women, understood women, and seemed to see women as victims more often than not.
It is a big challenge to be demure, passive and quietly passionate amid the bombastic Stanley and the delusional Blanche. Eugenia does this and more.
George diBrand is Blanche in every way, each move. She captures the sense of the eternal believer that she will be rescued and has mastered living in a state of denial.
The clothes make Blanche DuBois. Both desperately out of touch with her reality and totally in the world she has created as her reality; dressing is the ritual. The long rambling monologues with the exquisite control of her movements and the hunger for "just a little magic" touch me deeply and I felt a connection.
Superlatives are only the beginning to describe George diBrand's performance and interpretation of this character.
I was prepared to wonder about Scott Gilmore as Stanley. Wrong , Boy, is he good! Such a performance and the range from the Napoleonic Code to rage and the tenderness with Stella deserves much praise.
Mark Buckner, a new talent on the Key West scene, is charmingly ackward as Blanche's found and then lost white knight. Watch for him in the time ahead.
The four suppoting actors provide balance and context and are to be commended: Joe DeLuca, Adarberto Jorge,Rock Solomon and Earl Halbe.
The three women supporting players, like their male counterparts, add to the total thrill of the evening and deserve recognition: China Randall, Elizabeth Weinstock and Joanie Sullivan.
Thank you one and all!