Casting aside black-and-white storytelling and stepping into the grey, A Streetcar Named Desire is an unforgettable exploration of the human condition. The complex characters and enthralling tale come to the stage at ACT Hub on 19-29 June.

The driving force of Streetcar is Blanche DuBois, a ‘difficult woman’ and once southern belle starting to feel her looks be lost to time and luck no longer on her side. Blanche leaves the family plantation to live with her sister, Stella, in New Orleans. However, the welcome isn’t warm as tensions rise with brother-in-law Stanley.

“When you put her in this situation – a very tight two-bedroom apartment in New Orleans with Stanley who’s the king of his castle and Stella who has left her upbringing of wealth to be part of Stanley’s life because of the passion they share – it creates issues about power and positionality,” says actor Amy Kowalczuk.

Premiering nearly 80 years ago, the classic Tennessee Williams story has remained in pop culture over the decades through countless stage performances and the iconic film that helped make Marlon Brando a household name. A master of writing characters, particularly women, Williams has created complex backstories for each of our main players that shape who they are, with Blanche’s story draped in tragedy and trauma.

“This is Blanche’s story; it is about Blanche coming to New Orleans from Belle Reve and about the things that have happened to her, but it is really about that kind of cause and effect.”

It can be all too easy to paint Stanley as a brute, Stella as a pushover and Blanche as a wayward woman, but these characters are much more than one-dimensional stereotypes. Working with incredible source material, Ms Kowalczuk says these characters are begging to have their nuances brought into the spotlight.

“These characters can go from passionate to explosive, nuanced to grief-stricken to solemn in a matter of moments. It shows a lot about the human condition and how circumstances can alter, shape and define people. This is a work about people who are fiercely trying to defend who they are and be able to survive.”

While these backstories and experiences influence the characters, Ms Kowalczuk says they in no way forgive their more triggering behaviours and choices throughout the story.

“I cannot condone it irrespective of how that occurred for that person, but I think what is beautiful about this play is that explores the afterlife of grief, traumatic experiences, your upbringing and your circumstance. Ultimately, how that can factor into your view on class and privilege and how some people can understand those circumstances and give grace towards the behaviour and how other people can’t.”

Class or status almost play another character in the story, especially the class divide between Blanche and Stanley which adds fuel to the tension between the pair.

“It’s a very interesting dynamic with Stanley because Blanche has successfully been able to fool many men over the years to get what she wants and what she needs, she does this to survive,” says Ms Kowalczuk. “When she comes to New Orleans, she’s got nowhere to go. She is still trying to use her sex as currency, but it doesn’t work with Stanley. He isn’t interested in entertaining any of what he considers to be delusions.”

Blanche is well-educated and beautiful but uses these attributes to alienate others or make them feel small, she struggles to understand why her sister Stella traded in her status for a man like Stanley. Often cutting her nose off to spite her face, Blanche is commonly written off as being damaged or crazy, but Ms Kowalczuk says if you miss the fragility of Blanche, you miss the whole character.

“She breaks into a million pieces, but you can only earn that if what you see is a fully fleshed out, living breathing woman.”

The barb between the two sisters, Stanley is a rough, tough working-class man’s man, and the centre of his and Stella’s private universe. Often falling into the category of ‘toxic’ masculinity, again you lose the humanity of the character with the stereotype.

“He’s had his space infiltrated by a woman who makes him feel stupid, but that doesn’t serve as a reason for him to treat the woman however he likes. There are aspects of the work people will find super confronting. Mirroring no one is one thing, we are all walking contradictions, that is what makes us human, which is why this play is timeless.”

Not swaying far from the original text, Ms Kowalczuk believes there are parallels to be drawn between the characters of the time and how we see ourselves now. How would we act if we knew someone suffering PTSD, grief and narcissism like Blanche? Or someone fuelling their inclination towards violence with alcohol like Stanley?

“I think there is quite a lot of power in holding up the mirror to society and saying ‘We might have evolved in some sense, but if these are experiences that people are still having in our current climate, are we doing enough to be able to support people facing these very human, universal experiences?’”

A well-known name in the theatre scene as an actor and director, Ms Kowalczuk says she is honoured to be bringing the character of Blanche to the stage. The entire cast and crew are deeply invested, they have hired an intimacy coordinator and accent dialect coach, held extra rehearsals and scoured the text. All to show the true depth of Stella, Stanley and Blanche.

“I have never played a role like Blanche DuBois and I never will again, so I’m chewing on every single mouthful. I’m really doing the work because I have to. I don’t want her to be one-dimensional, I want her to be a woman in full flight.”

Hoping people come to the theatre with an open mind, Ms Kowalczuk says they are in for a deep dive into the human condition – the beautiful, the ugly and the heartbreaking.

“I think people long for complexity, human beings are non-linear, we are many things competing for one attention all at the same time. I love to go to the theatre and be challenged by what I see, to think that a character is going to be one way and have them surprise me with something else. It is all there in the writing, each of these characters while they have some deeply unlikable traits and moments, they are not just those things,” she says.

Explore the depths of the human condition in A Streetcar Named Desire at ACT Hub on 19-29 June; acthub.com.au

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