Venue:The Frederic Wood Theatre, UBC Campus
Dates:September 26 - October 5, 2002
Reviewer: Jane Penistan
This well known, great American play is not an easy work for young actors to perform, but under the excellent direction of John Cooper, the cast of theatre students produces a satisfying interpretation.
Sustaining a Southern accent for the length of the evening is a challenge for the actors. Some meet this more successfully than others, but generally the attempt is good. The playing of roles of mature characters is another difficulty students have to overcome, and here they again succeed reasonably well, some more skillfully than others. Sarah Groundwater's Blanche is seductive and troubled, and Sadie Odette Kime gives a convincingly sisterly Stella. As her husband, Joel Redmond is a dominating and down-to-earth Stanley, and Mitch (Ryan Egan) falls heavily and defensively for Blanche.
The inside and outside of the wrong-side-of-the-tracks house of the Kowalskis is ingeniously designed by Francesca Albertazzi, who manages to fit all this on the stage. While the interior is suitably cluttered, nothing impedes the actors' movement. Joyce Rosario dresses the characters both appropriately and cleverly. Blanche's first entry in an elaborate white outfit immediately places her as a "lady" of the big city.
The faded glamour of Blanche and the impecunious unsophistication of the Kowalskis and their friends set the stage for the conflict between the dreams and the might-have-beens and the down to earth reality of life as it is lived.
© 2002 Jane Penistan