A “False City” of Mist & Mold: Locating A Streetcar Named Desire by Helen C. Jaksch When Blanche arrives at Stella and Stanley’s doorstep, she tells Eunice: “They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at — Elysian Fields!” Tennessee Williams openly admits taking poetic license with the geography of Streetcar; a literal adherence to these directions would not lead you anywhere in 1947 New Orleans. 632 Elysian Fields is a real address, not in the iconic French Quarter, but in the Faubourg Marigny just a few blocks away. Faubourg translates to “false city” and is the traditional French word for a suburb just outside the walls of the city proper. Divided by Esplanade Avenue and the Louisville & Nashville Railroad tracks, the French Quarter and Marigny were sister neighborhoods. And while the streetcar lines (including the one named Desire) stitched them together, the architecture, residents and atmospheres were very different. In the late 1940s, the French Quarter was bustling, bright, and being groomed for the growing tourist economy. It was filled with two-story brick and stone buildings and ornate wroughtiron stairs and balconies. This neighborhood was somewhat diverse, but it was still upper-class. The Marigny, on the other hand, was part of the “immigrant belt” that emerged in the early 1900s when vast acres of swampland were drained, drawing many white residents away from the city’s center. With African Americans, whites, and immigrants of Sicilian, Greek, Irish, Filipino, Mexican, Polish and Chinese descent living with and around each other, the area was a kaleidoscopic mixture of cultures and people. This lower- and working-class neighborhood was populated by traveling salesmen, tradesmen, dock workers and returning soldiers. The houses here were weathered and wooden with carved gables and front porches. If the French Quarter was the sophisticated sister, the Marigny was the scrappy one. It is this Marigny that is the neighborhood of Williams’ play. Unlike the French Quarter, it stands in stark contrast to the romantic columns and grandeur of the DuBois’ Belle Reve plantation. In these shotgun-style houses, named for the fact that you could shoot a bullet from the front door straight to the back, there is no privacy to nurture secret desires or nurse blossoming shame. You see everything, even things you do not want to see — especially things you do not want to see. Humidity causes the pristine paint on the exterior of the houses to peel constantly, exposing the layers beneath all the way down to the bare wood. Facades cannot be maintained. The grass grows through cracks in the sidewalks; what’s below the surface will not stay hidden. The playwright said that Streetcar is about the “ravishment of the tender, the sensitive, the delicate, by the savage and brutal forces of modern society.” By setting his play in the middle of the people and architecture of the Marigny neighborhood, Williams creates a catastrophic collision of the misty Old South and earthy post-war America where Blanche and everything she symbolizes are roughly swept away in the winds of change. Originally published by Yale Repertory Theatre, 2013. P 4 | PORTLAND CENTER STAGE A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
CAST KRISTEN ADELE Stella
Kristen Adele is thrilled to make her Portland Center Stage debut. OffBroadway and regional credits include Desire (59E59 Theaters); In the Red and Brown Water (Curious Theatre Company); A Raisin in the Sun (Clarence Brown Theatre); A Christmas Carol (Hartford Stage); Jackie and Me (Denver Center for the Performing Arts); Myrna in Transit (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Clybourne Park (Geva Theatre Center and Cleveland Play House); and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (Shadow Theatre Company). Her most recent television credits include Orange is the New Black, Blue Bloods, The Good Wife and The Mysteries of Laura. She is the program director of ArtChangeUS.com and earned her M.F.A. from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. She would like to thank her beautiful family, Terrance, Roberta, Kitchens-Tritto and the Nicolosi & Co. team for their tireless support, and many thanks to Chris for this once in a lifetime opportunity! KristenAdele.net BOBBY BERMEA Steve
Bobby Bermea is the artistic director of Beirut Wedding World Theatre Project and BaseRoots Theatre Company, a founding member of Badass Theatre Company and a member of Sojourn Theatre. He received a Drammy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Lead Role for Ogun in The Brother/Sister Plays (Portland Playhouse) and another Drammy, for Supporting Actor, for his work as Asagai in A Raisin in the Sun at Artists Repertory Theatre. Bermea has appeared at La MaMa in New York, Center Stage in Baltimore, VORTEX Repertory Company in Austin, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, and in Seattle at Intiman Theatre, ACT, The Group Theatre, Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, AHA! Theatre, The Empty Space Theatre and The New Mercury Theatre. In Portland, Bermea has performed with BaseRoots Theatre, Teatro Milagro, Jewish Theatre Collaborative, Cygnet Productions and Tygres Heart Shakespeare Company. Bermea is excited to be making his return to the PCS stage. DAVID BODIN A Doctor/Ensemble
This is Dave’s Portland Center Stage debut, and he’s very grateful to be here. He has been involved in a number of Portland productions in recent years. Favorites include: The Road to Mecca at Profile Theatre (Supporting Actor Drammy Award), One Flea Spare at Shaking the Tree Theatre, Eurydice at Artists Repertory