But just those names now summon up ghosts of their own, from Elia Kazan's indelible 1951 film: delicate, damaged Vivien Leigh; earthy Kim Hunter; and, most vivid of all, Marlon Brando. It's almost impossible to experience some moments in the play - Stanley's bellowed "Stella!," Blanche's reliance on the kindness of strangers - without conjuring those celluloid spirits.
It's all the more remarkable, then, that the New Repertory Theatre's Rick Lombardo has staged a "Streetcar" that feels deeply true to the spirit of Tennessee Williams and at the same time true to itself. Working on a set by Janie E. Howland that's just what a Williams set should be - dingily realistic in its details, dreamily abstract in its structure - and underscored by Haddon Kime's mournful streetcar moans and saxophone wails, Lombardo's four main actors and their supporting players draw us irresistibly into Williams's shattered, shattering world.
Of those four leading roles, it's the least showy - the Karl Malden part, for movie fans - that draws out the strongest performance here. As Stanley's friend and Blanche's sometime suitor, Mitch, Bates Wilder is quietly stunning.
Outwardly shy, a little bumbling, Wilder's Mitch contains hidden depths of longing, fury, and fear. Just watch his face as Mitch tells Blanche that his mother is ill: Wordlessly, with no gesture bigger than a blink and a compression of his lips, Wilder shows us Mitch's dread of her death and his need to keep that dread in check. It's devastating - and it gives humanity and shading to Mitch's more famous moment later on, when he forces Blanche into the light so he can see how old she is.
