‘Method Gun’ takes shot at re-creating classic

A production by Rude Mechs, an Austin, Texas-based theater company, “The Method Gun’’ is sometimes beguiling, sometimes underenergized as it tells the decidedly nonlinear tale of a troupe of five actors that has embarked on a complicated mission of homage and self-discovery.

The actors are united by their admiration for the legendary (and fictional) acting guru Stella Burden, who, one character tells us, “wanted to use her life as a stage for the performance of all her desires.’’ That may or may not explain why Burden mysteriously disappeared in 1972.

In any case, the actors apparently believe she held the secret key to acting. They decide to try to re-create the rehearsals that Burden’s own acting company labored on year after year for her never-performed version of Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire.’’

Here’s the thing, though. Burden’s concept was of a “Streetcar’’ with no Stanley, no Blanche, no Mitch, and no Stella.

So the five actors reenact familiar scenes from “Streetcar’’ but speak only the lines of the minor characters: the paper boy, the flower seller, Stanley’s poker buddies. Therefore, we don’t hear lines like, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,’’ but we do see the tamale vendor pushing his cart and hollering, “Red hots!’’

It’s an interesting notion, to present a classic shorn of the characters and dialogue that made it a classic in the first place. “Streetcar’’ is a work that occupies a complex place in the theatrical firmament. On the one hand, it’s one of a handful of indisputably great American plays. On the other hand, with its humid melodrama, it treads near the line of risibility, and is consequently ripe for satire. So, too, is method acting, which also comes in for some gentle tweaking in “The Method Gun.’’