A STREETCAR’S DARK RIDE
Play explores spousal abuse and rape
When David Haysom agreed to play Stanley Kowalski in Spirit Fire’s production of the Tennessee Williams classic A Streetcar Named Desire, he knew he was wading into some dangerous territory.
He’s known this in one way or another since he was a child.
“My mother was a high school English teacher. We always had an old copy of Streetcar kicking around the house because she taught it to her students,” says Haysom, who admits he was fascinated by the book’s famous cover.
“It was the iconic picture of a shirtless Marlon Brando. Even as a young boy I was fascinated by the strength he showed in that picture.”
Haysom admits he wasn’t intrigued enough to read the play.
“I’m not much of a reader, but when I was in high school drama class I did read it so I could find a scene to do.
“I also watched the movie and became an instant Brando fan. That is still an amazing performance,” says Haysom, admitting “my young teenage mind didn’t understand all the themes and symbols in the play. I just loved all that raw energy.
“I missed the deeper themes of spousal abuse and rape.”
For his acting class, Haysom chose the scene in which Stanley accuses Blanche of having let the family fortune slip through her fingers.
“I didn’t see how cruel he was being to Blanche and how much it frightened his wife Stella to see how he was treating her sister. I just loved the theatrics of throwing the stuff in her trunk around and being such an alpha male.”
Since he put himself in director Paul Welch’s hands, Haysom admits he has gone much deeper into the themes of the play but, more importantly, into the soul of Stanley.
“My mother always said she felt a bit sorry for Stanley and that stuck with me. When I asked her why she said he was a victim of his upbringing.
“He’s violent because he was raised violently.”
Haysom says his mother’s interpretation of the character has spurred him to “find the moments in the play that can make him more accessible and even sympathetic, especially to women.
“They are just brief moments to be sure because, with Stanley, there is a great deal of hardness and chest banging, but I think those things come from a place of pain. Stanley is hiding a softness he senses in himself but that frightens him.”
Haysom says the key that opened Stanley for him was the realization that “Stella is the love of Stanley’s life and he’s desperate to keep her.
“He sees Blanche as a reminder for Stella of the kind of life he took her away from.”
In Spirit Fire’s Streetcar, Blanche is played by Hayley Feigs and Stella by Sasha Barry with Stanley’s best friend Mitch played by Luigi Riscaldino.
So that audiences don’t lose sight of the themes of domestic violence and rape in the play, Spirit Fire is teaming up with Homefront, an organization bent on eliminating domestic violence in Calgary.
Proceeds from each ticket sold will be donated to Homefront.