“I can’t sleep,” says Ronda Hewitt, thinking about her upcoming performance as Blanche DuBois in Live Arts’ production of Tennessee Williams’ classic drama, A Streetcar Named Desire.
 Looking up to Tennessee Williams: Ronda Hewitt is excited about conveying her respect for A Streetcar Named Desire to local audiences. |
Nervousness? Nah. Hewitt, a graduate of American Conservatory Theater (“the Juilliard of the West”) in San Francisco, is beyond all that. In addition to acting in numerous productions around the country, she’s been a regular at Live Arts since 1999, displaying a remarkable range—from projecting just the right degree of eeriness in the apocalyptic Far Away to a brauva comic turn as a saucy wench in Tom Jones to her bewitching multiple roles in The World’s Wife.
Excitement? Oh, yes. She says she’s always likened the post-rehearsal acting process to a runner’s high—that second wind where being and doing are one and the same. But this time around, there’s more to it than that. Streetcar isn’t quite like any other play, and Williams is the kind of playwright who practically demands reverence.
While practicing a scene at a recent rehearsal, Hewitt had a revelation: “The scene is a play unto itself.” And her thoughts kept on multiplying. “The play is made up of these huge arias. It’s operatic.” She had a similar epiphany about Williams’ way with words. “This isn’t Mamet-speak,” she says, referring to her role in David Mamet’s Boston Marriage at Live Arts several years ago, “this is Tennessee Williams. There’s poetry here. It’s so rich and so deep.”
“I’m hearing Williams’ voice in my head,” she says. “I’m an emotional basket case.”
 A portion of Ronda Hewitt’s Live Arts legacy: Top, from left to right, The World’s Wife, Tom Jones, Picasso at the Lapine Agile. Bottom, from left to right, Coffeehouse 13, Far Away, Boston Marriage. |
Has she spun out of control? No way. It’s all part of the acting method she’s cultivated. “Everything I need to know is in the text. If you look at the text first, all the emotional stuff comes out of that.” Ironically, she says, giving herself over to an imaginary character frees up her real self. “You have to become vulnerable. That’s where it gets fun.”
Blanche, the Southern Belle who comes to stay with her sister, Stella Kowalski, and her husband, the rough and carnal Stanley, in New Orleans’ French Quarter, is many characters in one. “Sinner, saint and clown,” Hewitt calls her, and goes on to explain two ways of approaching such complexity.
One is to identify with Blanche personally. Hewitt grew up in a small town in Illinois, but her mother is from the South. Playing Blanche, Hewitt says, is “a way to connect with my Southern side.” And, amazingly enough, Blanche and Hewitt have the same birthday, September 15. Hewitt can also identify with Blanche’s “search for survival,” as Hewitt puts it, in the way that everyone can. “She’s trying to find a place when she has no place to land.”
The other approach is an objective one: to simply present her story. Hewitt says, “I don’t want to judge her. The audience can decide for themselves.”
The audience can share in the excitement starting with this Thursday’s Preview Night. Opening Night is Friday, and the production, which is directed by John Gibson, and also stars Mark Valahovic as Stanley and Priya Curtis as Stella, will run through June 9.
