THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 29, 1995 TAG: 9510270090
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY BONKO, TELEVISION COLUMNIST
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
ALEC BALDWIN IS no Marlon Brando and he knows it. So why would he choose to follow Brando on CBS tonight in the role that made the reclusive actor famous almost four decades ago - the brutish Stanley Kowalski in ``A Streetcar Named Desire''?
Could any actor really expect to overshadow Brando? Why try?
In response to those questions, put to Baldwin recently at a gathering of the Television Critics Association in Los Angeles, he came back with a question of his own.
``Given the opportunity to play this role, a character who stands alone as an icon in American literature, how could any actor pass it up? I had no choice. I told myself that I had to do it.''
Then Baldwin tossed in a bit of comic relief. ``Let's face it. Brando is very overrated as an actor.''
Starting in 1992, Baldwin brought Kowalski back to Broadway, co-starring with Jessica Lange, who played Blanche DuBois. They revive the roles on television tonight at 8 in a ``CBS Playhouse 90s'' presentation airing on WTKR (Channel 3 on most local cable systems).
This is not a remake of the 1951 film in which Brando shared the screen with Vivien Leigh. Nor is it an edited adaption of the Tennessee Williams play, which was brought to Broadway when Williams was only 36.
This is the original play, almost in its entirety.
Producer-director Glenn Jordan pointed out to the TV writers that ``A Streetcar Named Desire'' on film was much shorter than the play. He said it lost some of its soul because Hollywood in 1951 rigidly censored the product it was sending into U.S. theaters.
``This is the first time the actual play has been filmed,'' said Jordan. ``What was so very shocking in 1951 is not shocking today. Nothing has been censored by the network.''
(Treat Williams and Ann-Margret appeared in a 1984 TV movie based on the 1951 film directed by Elia Kazan. It, too, was far shorter than the play.)
Left in by CBS and Jordan are the politically incorrect references to the Irish and Polish.
And so is the rape scene which pushes Blanche over the edge. You are not likely to see a better performance on the small screen than Lange's study of the fragile, sophisticated, troubled woman who arrives in New Orleans ``on the rattletrap streetcar named Desire that bangs through the Quarter up one narrow street and down the other.''
Lange, too, walked in the shadow of a Broadway and motion picture legend when she went before the cameras for CBS. Leigh will forever be Blanche DuBois to some.
``I have some memory of her in the part,'' said Lange. ``I remember that she was brilliant and heartbreaking.
``But that was a very long time ago. I chose not to look at the film before I did the play three years ago. I did not look at it before I decided to do this for CBS.''
It isn't every day a commercial television network bows to art as CBS did in this instance. The network allowed Jordan to film 11 uninterrupted scenes, including some that run for 30 minutes. That is a long time between commercials.
``This play will be presented in the best possible way for a television audience,'' said Jordan.
Diane Lane is cast as Blanche's sister, Stella. John Goodman plays Mitch, who is Blanche's suitor.
On CBS, you will see Baldwin as Stanley in a torn T-shirt bellowing, ``Stella!'' Brando did it better. Baldwin is an All-American hunk miscast in the role of a man who defined slob in 1947.
Lange, however, soars as Blanche, playing it superior to Leigh in this production with hardly any restrictions on her. She arrives to live with Stella and Stanley with 65 cents ``in coin of the ream'' in her purse, a trunkful of expensive clothes and a tattered reputation.
On CBS, ``A Streetcar Named Desire'' unfolds in long one-take monologues by Lange as she goes on and on about how bright lights and vulgar actions annoy her, about how in New Orleans she finds herself unwanted in a place she is ashamed to be.
Pack up the Emmy and send it to Lange right now.
``It is a part that settles down into your bones,'' Lange said. And a part that is more comfortable for her in front of a camera than in the bigness of a Broadway production.
``On television, you get close to the intimate side of Blanche,'' said Lange. If you stay with ``A Streetcar Named Desire'' on CBS for 20 minutes or so, you will be hooked for the two hours and 40 minutes that follow.
Lange is that good. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Alec Baldwin and Jessica Lange star in ``Streetcar,'' the first time
the entire play has been filmed.
Photo
John Goodman stars as Mitch in ``A Streetcar Named Desire.''
by CNB