Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire is one of the greatest acting vehicles in the western repertoire.

Set in New Orleans, it pits the neurotically fragile Blanche duBois, Southern belle-gone-wrong, against her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski, the coarse son of Polish immigrants. The two almost represent the decline and fall of the western world.

In Elia Kazan’s 1951 film where, using the Method acting technique, Marlon Brando makes Stanley Kowalski sympathetic, while Vivienne Leigh as Blanche duBois flutters around him with her illusions. Brando invested Stanley with all the vitality of life, contrasting with Leigh’s Blanche, fast heading in the opposite direction. 

Spare a thought, then, for Alex Hoskison, one of Canberra’s finest young male actors, as he faces the role of Stanley, performing opposite Amy Kowalczuk as Blanche in a Free Rain Theatre production soon to be seen at ACTHub.

Hoskison is the son of well-known actor Karen Vickery, but after completing his studies at Narrabundah College and studies at ANU, he chose a career outside the theatre and now works by day in the Attorney-General’s department.

Even so, the lure of the stage means that he has been seen in recent years in Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Twelve Angry Men, Queers and as the psychopathic killer Brett in Boys. I’ve seen them all.

When I caught up with Hoskison in between rehearsals, he was grappling with how to avoid the Brando model while portraying the hyper-masculine antagonist in a newer era when toxic masculinity has almost become a cliche.

“As an actor I’ve got to work from the inside and you can’t say that Stanley, although assertive, loud and crude, is evil.” 

Unlike Shakespeare, Williams’ stage directions, Hoskison says, are many and masterly.

Stella, for instance, “jumps up and kisses him which he [Stanley] accepts with lordly composure”.

“There are so many layers in the text,” Hoskison says. “One of his real fears is the fear of not belonging, he’s proud of his military service and proud of being a provider, but Blanche undermines all that.”

Stanley is not without imagination, conjuring up the “coloured lights” of their love-making and asking Stella: “And wasn’t we happy together? Wasn’t it all okay? Till she showed here. Hoity-toity, describing me as an ape”.

Also, it is unquestionable, we agree, that coquetry is second nature to Blanche, that she has slept with men for money, that she has been banned by the local military base for her promiscuity and that she seduces young men. She even admits to Stella: “Look, I’m flirting with your husband.”

Another thing, he says, Stanley’s investigations into Blanche’s dubious background are partly tied up with his loyalty to his mate Mitch, who is about to make a life with Blanche.

In the notorious rape scene, Stanley plainly sees her as having offered an invitation, saying, “Tiger, tiger! …We’ve had this date with each other from the outset.” His insensitive assumption and subsequent action destroys her. 

But Hoskison is quick to point out that a play is not a textbook. 

It’s one of those plays where audiences will leave at the end speculating on what happens next. Hoskison personally believes Stella and Stanley’s baby is doomed to grow up in an atmosphere of smoke, violence and the worst elements of masculinity, but that’s just his idea.

“That’s the fantastic thing about theatre. I’d love members of the audience to walk out and have a heated discussion about who was in the wrong. I don’t want this to be laid out like a textbook,” he says.

A Streetcar Named Desire, ACTHub, Kingston, June 19-29.