Let's immediately dispense with movie comparisons by agreeing that many competent actresses can play Blanche, but that it's very hard to come close to Brando's Stanley.

Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" is a theater classic and one of the best American plays ever written. Its central conflict between a failed Southern belle and her brutish brother-in-law is both a moralistic lesson and a metaphor for the psychological and social clash of a society at a significant turning point.

It has been analyzed, satirized and entered into our collective thinking separate from any conscious link to its theater origins. So it's a daunting project for a young university cast and a junior faculty director.

Lurana Donnels O'Malley shapes the show with a confident hand that embellishes the original script with elements from Asian theater. Joseph Dodd's delicate, skeletal set is fronted by a walkway through the center of the audience, linked to the main playing area by a pair of engawa — traditional Japanese entrance ramps.

O'Malley creates a sense of the New Orleans French Quarter by peopling these areas with hookers, beggars and cops. She also highlights Blanche's slips into memory by bringing up ghost figures from her troubled past.

The techniques add some interest, but the prolonged comings and goings along the streetscape between each scene add unneeded length to a performance that extends to nearly 11 pm.

Her character approach, however, is much more direct.

Guenevere Montgomery turns in an unexpectedly sturdy Blanche. Her manipulations are more brassy than desperate and — while she towers over a diminutive Stella — she's an even physical match for Stanley.

This Blanche has clearly run out of choices. But moving in with her sister seems to be a financial decision, and not the last rational act of a mind teetering on the edge of emotional collapse. Consequently, her carnal interest in Stanley plays more strongly as a knowing choice than a psychic default.

Reb Beau Allen turns in a dyspeptic Stanley with a large ambiguous chip on his blue-collar shoulders. He shows the requisite childlike dependency on Stella, but seems otherwise void of deeper, primal feelings, even when bellowing for her to return after striking her. From the moment he throws her a package of "meat!" he fulfills Blanche's animal labeling of him.

Nina Buck's Stella is an island of calm in a storm, satisfied with simple pleasures and unconcerned with complicated feelings.

Possibly the most satisfying performance comes from Jeremy Dowd as neighbor Mitch, who develops more than a passing interest in Blanche. Dowd reveals the character to be more than an inexperienced dolt. He's somewhat perceptive and feeling, but driven by enough common sense to avoid catastrophe. He's delightful in his one nearly-romantic scene, personally confident, but tentative and puzzled by Blanche's mixed messages.

Williams' script eventually prevails, but without the filmy delicateness of a mind dissolving. Indeed, this Blanche seems strong enough to slam Stanley into jail on a rape charge and successfully replace him in Stella's household.

Even while being led away by a medical orderly, Blanche delivers her "kindness of strangers" line more as an instruction than a plea.