Award-winning director David Cromer's take on Tennessee Williams' legendary American play,A Streetcar Named Desire, now at Writers' Theatre in Glencoe, is the most forceful staging of the classic play I've ever seen. And by forceful, I mean what overwhelms the viewer in this production is its brute physicality.

For example, the nearby trains that pass by are represented by flashing headlights and a rumble so low it shakes the whole theater. Or take the Act I moment when Stanley Kowalski (an extremely muscular Matt Hawkins) and his wife Stella (Stacy Stolz) retreat to their bedroom to make love. Cromer has the bedroom right there in front of us, allowing the audience to see Stanley's bare ba[...]