MovieChat Forums > American Playhouse (1982) Discussion > Walken + Sarandon best Stanley + Stella

Walken + Sarandon best Stanley + Stella

posted 14 years ago by atomicseasoning
2 replies | jump to latest

Within the American Playhouse film Who Am I This Time? there is a production of 'Streetcar Named Desire' where Christopher Walken & Susan Sarandon's characters played 'Stanley & Stella' as well as the characters they played in the film. Anyway I swear, Walken & Sarandon were the best Stanley & Stella I've ever seen, even better than Marlon Brando etc. from the 1951 film version, because of their acting skills and chemistry. I wish they would've shown them in more of their production of 'Streetcar,' but for the context of Who Am I This Time? it was still good.

I'm wondering now if Chris & Susan actually performed the entire play for the extras who were the audience watching the play in the film, or just the key scenes from the play that they shown in the film? It would've been quite the unbelievable treat to see those two in a production of 'Streetcar' performed on a small midwestern HS stage in 1982.

[–] WarpedRecord 12 years ago

Good question on whether Sarandon and Walken performed the entire play for the extras. I have no idea, but if there were more footage, I'd love to see it.

"Who Am I This Time" is a remarkable play within a play (or TV movie), and it's an excellent snapshot of two greats relatively early in their careers. 8/10 stars from me.

[–] rmassman-2 10 years ago

Late to the party... I know. After watching Walken and Sarandon do their take on Streetcar, I hoped they'd get together for a production of the whole shebang. Through happy coincidence, we were performing our own adaptation of "Who Am I This Time" for our final production in our high school drama class at the time this was broadcasted. Our acting was nowhere near as fine as this gem, but our adaptation was first class. Our Helene was great and I'm proud of the job I did as George. Unfortunately, our Harry Nash was no Harry Nash.

Until playing the stage manager in Our Town, I think it was the most dialogue I had to memorize. Something like 50+ pages, mostly in 3-4 page hunks. Ugh!

"It's a dog-eat-dog world out there and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear."