Many stellar women have played Blanche DuBois but only two have made the Blanche honor roll in my mind: Vivien Leigh — who thank goodness we have on film and can watch over and over. And the original, Jessica Tandy. Unfortunately I am not old enough to have seen the original, but it really doesn’t matter the performance has a strong enough legend to warrant a spot. If that time machine I’ve been working on ever functions I’m heading straight to opening night Dec. 3, 1947 — could you imagine how great that would be? Well, I think I came close to time travel on Tuesday because I saw another Blanche that has already gone done as legend, Cate Blanchett. This production of Streetcar is the Cate Blanchett show and she is talented enough to carry it all. I’m honored to have witnessed her performance because she left her entire soul on that stage. Her Blanche hypnotized me with the second act grabbing me so hard I don’t remember blinking. The show is getting raves and I am certainly not going to poo-poo it but as a theatrical purist I have to mention one point I do disagree with. For me, Streetcar is a perfect play because it is not a star vehicle, it is three star vehicles. Blanche, Stanley and Stella are Streetcar and giving one more weight then the others gets this stool to topple over. By directing the show towards Ms. Blanchett I felt like I was loosing my desire to care about Stanley and Stella. The second act works beautifully because that was always the Blanche show, but the first act was not as strong because the characters of Stella and Stanley were, ok. There was no Brando performance in Joel Edgerton(and lets face it if you are going to play this role you better be as ballsy as Brando). Robin McLeavy as Stella was believable, but too much so. She was so ordinary that I didn’t believe she was Blanche’s sister. I admit when the three of them were together I got the feeling that Mr. Edgerton and Ms. McLeavy were very aware that they were on stage with Cate Blanchett and intimidated by her(or possibly directed beneath her — I don’t know). All I do know it Brando was no one when he played Stanley up against the greatest theatre actress of her day and then again up against the legend of Scarlett O’Hara in the film, but he became Brando anyway. If only Mr. Edgerton had taken on the same challenge I think this production would have grabbed me 100%. At the end of the performance the entire cast did — I think five — curtain calls, Ms. Blanchett never came out solo. I only wish the production would have been given the same solidarity as the bows.