If pumping up improved acting, Sylvester Stallone would have as many Oscars as Meryl Streep, and Channing Tatum would be playing Hamlet.
But sadly, bulging biceps and taut pecs aren’t enough to fill a role — something confirmed by Blair Underwood’s underwhelming performance in the new Broadway revival of “A Streetcar Named Desire.”
You may remember Underwood from his days as a trim, sleek attorney on “L.A. Law.” Two decades later, the star is in fantastic, gym-toned shape. That’s where his take on Stanley begins and ends.
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Stanley Kowalski — here stripped of his last name and Polish identity — arguably is Tennessee Williams’ most notorious male character: a hunk smoldering with sexual magnetism, and a nasty piece of work.
He forms one corner of a majorly screwed-up triangle with his pregnant wife, the earthy Stella (Daphne Rubin-Vega), and Stella’s flamboyant older sister, Blanche (Nicole Ari Parker, from Showtime’s “Soul Food”) — who’s visiting the couple in their New Orleans shack.
Blanche, a former English teacher with a flimsy grasp on reality, is repelled by Stanley’s practical working-class boorishness.
But Stanley also needs to have a feral charm and a touch of insecure neediness — otherwise, it’s hard to see why he’d feel threatened by Blanche, or why Stella would stay with this wife-beater in wife-beaters.
Unfortunately, Underwood sticks to one note, and that’s brutish. Even then, it often feels as if we’re watching a fundamentally nice actor baring his teeth — and his chest — to look mean. Stanley’s rage at the world doesn’t come from deep inside.
This weakness throws Emily Mann’s otherwise decent production out of whack. Parker, in particular, deserves a better foil, because her take on Blanche feels fresh, especially in the first act.
Tall and lithe, this Blanche is less fading flower than resilient reed. You can tell she’s endured many storms by bending to the winds. Her sharp wits must have helped — she describes a trip to Miami as “an investment, thinking I’d meet someone with a million dollars” — and Parker earns her laughs.
Blanche’s relationship with Stanley’s friend Mitch also has a welcome melancholy edge. For once, she seems in control, especially since Wood Harris (drug kingpin Avon Barksdale in HBO’s “The Wire”) plays Mitch like a mama’s boy struck with puppy love.
All this unfurls nicely, swaying to the rhythm and menace of Terence Blanchard’s original score — the New Orleans setting is very present, and Mann even includes a jazz funeral, allowing distinguished dancer Carmen de Lavallade to strut her stuff.
The wheels come off in the second act, when Underwood recedes further into single-minded beastliness, and Parker isn’t as evocative with Blanche’s breakdown.
By the end, you’re left thinking, “Well, that was a fine show.” But “A Streetcar Named Desire” should be a lot more than just fine.