Here, in a more intimate house with a more straightforward staging by Neil Pepe, the deliberately improbable elements are harder to take and the awkwardness is more glaring.

Mr. Hall's generally straightforward staging of "Streetcar" isn't the hazy, misguided mess that David Leveaux's current production of Williams's "Glass Menagerie" is.

And Neil Pepe's straightforward staging never quite makes sense of the play's shifts between barbed dialogues and self-explanatory soliloquies.

And while the ensemble members bring an engaging sincerity to their roles, Emily Mann's straightforward staging does not show off Mr. Cruz's sometimes clumsy lyricism to its best advantage.

At a time when most English Shakespeare productions rethink the plays' settings and production style in the now international manner of Georgio Strehler or Peter Brook, Mr. Hall offers a straightforward staging that may not be all that far removed from the famous 1959 Laurence Olivier "Coriolanus" he directed when starting out in Stratford.

But while there's warmth and sincerity in the performances, especially those of Jimmy Smits and Daphne Rubin-Vega as adulterous lovers, Emily Mann's straightforward staging does not show off Mr. Cruz's sometimes clumsy lyricism to its best advantage.