Hitching a ride on a famed Streetcar

By Dan Hilborn
Published Jan. 12, 2005


The first time Craig Erickson played the role of Stanley Kowalski, he was almost taken aback by the quiet murmurings from the audience.

"Stella," whispered the fans who had come to see the Chemainus Theatre Festival production of Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire during its run on Vancouver Island last fall.

"The challenges of acting can be pretty momentous at times," said Erickson, a Burnaby father of three play chosen to play the role popularized by a young Marlon Brando in the 1951 movie.

A resident of the Forest Grove neighbourhood, Erickson is well known in the Lower Mainland's burgeoning acting community. This family man has done it all, from big-budget movies to small-town theatre. And through it all, his sense of optimism and sheer enjoyment of the craft has helped to keep him busy in what might otherwise be considered lean times.

"You just want to keep focused on the work, and you end up admiring so many of the people around you. And that ties in to playing the role of Stanley.

"This is an iconic role," he said. "When we did the show in Chemainus, we could hear the people whispering 'Stella.' I almost felt like launching into 'To be or not to be' just to be perverse.

"But it's a real thrill to be able to play this role. The writing is so amazing, and A Streetcar Named Desire is generally regarded as one of the top three plays of the 20th century."

Erickson, winner of the Quad Theatre Company's community theatre award, has grown accustomed to working in the shadows of iconic roles and alongside more famous colleagues. Born and raised in Kamloops, he went to high school with 2002 Governor General's Award winner Kevin Keer. He earned his theatre degree at Southern Methodist University, whose graduates include Oscar-winner Kathy Bates and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Beth Henley.

His costars for Streetcar are Gina Chiarelli, winner of the 2004 Leo Award as the best female actor in a feature role in a B.C. film for See Grace Fly and Lucia Frangione as his wife and the object of his passion, Stella.

"I get the real luxury of going to work every day and sharing the stage with two of the city's best actresses," he said.

While Erickson holds no pretensions that the Chemainus Theatre Festival production, running throughout this month, will turn into his own personal breakout role, the Burnaby actor does see it as another step along a well-defined path.

And it's that sense of optimism that has kept Erickson in the game for so long. After graduating from SMU in 1994, he moved to New York where he kept busy with small parts, including a walk-on role in All My Children. "I was an intern who hit on a nurse," he said.

He then moved to Toronto and landed stints with both the Stratford and Shaw festivals.

More recently, he worked with Richard Thomas, best known as John-Boy Walton, in his syndicated series Just Cause, and in the movie Solar, starring C. Thomas Howell, which was released as a DVD this week. He also starred in a Bud Light commercial that saw a handful of live bats fluttering around on his back.

"The past couple of years have been a little bit of a trying time," he admitted. "Even though the statistics are good, last year we had a $1.4 billion industry in B.C. - for working stiffs like me, that doesn't translate into a whole lot of opportunity.

"Big budget movies tend to bring their own people, and what the union tries to do here is more of the series work. Episodic television and movies-of-the-week are the bread-and-butter for most actors here," he said.

A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Jeremy Tow, runs at the Norman Rothstein Theatre, 950 W. 41st Ave., Vancouver, from Jan. 13 to 30.

Showtimes are 8 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday, with Sunday matinees at 3 p.m. Tickets are $25 and $28, with service charges, from Festival Box Office at 604-257-0366.