Tara Donoghue as Stella and Kamran Alexander as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. Photo by Joan Marie Wildman.

A Streetcar Named Desire is the story of a deranged woman’s slow progress into total dementia, and Tennessee Williams’ allegory of the fading glory of the Old South. Off Broadway West’s new production of this American classic is grippingly effective at bringing out these elements and convincingly performed with distinct characterizations.

Wilting flower Blanch DuBois arrives at her sister Stella’s home in the New Orleans summertime and complains about the heat, a hint of the fires that will consume her. Talking with Stella, she reveals she has lost the old family plantation and has nowhere else to stay. Older sister Blanch is staid and proper, or at least she pretends to be. Mrs. Michelson-Harder uses a seemingly unconscious, bird-like nervousness to convey a sense of mental distraction.

Then she meets Stella’s husband Stanley Kowalski (Kamran Alexander) and the heat is on. The sexual tension seethes in the thick, river-bottom air. With Stella out of the apartment, she acts coyly seductive toward Stan. He is flattered, but not happy that she has moved in.

The dissension between three people living in a two-room apartment rises to a boiling point during the summer. Stan discovers Blanch is not all she pretends to be. He confronts her with evidence of her sleazy activities at the Flamingo Hotel. Stella’s pregnancy advances, thoroughly disapproved of by Blanch because Stan is so common. Blanch becomes increasingly absorbed by her recollections of past traumas. While Stella is delivering at the hospital, Stan comes home and rapes Blanch, sending her totally over the edge. In the end, a Nurse and Doctor take her away.

The pacing of the character development in this production is somewhat uneven at first, but later the actors become totally focused and the characters become real. Tara Donoghue as Stella seems to waver in and out of character, sometimes mugging and telegraphing her lines with no apparent motivation. The actress’ hyperactivity is not enough to make up for her incomplete inhabitation of the role, but she projects well Stella’s wariness of Blanch. She is solicitous of her sister, but the reason for her diffidence around her is unclear. By the time Stella is visibly pregnant, however, Ms. Donoghue is fully committed to her character. Her frustrations at Blanch’s escapes from reality (“I don’t want reality. I want magic!”) are evident, even though she skillfully hides her disapproving looks. She does not bother to hide her dissatisfaction, even disgust with Stanley, whom she mindlessly adored earlier.

Mr. Alexander as Stan has a face that is almost aristocratic and too finely featured to look like a lout, but he makes up for it by strongly projecting a suitably rough attitude along with his sense of self-centered obsession. He is completely happy with his simple inner life, whereas Blanch is highly dissatisfied with hers, even though she spirals ever deeper down into it.

Mrs. Michelson-Harder plays Blanch’s habitual, perfunctory attempts at seduction of any male that comes along, including Stan’s Army buddy Mitch (Drew McAuliffe) and the newsboy, as though Blanch were locked into scripted behavior, as though she had no choice but to pretend she was still young enough to be attractive. While the actress’ focus remained consistent through both acts, her sense of obsession with inner turmoil was almost tangible in Act II. As an actress playing a character who is putting on an act, she is most effective when she is reliving her memories.

The complex mix of reactions and responses among the characters is richly textured in Act II, unlike in I where some lapses appear. Act I was well done, in a pedestrian way, but in Act II the tension filled the air like a smothering humid summer heat.

A Streetcar Named Desire continues through July 28 at the Phoenix Theatre, 414 mason Street, San Francisco. Tickets ($30) are available by phone at (800) 838-3006 or on line at www.offbroadwaywest.org.