French and American theater traditions are separated by more than an ocean and something far greater than their ages, so the collaboration of France’s most hallowed cultural institution and a doyen of the Manhattan avant-garde scene could only create tremors. “Interesting” is how director Lee Breuer euphemistically described for me his attempt to bridge that divide. Exciting is an equally understated term for “A Streetcar Named Desire” created by his Mabou Mines company on a commission from the Comédie Française for its prestigious Salle Richelieu.

How indeed to qualify this project which has already been inscribed in the annals of the 430 year old home of Molière?  It is a landmark and a watershed for starters in that the production breaks down a highly symbolic barrier: Tennessee Williams becomes the first American and even the first non-European author to enter the repertory of “le Français”, and “Streetcar” takes its place among the 2,662 works that the Troupe is authorized to play. Unconventional is what the Comédie Française gets with its choice of Mabou Mines, a leader in New York experimental theater for over 40 years and whose early identity was shaped by conceptual art, performance and the minimalist work of composer Philip Glass, a cofounder. Led by Breuer, whose interests range from fairy tales to Bunraku marionettes and Greek drama, Mabou Mines has received innumerable national and international awards (11 Obies to Breuer alone) for productions like “Mabou Mines Dollhouse” (where Torvald was played by a midget), “Peter and Wendy”, a puppet retelling of “Peter Pan”, and  “Red Beads”, written by Breuer and designed by Basil Twist with merely fabric and wind.

The intended marriage of all the creativity of Mabou Mines with all the traditions of the Comédie Française could have ended like the collision of a sportscar and a freight train but this “Streetcar” never belches smoke or even loses steam. Wizened perhaps by his early theater start on the streets of Paris, Breuer has seen clear to avoid conflict by adding a Japanese aesthetic to the mix, via reproductions of woodblock prints on giant moving screens, Blanche’s wardrobe in white and scarlet satin, and stagehands in kurogo, or the traditional black outfits of Bunrako puppeteers. Taking his cue from a conversation between Williams and Japan’s first great modern writer, Yukio Mishima, Breuer builds on Japanese society’s contrasting qualities of exaggerated refinement in its plastic and social arts and violence in its martial arts to create a metaphor for the cultural sophistication and economic brutality of Antebellum society, whose wealth and leisure depended on the slave trade. Whether inadvertently or deliberately, he also makes a pertinent connection between French and American cultural codes, the one defined by centuries of monarchy, nobility, privilege and artistic patronage (to which Blanche aspires) and the other dominated by the frontier instinct (of which Stanley Kowalski is a perfect symbol).

To tease these ideas out on stage, Breuer has assembled a multi-talented team, who applies them across sets (Basil Twist), music (John Margolis), costumes (Renato Bianchi) and movement (Jos Hauben).  Twist’s use of the minimalist, tiered stage and graphic backgrounds of Bunraku theater sets the actors up as puppets in a story out of their control - as in a sense they are, potentially overwhelmed by the iconic force of Elia Kazan’s 1951 film adaptation. The feeling is reinforced by the kurogo stagehands who serve the actors throughout the production. Margolis calls up New Orleans’ musical history of Dixieland, brass bands and jazz funerals, and Bianchi adds the cultural accents: elongated black suits and hats for the musicians, Mitch as a Harley biker in leather and tattoos, Carnival masks and monkey get-ups… Of them all, Hauben and Breuer have the hardest job, pushing the French sociétaires and pensionnaires to try on a different physical language (developed through Hauben’s many years with the Ecole Jacques Lecoq), lending new dimensions to their characters.

Stanley (Eric Ruf), for example, takes on an almost psychopathic quality with his staccato gestures and emphatic notes in high registers. Where Brando’s “polack” is the standard of macho virility on which all productions measure themselves, Ruf takes a different direction, exploring a volatility capable of switching from leather-clad hood to frightening Carnival clown to American Gothic homesteader. Another noteworthy development is the relationship between Blanche and Stella, which rivals the emotional center of the play: Stella’s relationship with her husband. With their petting and nuzzling, the sisters form a nearly incestuous pair, so that Blanche’s demise sets off a dramatic depression in postpartum Stella (Françoise Gillard). As her neurasthenic sister, Anne Kessler gives a totally convincing and fascinating performance, incarnating a Blanche whose will to survive overcomes her fragility, until illusion and cruel deception inevitably sweep her away.

A supremely creative ride, this “Streetcar” might venture into rocky terrain on Place Colette but finds a pertinent, pleasingly unsuspected aesthetic from which to examine Williams’ play. If France is no stranger to revolution, then the one going on at the Comédie Française until June ought to soon find itself at home.

“Un tramway nommé désir”, to June 2, 2:30 pm/8:30 pm, dates variable (consult website), Comédie Française / Salle Richelieu, Place Colette, 1e, Mº Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre, 5-39 euros, tel: 0825.10.16.80    http://www.comedie-francaise.fr