Reid, Geithner attend Blanchett's Kennedy Center debut

Washington’s political, media and defense elites mingled at the opening night of "A Streetcar Named Desire."

Theater-goers might have thought they were escaping Halloween night's goblins and demons and throngs of drunken revelers by opting to head to opening night of Tennessee Williams’s "A Streetcar Named Desire" at the Kennedy Center.

Instead they were treated to monsters of a different variety: Cate Blanchett’s Blanche DuBois became more harrowing with each scene as the high-strung, needy, strung-out Southern belle battled with her sister’s brutish husband and unraveled before the audience.

One moment of unrehearsed levity broke a particularly intense moment. In the middle of the scene in which a young man knocks on the door to the collect for the evening newspaper and for a moment falls under DuBois’s spell, coming threateningly close to kissing her, a members of the audience yelled out a warning: “Don’t do it, mate!”

It was a rare outburst for button-upped Washington, but the refreshing Aussie accent seemed to make it OK as the audience rippled with laughter.

Washington’s political, media and defense personalities mingled at the subdued after-party thrown by the Australian embassy to celebrate native daughter Blanchett’s leading role and the all-Australian cast.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who was seated in the president’s box, mingled with other members of Washington’s power elite, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, The New York Times’ David Sanger and Maureen Dowd, Brookings’ Thomas Mann and the American Enterprise Institute’s Norm Ornstein

Several current and former members of Congress were also there, including Reps. John Spratt (D-S.C.), Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) and ex-Rep. Cal Dooley (D-Calif.), who now heads the American Chemistry Council.