A Noise Within’s Free Reading Series Fosters Dialog Between Resident Artists and Audience

Tony Sokol

“There are those plays that attach themselves to you and won’t let go,” says actress Susan Angelo. The Resident Artist at A Noise Within chose Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” for a July 10 performance of the theater’s ongoing free Resident Artist reading series, Words Within. A Noise Within will present “A Streetcar Named Desire” on Monday, July 10 at 7 p.m. The theater is located at 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., in Pasadena, Calif.

The 2016-2017 season marks A Noise Within’s 25th Anniversary. Words Within launched in late spring of 2009 with the intent of bringing playwrights, artists and audiences together in a conversation. A Noise Within’s Resident Artists are a core group of “22 seasoned actors and creative theatrical professionals,” according to A Noise Within’s web site, and are featured in nearly every show. The RA’s suggest and vote on readings for the series and then collaborate on the productions. Over the years, A Noise Within has stage read such important theatrical works as “Galileo” by Bertolt Brecht and “A Long Day’s Journey In to Night” by Eugene O’Neill. In June, the RA’s chose “Angels in America,” by Tony Kushner. Their last two productions were “An Iliad in Pasadena” by Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson, and “The House of Bernarda Alba” by Federico García Lorca.

Angelo, who plays Blanche in the upcoming July production, says she studied “A Streetcar Named Desire” in her first acting class when she was 18. Cast as the Mexican Woman in Ohio University’s main-stage production, she says “the play struck a nerve. I knew that someday I wanted to play Blanche: when I was older; when I had the chops; when I had life experience; when I was closer to my ‘last stop.’”

“A Streetcar Named Desire” was written in 1947. Set in New Orleans after World War II, it sees the end of Southern values in the rising industrial society. Angelo chose the play because she spent much of her childhood in the South, but “could never find adequate words to express the odd mixture of gentility and rage that I sensed there.”

Tennessee Williams was born in Mississippi in 1911 to an alcoholic father and a mother who might be described today as a borderline personality.  William’s sister Rose was lobotomized in her 30s for mental illness. Williams felt “the war between romanticism and the hostility to it is very sharp” in the south. Angelo believes that “viewed through the lens of our current social and political environment, this ‘war’ is very timely.”

“A Streetcar Named Desire” opened on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on December 3, 1947, and ran through December 17, 1949. The original production was directed by Elia Kazan and starred Jessica Tandy as Blanche, Marlon Brando in his breakthrough role as Stanley, Kim Hunter as Stella, and Karl Malden as Mitch. All but Tandy reprised their roles in the 1951 film, which cast “Gone With the Wind” star Vivien Leigh in the iconic role. She played Blanch in the 1949 London stage production directed by her husband, the legendary actor Laurence Olivier. Anthony Quinn replaced Brando at the end of the original Broadway run and in the touring company. He was lauded for mining unexpected comedy in the drama. “A Streetcar Named Desire” won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948.

A Noise Within will next present a free reading of “No Man’s Land” by Harold Pinter on Monday, Aug. 7 at 7 p.m. Written in 1974, “No Man’s Land” was first produced in 1975 by the National Theatre at the Old Vic Theatre in London. The play starred John Gielgud as Spooner and Ralph Richardson as Hirst. The play debuted on Broadway in October 1976. Richardson was nominated for the 1977 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Pla

A Noise Within will present the free staged reading of “A Streetcar Named Desire on Monday, July 10 and of “No Man’s Land” on Monday, Aug. 7.