Playwright: Tennessee Williams
Director: William Hickey
Cast: Gerald Black, Betty Pelzer, Elizabeth Newitt, Ellen Welch, Jeffrey Klein, Erica Evans, Ed Shavitz, Jane Holzer, Joyce Barker, Michael Beckett, Alice Spivak, Andrea Fooner, Diane Simkin, Pat Finnegan, George Augustus, Herbert Jefferson, Jeremy Stevens, Tom McCready, Craig Corder, Michael Corder, Jim Cashman and Sandy S
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Lighting Designer: Anthony Quintavalla Costume Designer: Joanne Bayes Stage Manager: Trent Gough House Manager: Pennie duPont Assistant Stage Manager: Andrea Fooner Production Assistant: Gwen Saska Assistant Director: Michael Beckett
Battle of Angels was performed November 28th – December 3rd of the year 1967.
Synopsis:
The plot surrounds a migrant worker Val who arrives in a small town and takes a job in a general store. He piques the interest of an unmarried woman Cassandra (whose failure to marry has made a notorious figure in the community). Their date goes badly when she seems to expect sex from Val. Val later falls in love with the married manager of the store, Myra. Myra’s husband is old and dying and she is attracted to Val so they eventually become lovers. Val has a past. He fled Waco due to accusations of rape (he is apparently innocent but we really only has his claim that the woman from Waco was slighted by Val’s regrets the next day). During his employment, Val comes to the aid of an unemployed black man who is threatened with arrest for vagrancy. These four characters are bound by legal expectations. Val, like Caleb Williams or Jean Valjean, is being chased throughout the country for alleged crimes. This makes it impossible for him to settle in one place. The opposite is the fate of Loom, the black migrant, who by not being tied to the employment of a white man is considered a dangerous element in the small town. Cassandra is scorned by the other women in the town for her sexual liberty. Myra is bound to a banal and lifeless marriage. She is so desperate to escape that she has to lock the backroom door at one point and hide the key so as not to be driven to adultery with Val, who she is quickly falling in love with.