THEATER / M.E. WARREN : Williams’ Cast of Characters : Golden West College students will spend two weekends bringing to life the outcasts and dreamers created by the nation’s preeminent playwright.

“It’s not a high-profile event,” says Charles Mitchell, chairman of the theater department at Golden West College in Huntington Beach. But an evening devoted to the creative genius of America’s preeminent playwright emeritus is always a significant occasion.

Starting tonight and continuing for two weekends, students from Mitchell’s advanced acting classes will be showcased in a program of scenes and monologues from the plays of Tennessee Williams, whose works explore the souls of sensitive people in a brutal world, social outcasts and dreamers of every ilk.

The Williams canon--which includes the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “A Streetcar Named Desire”--long has held a unique magnetism for actors of all ages and degrees. There truly is something for everyone in Williams’ writing: great passions for the romantic, melodrama for the sensationalistic, gorgeous language for the poetic, symbolism for the analytical, accents for the linguistically inclined.

And, specifically for the purposes of the actors at Golden West, there are roles for younger people and roles for women.

“Particularly in his early plays, Williams wrote roles for young people,” Mitchell said. “The students can relate more readily to characters close to their own ages. And while the majority of plays are male-centered, these selections show off the women quite well.”

Indeed. What actress worth her spotlight wouldn’t jump at the chance to sink her histrionic teeth into such meaty roles as Blanche DuBois, Maggie the Cat, Amanda and Laura Wingfield, the Princess Kosmonopolis, Lady Torrance and Carol Cutrere? These roles and their male counterparts established the careers of many who originated them. Marlon Brando catapulted to stardom in 1947 with his Broadway debut as Stanley Kowalski in “Streetcar,” and his signature characterization has haunted the role ever since.

“Streetcar” is one play that won’t be featured during the full, two-act evening at Golden West College. “Our acting work focuses on character,” Mitchell explained, “and no one in the class was really right for Blanche.”

But the class had plenty of other plays from which to choose. Williams, who started writing in his early teens (he was born Thomas Lanier Williams in Columbus, Miss. in 1914) finished more than a dozen full-length works and more than 20 one-acts. This showcase will draw material from “The Glass Menagerie,” “The Rose Tattoo,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Sweet Bird of Youth” and “Orpheus Descending.”

Mitchell is calling the package “Something Unspoken,” after one of Williams’ short plays. “A great deal of the drama in Williams’ plays is expressed in the subtext, that is, those things which are communicated but not spoken,” Mitchell said. “The students must understand these subtexts in order to approach the characters.”

And what about the elements of sex, drug abuse and violence that are such powerful forces in Williams’ plays?

“I can remember years ago when these subjects were really taboo,” Mitchell said. “But the young people today seem to understand these things without too much explanation.”

The world has darkened ominously since Williams first turned a searchlight on the more shadowy corners of our secret selves. But for those who still cherish a flame in the wilderness, Williams’ characters burn brightly as ever, illuminating the spoken and the unspoken.

* “Something Unspoken” opens tonight in the Actor’s Playbox Theatre at Golden West College, 15744 Golden West St., Huntington Beach. Continues Saturday and next Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. with a matinee this Sunday, at 3. Free. (714) 895-8378.