THEATER REVIEW : Superb ‘Superman’ at A Noise Within : The Glendale ensemble delivers Shaw’s words as if the future of the human race hinges on the clash of the male-female wills.

What a rude shock, what a punch to the solar plexus George Bernard Shaw’s “Man and Superman” must have been when it made its first appearance shortly after the 20th Century’s own. What an amazing gift of this century that “Man and Superman” is still rude, still shocking, still completely electric, even as the millennium is running out of juice.

It seemed that South Coast Repertory’s 1990 staging, with the rare inclusion of the “Don Juan in Hell” scene, made some kind of definitive case for “Man and Superman” as Shaw’s ultimate work. Well, don’t tell that to A Noise Within, the small, micro-budgeted and supremely talented ensemble in Glendale. In what may be its most remarkable gesture yet as an essential, classical company, A Noise Within has done SCR one better.

Sabin Epstein’s staging also includes the funny, discursive “Don Juan” section, which means the show clocks in at just under four hours. But the whole extraordinary clash of male-female wills and words has never felt so vital. It’s as if the future of the human race is guided by the discussion. Can one resist the Life Force, as Shaw’s wonderful, snide alter ego Jack Tanner (Jack Wetherall) calls it, and stake out an authentic, independent life? Or is the Life Force, the communion of the sexes for procreation, all that there is?

When the debate is delivered with the musicalized balance of counterpointed voices that sound forth here, all of the complaints about Shaw as a dramatist of ideas rather than plays shrivel and blow away in the wind. So, too, do the PC objections about Shaw’s sexist view of women as mere manipulator of men’s desires--symbolized by Ann Whitefield (Ann Marie Lee), hot on the trail of Jack.

Epstein and Lee conspire to make Ann every bit Jack’s equal, not the wily superior being Jack imagines her to be. Lee’s Ann, for instance, is taken aback by the honest wooings of the hapless Octavius (a wimp with real heart in Joel Swetow’s hands); she’s pulled into the orbit of ordinary humans, and it throws her for a loop.

In the same way, while Wetherall’s Jack is the prototype of the modern man torn between his instincts and intellect, he also suggests that he’s hoisting himself on his own comic-rhetorical petard. Symbols, prototypes . . . on paper, perhaps, but with actors like these, what resounds is the clash of personalized stakes. It’s closer to a boxing match than to an effete drawing room comedy.

The pair isn’t just supported, but joined by a masterful ensemble including Dierk Torsek’s silly, proper Roebuck, June Claman’s acerbic Mrs. Whitefield, Tawny Hamilton’s scheming Violet and Neil Vipond as the Vincent Price-like devil of your dreams.

The play’s radicalism comes through on every level--the sheer volume of talk (Wetherall’s stamina during his monologues is downright Olympian), the gall to move the action from England to southern Spain to a dream set in Hell and then back to Spain again, the luscious love affair with ideas. Someone mentioned Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America” after the lights came up, and it’s hard not to conclude that Kushner’s similar experiments with words, time, place and thoughts stem partly from “Man and Superman.”

With a staging that is more danced than blocked, with Roxanne Femling’s wry, symbol-rich costuming, and with every detail in place--from Lee’s wagging finger in Jack’s face to the amusing scene transitions--you have something that smells like theater’s spirit.

* “Man and Superman,” A Noise Within, Glendale Masonic Temple, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale. Saturday, 4 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m.; April 22 and 30, 8 p.m.; April 25, May 2 and 9, 2 p.m.; May 8, May 15 at 4 p.m., May 13, 8 p.m. $14; (818) 546-1924. Running time: 3 hours, 45 minutes.