Uta Hagen: A Vicious Sport

Anthony Quinn and Uta Hagen in A Streetcar Named Desire

When I was eight years old ... . On my way home from school one dark, 

bitter winter afternoon, I found myself suddenly pursued by a group of 

neighborhood children who, using me for a vicious sport, pelted me with 

snowballs frozen hard as rocks. As I tried to flee from them, the snowballs' 

impact on my back and shoulders almost knocked the breath out of me. 

One that hit the side of my face drew blood. But even more terrifying was 

the epithet the children yowled at me like snarling wolves—"Atheist! 

Atheist! Atheist"—because they knew we did not go to church. As they 

caught up with me, among the leering faces in the dim light I noticed one 

with frost-spotted spectacles that made him appear blind. The recall of 

those spectacles brings back a flood of terror, of senseless shame, of being 

hounded, of never reaching safety. And yet this is only a story about 

children who bullied a patsy one winter afternoon. Those frosty eyeglasses 

served me for Blanche at the end of the ninth scene of A Streetcar Named 

Desire, when Mitch's accusations and attempted assault catapult her into 

the screams of "Fire! Fire! Fire!" They were equally useful for the role of 

lo in Prometheus Bound, in which she is eternally pursued by the stinging 

flies that Zeus has set on her.

Uta Hagen

From A Challenge for the Actor

Charles Scribner's Sons

1991