‘Glass Menagerie’ shines
THE collaboration of Fred Abrahamse and Marcel Meyer is a formidable one. Over the years they have presented audiences with gems, from Shakespeare’s classics to bringing several of Tennessee Williams’s plays to our stages.
The most recent was In the Bar of
a Tokyo Hotel, which took the format of a dinner in The Vineyard Hotel’s pool room.
It conveyed the playwright’s conviction that in spite of discordant relationships, there is often a ray of light at the end of the tunnel, in whatever form it may come. A&M’s latest production,
The Glass Menagerie, on at the Artscape Arena, demonstrates not only superlative acting, but a fine interpretation of Williams’s play that is celebrating the 75th anniversary since it was first performed.
With a cast as talented as Fiona Ramsay, Jenny Stead, Matthew Baldwin and Meyer, you can’t go wrong. Under the direction of Abrahamse, who is also responsible for set design, and Meyer who also works his magic in costume design, and the rest of the creative team, you have a winning recipe.
This haunting autobiographical work is set in 1937 in the dark and depressing St Louis apartment Williams’s family was forced to move to from the South.
As narrator, Tom (Baldwin) introduces the play, based on his recollections of his family. In the programme notes Williams recalls his family’s move to a congested apartment overlooking a grim alleyway and writes of the “shocking change” for a family used to wide porches and tree-lined streets.
Because of this, his sister started collecting glass figurines to brighten the surroundings and catch the light. They prove central in the play, as shy and socially inept Laura Wingfield (Stead) finds refuge in them.
They represent her fragility, illusions and old-fashionedness.
The play starts as the family of three – mother, sister and brother
– sit down to dinner. Amanda is a faded Southern belle who hankers after her glorious past and many suitors, but now plays the domineering mother. Laura has a limp from polio, and Amanda is concerned about her future and almost obsessed with her finding a “gentleman caller”, while Tom (Baldwin) supports the family with a boring job in a shoe factory.
Tom finds solace by hiding outside, where he smokes incessantly, or running off to the movies. His sister has left school and drops out of a secretarial course due to her terribly retiring demeanour.
It’s into this scenario that Tom invites his colleague Jim for dinner, after Amanda nags about him finding a suitor for his sister.
The Gentleman Caller (Meyer) arrives, a charming, handsome man, who seems the antithesis of what the family represents – he’s balanced, grounded, polite, ever ready to say the socially correct thing.
Despite Laura’s shyness, he reaches out to her and she shows off her glass figurines, allowing him to hold the little unicorn, which is significantly removed from its place with the rest of the collection.
You can guess what happens to it, and the visit does not go to plan…
In this wonderful reworking, one is riveted from the start. Small wonder Williams’s works are staged and restaged, and an annual festival is held in Provincetown, US, to pay tribute to an artist who happily for us eventually found success.
Today’s focus on otherness, and the necessity to recognise this is also a key facet in this brilliant play, where each actor and actress shines.
* The Glass Menagerie is at the Artscape Arena until November 30. Booking at Computicket.