THE GLASS MENAGERIE
★★★
Duke Of York’s Theatre, London, until August 27. Tickets: 03330 096690
Tennessee Williams’ breakthrough play is a painfully honest examination of his own family history.
Abandoned by her husband, faded Southern belle Amanda Wingfield (Amy Adams) struggles to maintain a vestigial respectability with her two children, would-be writer Tom (Tom Glynn-Carney/ Paul Hilton) and her introverted daughter Laura (Lizzie Annis).
Crippled by pleurosis as a child, Laura is as fragile as the glass animals she collects and her mother’s attempts to secure her a husband are constantly thwarted. When Tom brings home work colleague Jim (Victor Alli) as a potential suitor, matters come to a head.
Williams’ memory play has an enduring strength that belies the delicacy of both his characters and observations.
In her UK stage debut, Hollywood star Amy Adams brings a rare warmth and vulnerability to Amanda rather than playing up her histrionic nature. She is well supported by Annis in her professional debut and Glynn-Carney as Tom – a self-portrait of Williams himself.
The stage is dominated by what looks like a department store display case containing Laura’s collection. Intended as a prism through which Paule Constable’s lighting throws the glass animals’ shapes on to the rear wall, it is a distraction from subtle, almost underplayed performances.
Director Jeremy Herrin’s decision to split the role of Tom between two actors is misguided. The older Tom (Hilton) narrates the story, leaving his younger self (Glynn-Carney) stranded offstage for long passages which unfastens the ties between brother and sister that gives the play its heartrending momentum. The affecting intimacy of the crucial scene between “gentleman caller” Jim and Laura in the second half is due in part to the fact that it is lit by candlelight which obscures the surrounding clutter. But the cast are competing with a production design that is incompatible with the bittersweet subtlety of their performances.