The Glass Menagerie

Synopsis

Amanda Wingfield was once courted by seventeen gentleman callers in on afternoon. Now she yearns for the days when her daughter Laura will captivate the world. But Laura lives out her own dreams with her cherished collection of glass animals - until the man she has loved from afar arrives at the apartment. The Glass Menagerie is a poignant and intensely moving exploration of a fragile fantasy world - a world that might easily be shattered.

Our Review:

Anne Morley-Priestman - 26 March 2010

This new production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie directed by Polly Teale is a bold one. It blends realism and symbolism in much the same proportions as does the script, Williams’ most autobiographical one. Designer Naomi Dawson gives us a multi-level set, offering the crowded interior of the Wildings’ tenement apartment in St Louis, the fire-escape outside and a taste of a wider world symbolised by a skyscape behind. Onto this images from films of the 1930s are projected from time to time.

Time is the fragile thread from which the story depends. As Tom (Patrick Kennedy) wrestles himself out of a dead-end job via the merchant navy into the writing career which is his consuming ambition, so past, present and future shift around him and are illuminated in turn. Flames burn bright, but also consume; like moths to a candle, so Tom’s sister and mother flutter towards the light which kills.

The show part is usually thought o...

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