A Shattering Glass Menagerie

When you think of vaunted authors of American Theater, few names loom larger than Tennessee Williams. 

Photo by T. Charles Erickson

Pick just about any famous play or screenplay from the mid-20th century - A Streetcar Named Desire, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - and his name will be there.

Photo by T. Charles Erickson

The Glass Menagerie (aka the play that started it all) is currently on stage at the Guthrie Theater, and it provides an interesting rear view 75 years after it's original publication. The definition of a smash success, this semi-autobiographical play immediately launched Williams into the upper echelons of the American literati, a precipitous climb which he struggled to withstand for many years (as beautifully described in his essay The Catastrophe of Success, which may hold more wisdom in our hyper-digital age than when it was first published). It's a strange play for a first work, with a wistful, haunting patina that is older than its years.

Photo by T. Charles Erickson

For those who have (like I had) not seen The Glass Menagerie yet, the quick synopsis is: The play opens on the fire escape outside the Wingfield family apartment, which is composed of Tom, his crippled sister Laura, and their audacious mother Amanda (their father having flown the coop years before). Tom is desperately unhappy, spending nights full of dreams of becoming a working author or traveling adventurously and slogging away at the local warehouse by day. Laura is desperately shy and becomes increasingly insular as she ages, preferring her glass animal collection (the glass menagerie) to contact with the outside world. Amanda has spent years bootstrapping her children into adulthood but begins to panic about Laura's future as she yawns towards her late 20s with no suitors in sight, and recruits Tom to help her make a match for Laura. Tom inadvertently chooses the one person who can light Laura's flame: her childhood crush Jim O'Connor. Jim spends a lovely evening in courtship with the Wingfields until a devastating revelation cuts the night short and ends the play, leaving us all to wonder at Laura's future and the cruelty of chance.

Photo by T. Charles Erickson

It doesn't sound like much but it's a full world in that apartment, architecturally designed by Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams. The characters drift through in ethereal costumes from Raquel Barreto, Christopher Akerlind's soft lighting design and the gentle hum of Darron L. West's sound design, which only enhances the dreamlike effect. Despite being housed on the cavernous Wurtele Thrust stage, the focus of our attention as an audience feels small, like viewing the play through an aperture. We're on a constant full zoom, whether it's on Laura's tinkling glass trinkets or the luminous candelabra and cushions on the floor. It's a total snap in time, a sepia-toned postcard to the past, and it leaves you in a bit of a hush as you exit the theater.

Photo by T. Charles Erickson

The cast's sophisticated presence, three of four of whom are Guthrie newcomers, adds to this antique effect. I adored Remy Auberjonois in Cyrano de Bergerac last spring; as Tom here, he has less panache but a humble Jimmy Stewart quality that works for the play. Grayson DeJesus is everyone's favorite heartbreaker as Jim O'Connor, winsome and sweet and sentimental. Carey Cox, who was the understudy for on Broadway, is a spectral whisper across the stage as Laura. You can't help but feel sorry for the chaos around her, and she's just as delicate as the glass menagerie itself. The real star for me, though, was Jennifer Van Dyck as a magnificent Amanda Wingfield. Abrasive, direct and completely unflinching, Van Dyck is the blend of Joan Crawford and Kris Kardashian that you never knew you needed; I founder absolutely riveting throughout the show.

Photo by T. Charles Erickson

I'm not really sure how to describe my feelings about The Glass Menagerie overall. It's a strange play - a first publication for the author that feels like a retrospective; 75 years old with monologues that feel right at home in our icily digitized modern social structures; a snapshot of the past with the everlasting tale of heartbreak and loneliness. I can say that it has haunted the edges of my subconscious since I saw it, licking at the back of my thoughts and turning into phantasm all its own. It's an unusually quiet season opener and worth a stop on one of our endlessly rainy fall evenings before it closes on October 27. For more information or to buy tickets, click on this link.

Photo by T. Charles Erickson