The Glass Menagerie
Tickets from $77 Buy Tickets
Cititour.com Review
Even the greatest, and most oft-performed, plays can be viewed through a new light. And it’s not just the moon and stars on Bob Crowley’s puddle-black set that illuminate John Tiffany’s magnificent take on Tennessee Williams’ classic 1945 autobiographical drama, The Glass Menagerie, now at Broadway’s Booth Theatre. It’s the exquisitely calibrated work of four remarkable actors, led by two-time Tony Award winner Cherry Jones, that bring a fresh dose of both poignancy and humor to this enduring masterpiece.
Once again, we’re in the cramped St. Louis apartment where our narrator Tom Wingfield (Zachary Quinto) spent his formative years before heading out one night – not to the moon, but much further – leaving behind forever his sometimes shrewish, overprotective mother Amanda (Jones) and his ultra-shy, physically disabled sister Laura (Celia Keenan-Bolger) to fend for themselves. Tom’s departure is more than just preordained – since it’s a memory play – but also inevitable. There’s simply no room for him to grow, to prosper, to write – and certainly to act out his homosexual urges – under Amanda’s roof.
Faced with one of the most talked-about roles in the theatrical canon, Jones smartly puts her own spin on Amanda. While she isn’t exactly fun to be around, this Amanda is not a monster. Moreover, she’s far from self-deluded or lost in a dream world. She is a real 1930s woman facing real Depression-era problems, and there’s no question of her genuine, if overbearing, concern for the well-being and future of her children.
However, her transformation in the second act to the flirty, charming southern belle she once was (as evidenced by a perfectly ridiculous period gown designed by Crowley) -- when Laura’s “gentleman caller,” Jim O’Connor (Brian J. Smith) comes to dinner -- is sublime. And when the outcome of the evening is as shattered as one of Laura’s little glass objects, and she lashes out at Tom in the show’s penultimate scene, Jones is simultaneously heartless and heartbreaking. She deserves another Tony Award just for those few moments.
Quinto, who has admitted basing his portrayal of Tom directly on the young Williams, is a revelation, fully capturing the desperation of a man trying to fight all his natural urges (with varying degrees of success) in order to do his familial duty. Moreover, more than any of the many celebrated actors I’ve previously seen in this role, Quinto unabashedly emphasizes Tom’s effeminate qualities – he’s not merely “sensitive” but occasionally a tad flamboyant. When Amanda says she knows her unhappy son doesn’t go to the movies every night, there little question on anyone’s part where he may be have been when the midnight bell tolled.
Still, the heart of the play is the long second-act section when Laura finally opens up thanks to the kindly attentions of Jim, the boy she had a crush on high-school. Watching the wonderful Keenan-Bolger slowly bloom like a flower is simply mesmerizing, while the equally excellent Smith serves up a young man who, rather than being completely cocksure, regains his former self-confidence by the second under the rapt gaze of his former admirer. For a second, one almost suspends disbelief (and knowledge of the play’s outcome) and sees these two lost souls living happily after. But in the end, Keenan-Bolger’s Laura, like her beloved glass unicorn, ends up slightly broken and back on the shelf, left only to haunt her now-departed brother – as well as everyone who sees this stunning production.
By Brian Scott Lipton
Visit the Site
http://theglassmenageriebroadway.com
Cast
Cherry Jones, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Zachary Quinto, Brian J. Smith
Open/Close Dates
Opening 9/26/2013
Closing 2/23/2014
Preview Open/ Preview Close Dates
Preview Opening 9/5/2013
Closing Open-ended
Box Office
212-239-6200
Theatre Info
Booth Theatre
222 West 45th Street
New York, NY 10036
Map
Comments
Sign up for our newsletter !
