There are some things that are absolute in Diversionary’s “The Glass Menagerie” as directed by Lisa Berger: Shana Wride is absolutely splendid as the tragic and manipulative Amanda Wingfield, the domineering, southern belle and matriarch of the Wingfield family. If there was ever a role cut out for an actor, this one is a perfect fit for her, trust me on this one.
Tennessee Williams’ memory play “The Glass Menagerie” still resonates after all these years. It opened in Chicago in 1944 and subsequently moved to The Playhouse Theatre in New York in 1945. It went on to win the New York Drama Critics Awards.
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| Luke Harvey Jacobs, Shana Wride, Kirk Brown, Julia Belanova |
It is told in flashback by young Tom Wingfield (Williams’ alter ego played subtly by Luke Harvey Jacobs) after he returns home after abandoning his disabled sister. He recalls the family dynamics in a somewhat dreamy atmosphere created by Vida Huang and haunting music in the background by sound designer Remus Harrington.
Breaking the fourth wall, he tells us that he would rather be any place than at his mother’s house. He longs for adventure, action and escape. He’s annoyed at her nagging, her interfering, her stories of past glories and her pettiness.
Everything he does; drinking, writing and spending most of his off hours at the movies, a tale Amanda refuses to believe, pushes him closer to leaving. The one thing he can’t ignore is his affection for his sister, who like a delicate creature disappears into her own world of glass figures and figurines. So shy, is she, she can’t even attend typing classes for fear of having to talk to fellow students.
Tom, like his father before him, cannot stand the confines of his small apartment, the restrictions of his job, and finally the oppressive personality of his domineering mother. (“The stage magician gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.")
The setting is the St. Louis apartment of Amanda Wingfield and her two adult children, Laura (Julia Belandova) and Tom. The time is 1937 and the country is in the middle of the depression. Tom works in a shoe factory (Williams sold shoes for a time) and Amanda sells magazine subscriptions from her home, much beneath her status as a genteel Southern belle when a young girl.
Money is tight but hope springs eternal for Amanda, the faded yet once popular belle, as she glides around their apartment recalling her glory days as a teen growing up in the south. Her repeating and reliving her past encounters with her own ‘gentlemen callers fascinates Laura, who longs for a gentleman caller of her own, but it annoys the hell out of Tom.
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| Kirk Brown and Julia Belanova |
Amanda doesn’t comprehend why none come to call on Laura, her emotionally fragile daughter whose noticeable shyness (in most productions a limp from early bout of Polio) has her cut off from reality and plunges her into a make believable world of a glass animal collection, her favorite being the unicorn a solitary and mysterious creature, much like Laura was to her mother.
But the crux of the story revolves around ‘the gentleman caller’ Jim O’Conner (a wonderfully gifted Kirk Brown), set against this suffocating atmosphere in which both Laura and Tom struggle to fight off the overbearing oppression felt by them by Amanda.
Amanda hounds Tom to find a suitable caller for Laura so she too may have the thrill of entertaining as she had done years ago and possibly as a means of supporting Laura after she dies. Amanda, however, fails to recognize that Laura’s frailties will throw her into a tailspin and set her back years, which in fact they do.
When Tom’s ‘friend’ Jim finally does come for dinner, in Act II, Laura discovers that she knew him in high school and had a crush on him. Devastated, she refuses to join them in dinner. Amanda just doesn’t get it and forces Laura to spend some time with her gentleman. Jim is the only positive person in the household, he laughs, talks about his classes in public speaking and he’s appealing and when he finally gets Laura to open up, she too, becomes slightly lively,
She shows him her glass collection pointing out her favorite, the unicorn. Unfortunately, in a clumsy dance attempt, they bump into the table it is sitting on and knocks off the horn. As nice as Jim is to Laura, he already has a girl and all hopes of his returning another time are faded for any further relationships for Laura.
‘Menagerie’ was Williams’ first successful professional play and his most autobiographical. Laura or Rose, his sister, (as was her given name), who was thought to be mentally ill because of her instability, underwent a frontal lobotomy that just about sent her brother over the edge. Some even suggesting that it was the cause of his heavy drinking, or his being gay as suggested by Dramaturg Jesse Marchese.
With the exception of Laura’s (Julia Belanova) role in Act I Burger’s production hummed along without a catch. The emptiness of her character left one with the idea that she mightn’t have been on stage at all. Things do liven up in Act II though, when Laura comes out looking like a new person with a wig to cover her very short boyish haircut. But it was not to be her fate. Her fate is sealed.
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| Shana Wride and Luke Harvey Jacobs |
The last words that Tom Wingfeld, speaks: “Blow out your candles, Laura, - and so goodbye.” is a heartbreaker for anyone with a heartbeat.
Were there tears at the end of the production? You bet. This bitter sweet play is so relevant for this time of year when family relations, loneness and separation are at the fore of many family dynamics, it cannot be ignored.
Kudos also to Leah Osterman, props, Katie Paulson, costumes, Bailie Molsberry, stage manager, Eliza Vedar , sound designer/composer, especially Dramaturg Jesse Marchese, and of course Diversionary Theatre for its splendid production.
See you at the Theatre.
Dates: Through Dec. 23rd
Organization: Diversionary Theatre
Phone: 619 220 0097
Production Type: Drama
Price: $20.00-$65.00
Where: 4545 Park Blvd.#101
Photo: Andrea Agosto
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