REVIEW: Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie, performed by the Ross Valley Players

I like to attend plays completely unversed in what to expect. That way I have no preconceptions. I’d never seen Tennessee William’s, ‘The Glass Menagerie’, and didn’t know the story, (SHOCKING, I know!)…but…I loved Ross Valley Players’ version.

It originally premiered in 1944, and is a semi autobiographical snap shot portraying the dysfunctional dynamics of a quirky family, the Wingfield’s, based closely on Tennessee William’s own. It’s 1937, the middle of the Depression, in a dingy apartment in St Louis, Missouri. There’s single mother, Amanda, (Tamar Cohn), a former Southern belle, and her two children, both in their early 20’s, Tom, (Greg Crane), a wannabe writer, who toils in a warehouse by day, and Laura, (Carolyn Arnold), his cripplingly shy sister, who has zero social skills and consequently no social life or job. The father, who Amanda apparently married for love, rather than status, is gone, ran out and left them high and dry when the kids were young.

Tom narrates the play, retrospectively, telling us, his father was ‘a telephone man who fell in love with long distances.’ His is a deeply bitter and cynical interpretation of events, Greg Crane is superbly sardonic in the role.

Tamar Cohn is absolutely captivating as Tom’s histrionic mother, Amanda, who’s keen to have Laura paired off, despite the fact that Laura, with her crippling shyness, is dead against the idea. At dinner Amanda regales her children with tales of her youthful glory years, courting young plantation owners. She recalls that once she had 17 callers in one day, ‘And how many gentleman callers do you have tonight?’ she asks her daughter derisively. Of course Laura has none, preferring, as always to stay at home and tend to her menagerie of glass animals. Feeling challenged, Laura stumblingly reveals that she had once been in love with a boy at High School, Jim O’Connor, who nicknamed her ‘Blue Roses’.

Amanda nags Tom about how he chews his food, among many other things, and unable to bear any more, he has a habit of abruptly leaving, either to smoke on the fire escape or stay out late. His excuse is he’s at the movies, although he often comes back drunk. When questioned by his mother, he cruelly teases her, telling her he’s in a gang. In reality his late night disappearances could be attributed to his burgeoning homosexuality, although this isn’t openly alluded to in the play.

Always aspirational, Amanda chastises her son for not being ambitious enough, and for smoking too much. Tom, who aspires towards poetry rather than social niceties, taunts her. ’I’d rather pick up a crow bar and batter my brains out than go back [to work] mornings.’ As a writer, I understand exactly he feels. Unfortunately he drinks too, as did his father, although he blames his mother for driving him to it.

Retrospectively, it’s easy for a modern audience to see the Wingfield family live in the shadow of undiagnosed mental illness, with related addiction issues thrown in. William’s own sister, Rose, was diagnosed with schizophrenia, although Laura, in the play, with her extreme shyness, appears to be somewhere on the autism spectrum.

Tom’s and therefore, I’m assuming, Tennessee William’s own, retrospective portrait of his family, is bitter but not entirely unsympathetic towards his mother.

Amanda Wingfield tries to keep her nest feathered by selling women’s magazine subscriptions to her friends, in order to provide a hospitable environment for the longed for gentlemen callers. In Southern charm infused phone conversations, she tries to entice them to buy a subscription. We feel for her when she fails, and empathize with her when she finally succeeds.

As the mother to a child who has suffered from acute anxiety and shyness, I understood Amanda’s frustration and desperation, especially at a time when there was no easily available or accurate diagnosis and plenty of shame, judgment and bewilderment in it’s place. In fact, there still is, even if less so. It can be very frustrating when a teenager is too shy to answer the door to a delivery person. And being the mother of an 18 year old son, the push and pull in many of the oppositional, anger laden exchanges between Tom and Amanda was also all too familiar. Where today’s mothers are horrified by violent computer games, Amanda decries the fact that Tom is reading DH Lawrence. (If only my son would read DH Lawrence! Does that make me histrionic or just plain unrealistic)?

As penance for an alcohol fueled tirade against his mother, Tom finally agrees to bring home a male friend from work as a possible match for Laura. I was riveted when we find out he is in fact Jim O’Connor, the same boy she was in love with at High School, and that, therefore, she absolutely can’t join them for dinner. OH NO!!! Is she going to blow it? We watch with trepidation when Jim finally arrives, unprepared for the skewed dynamics the Wingfield’s automatically work around. Tom describes Jim as ’an emissary from a world of reality that we are somehow set apart from’. Their mother, Amanda, overly enthusiastic and even flirtatious in an unsuitable dress, pours out overly effusive Southern charm. Yet, it turns out that Jim O’Connor, (wonderfully played by Jesse Lumb) is a decent guy, who’s able to unlock the rigid Laura, and get her to open up. Ebullient and optimistic, he encourages her to be self confident, telling her she just has to push through the shyness, as he himself did. The connection between the characters is palpable. We hold our breath as the conversation navigates to their mutual attraction. Talk about a successful blind date, Amanda’s and Tom’s plan, couldn’t have succeeded better, until the revelation, that causes Laura to feel deeply victimized and humiliated. Tennessee Williams clearly wrote this play as a tribute to his sister, whose botched lobotomy in reality, haunted him throughout his life.

Carolyn Arnold plays the shut down, Laura with perfect awkwardness. She conceals and reveals her gentle personality beautifully as the play progresses.

Ken Rowland designed an effective yet simple and unobtrusive set. We have the front room, with the all important case of glass animals,. Beyond that, an arch leads through to a dining room, where the photo of the absent father dominates. And of course there’s the all important fire escape to our right.

Beautifully directed, by David Abrams, Tennessee William’s, Glass Menagerie is a gritty, honest play about the troubles of a lower class family stuck in a generic apartment in 1937. Using his family as a microcosm for social commentary, it addresses undiagnosed mental illness, dashed dreams, the tragedy of unrealized ambition, and the sting of unrequited love. It’s still relevant today.

This version was a truly memorable introduction to the play for me, with absolutely first rate performances all round. Not to be missed!

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Review by Hannah Yurke.