Tennessee
Williams’ The Glass Menagerie is a major milepost on the road of American
drama and it is
no small pleasure to see a production that is superbly acted and meticulously
directed. That
is what A Noise Within Theatre offers in Pasadena, California.
Director Geoff Elliott concentrates on the memories of the characters,
their dreams, their illusions and delusions and the crushing and liberating
effect of reality.
The lights go on, on an almost empty stage and Tom (Rafael Goldstein)
tells us that The Glass Menagerie is
a memory play and he introduces the characters, including his father who
abandoned the family many years ago. We see the photograph of a smiling man on
the back wall and he dominates the play without ever appearing. It is Tom’s
father.
Tom snaps his fingers and furniture is brought on the stage to begin the
action and tell us what he recalls from many years ago. He recalls his mother
Amanda (Deborah Strang), a woman who pretends to remember a life of wealth and
leisure when as many as 17 gentlemen callers came for her on one day alone. She
was beautiful, genteel and sophisticated, and could have married well but she
went for a man who worked for the telephone company. He fell in love with
distance, she tells us, and put distance between himself and his family with no
return address.
Deborah Strang gives an outstanding performance as Amanda, a woman who
believes the myths of her past glories amid the reality of her life where she
is pathetic and ridiculous. Everything Amanda does is pitiable and transparently
pretentious but it keeps reality at a distance with no small effort. Strang
makes a marvelous Amanda.
Erika Soto plays the tragic, pitiful and wretched Laura. She is
excruciatingly shy as she limps and makes some delicate glass figurines her
world. Soto captures Laura’s character fully and her fears, awkwardness, high school
memories come out in a perfect pitch.
Kasey Mahaffey and Erika Soto. Photo: Craig Schwartz
Kasey Mahaffy plays Jim O’Connor, the gentleman caller superbly. We see
his bravado as he waives his arms just a bit excessively and tries to capture
some of his image of success that he had while in high school. As with the
other characters, Elliott directs Mahaffy with precision so that we see his
humanity, his pitiful post-high school failure and his dream of making it. Marvelously
done.
Tom is, as the narrator, and the man that
gives focus to the play, is our guide to his situation and to the personality
of the other people in the play. He is there and not there during his
recollection of past events. He becomes almost a phantom in his own story. He
sees reality as he escapes it by going to the movies every night. He hides in a
cubicle at work to write poetry and dreams of following his father by leaving
his family behind. He drinks and is almost as pathetic as his mother and sister
in his escape in the artificial world of Hollywood. But he also realizes its
artificiality and unreality and takes steps towards joining the merchant marine
and going to the South Seas. Is that not just illusory?
Elliot does superb work in his presentation of Tom and delivers an
outstanding production of a great play.
__________
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee
Williams runs until April 26, 2019
at A Noise Within Theatre, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd. Pasadena, California www.anoisewithin.org/
James Karas is the Senior Editor
– Culture of The Greek Press. www.greekpress.ca
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