Theater Review: The Glass Menagerie

by Richard Goulde of John Garcia's The Column

Amanda Wingfield (Pamela Peadon) is mother, dictator and curator of the Wingfield family. Her adult children Tom (Dan Forsythe) and Laura (Jessica Cavanagh Wiggers) live with her. They barely tolerate her well-intentioned criticisms and controlling machinations. Tom escapes nightly into the vicarious adventures of Hollywood movies, lubricated with some judicious drinking to drown his sorrows. Meanwhile, Laura lives inside the shell of a self-fulfilling prophecy, a young woman who doesn't believe she'll ever amount to anything, so she doesn't. They all live in the shadow of the memory of patriarch Mr. Wingfield, a charmer who abandoned his family years before, and left them all with an emotional vacancy they have never successfully filled.

I love Tennessee Williams. I enjoyed the performances in this adaptation, and I'm impressed by the artistry of the set design. But I hate the staging.

The set, rather than facing the audience squarely, is positioned nearly at a 45 degree angle. Nearest the audience, on the right side, is a small front porch leading into the house. Step through the door, and we see into the front living room. The room is framed by window boxes hanging from the ceiling, which cleverly gives the house dimension while leaving it open to the audience.

Behind the living room, furthest away from the audience, is the dining area. A tall and elaborate case for the eponymous menagerie of glass animals, lit like a beautiful display at a jewelry store, sits appropriately at the heart of the stage and simultaneously divides the living room from the dining area.

To the left of the house is an empty area that barely finds any use in the play, a consequence of the odd angling of the set. Here, we begin to see a hint of how the set design, albeit beautiful, creates problems for the staging.

I applaud Clare Floyd DeVries (set design) and Tish Mussey (props design) for their creativity and sheer attention to detail. The set is a work of art.

But fantastic set design doesn't guarantee good staging. As my viewing companion said, "It'd be great, if we weren't watching a play."

Alas, we are here to watch live theater unfold before us. Ideally, it becomes an immersing experience which envelops the audience. We are invited not just into the house, but into these people's very lives. No matter how beautiful a set may be designed, when it interferes with this process, the performance has a serious problem.

It begins with the size of the space. It's big, and there's a whole lotta emptiness, which eats sound. The actors try their hardest to project their voices, but they're fighting a losing battle. Those little actors, in that great big space? I was straining to hear through nearly the entire performance. It's worse when they're at the back of the stage, in the dining area, because the pillars and window-boxes that define the space, also occlude visibility. Then consider that the actors rarely face the audience head-on; they're either facing to the side, or away altogether. Another consequence of a stage set at an angle.

Plus, the actors are trying to talk in southern accents throughout the entire performance, with varying degrees of success. It's harder to project your voice when affecting an accent.

So, to recap, we have actors who are:

• far away from the audience
• not facing the audience
• in a great big space which eats sound
• surrounded by a structure that obscures the audience's ability to see
• all while trying to project, but also trying to speak in a particular accent

It doesn't work.

Outside of that, I enjoyed the performance greatly. I love Tennessee Williams. The Glass Menagerie is a brilliant play, filled with beautiful wordplay and moving exchanges which reveal the subtleties and complexities of human relationships. It's subtextually and thematically rich with a wry and frequently humorous look at human nature. Even poor staging can only detract so much.

The actors all deserve mention for their performances. Matt Moore in particular, as Jim O'Connor (or "the Gentleman Caller"), was pitch-perfect in his portrayal of an enthusiastic, optimistic young man with the ability to see beauty in others, while still conveying vulnerability and uncertainty in his own relationships.

The other actors also hit the right notes for their characters. I would have preferred to see one or two degrees less "demureness" out of Wiggers' performance. The role of Laura must straddle a careful balance. She's decidedly a wallflower, but with emphasis on the "flower." Jim calls her "Blue Roses," a nickname which reinforces the impression of her as a painfully shy girl who is, in fact, beautiful and lovely. By the end of the play, the audience should ideally see her character through Jim's eyes: a lovely and sweet girl hobbled not by a limp but by her own terrible lack of self-confidence.

Unfortunately, the performance errs on the side of shy and insecure, making it harder to see her through Jim's eyes. As a consequence, the play's conclusion doesn't hit with maximum impact. The emotional crescendo never really manifests.

Yes, the play does reach a dramatic high when one of the animals from the glass menagerie is broken (one of the best metaphors in theater), but the conclusion fails to match the emotional potency of that earlier moment.

Director Terry Martin successfully guides his actors through the complicated relationships of their characters. This is the core of the play, and thankfully they hit it. The interplay between the four characters ranges from interesting to mesmerizing, and this is one of those rare plays where I didn't realize how much time had elapsed during the performance. I just wish he had better addressed the staging and encouraged a performance a tad bit less reserved from Wiggers.

Overall: It's a great play, and the set design is stellar. Unfortunately, the risky choices they made don't pan out, so be prepared that the play isn't going to be everything it could have been.

The Glass Menagerie, presented by WaterTower Theatre, runs through April 11. Purchase tickets online or by calling 972-450-6232.