REVIEW: Director offers new interpretations of Williams' classic 'Menagerie'

By PAM KRAGEN - Staff Writer | Wednesday, April 23, 2008 12:25 PM PDT ∞

Playwright Tennessee Williams loved playing with the conventions of theater and his 1945 drama "The Glass Menagerie" was an ambitious experiment in form, using projections, lighting and a sliding fourth wall to heighten the illusions of memory in the play.

In his new staging of "The Glass Menagerie" in the Old Globe's in-the-round Cassius Carter Centre Stage, director Joe Calarco takes Williams' nonrealistic approach a step farther with some fresh interpretations on character and design that deliver mixed results.

The haunting atmosphere of the play endures (thanks in part to Chris Lee's dim, dreamlike lighting) and the acting mostly shines, but an awkward set and a casting choice make the finished product somewhat uneven.

Two-time Emmy Award-winning actress Mare Winningham leads the cast of the Globe production, which will be the last in the Carter before it's torn down this summer to make way for a new theater complex. Her lily-soft, layered, needy and ultimately smothering performance as family matriarch Amanda Wingfield is the shining cornerstone of Calarco's production and everything builds (or descends) from there.

"The Glass Menagerie" is a memory play narrated by Amanda's son, Tom, who revisits his family's 1930s St. Louis apartment through the veil of his own guilt-laden recollections. Like his father before him, Tom would soon abandon his mother and crippled sister, Laura, and the play recounts his unsuccessful efforts to recruit a "gentleman caller" to marry Laura and support the Wingfield women in his absence.

Amanda's a faded Southern belle who dwells in the past and teeters between affection and searing criticism of her children. Laura's a shy, sensitive shut-in, as emotionally and physically fragile as the tiny glass animals she collects. And Williams' alter ego, Tom, longs for escape, adventure and freedom beyond the confining walls of the Wingfield apartment.

His deliverance arrives in the form of Jim O'Connor, Tom's ultraconfident co-worker at a shoe factory, who comes for dinner one night and shows a fleeting interest in Laura. But the results of their encounter leave the family as shattered as the glass unicorn from Laura's collection.

For this production, Calarco reinterprets many elements of Williams' script. He softens Amanda's cruel streak and reduces Laura's infirmity to a slight limp. Tom becomes more of an enigma, with no hints to the source of his late-night "movie" excursions or the career he has found beyond St. Louis. Only the optimistic, ambitious gentleman caller, Jim ---- the family's sole source of hope ---- seems unchanged by time.

Michael Fagin's sunken apartment set is split in two by a wooden ramp and raised ringmaster-style center ring. A metal floor grate serves as the metaphorical fire escape from which the older Tom reflects. The set's unconventional design works with the intentional staginess of Williams' script, but it makes for some awkward entrances, exits and blocking. For example, in one scene Jim asks Laura to sit with him on the floor, and she must step up to sit on the raised round platform.

Michelle Federer is particularly affecting in her sad, still and transparent-as-glass performance as Laura. And Kevin Isola is boisterous and upbeat as Jim. His attentions to Laura seem motivated by impulse and ego rather than lust or malice.

Michael Simpson makes his stage debut as Tom and gives a performance that feels too contemporary for the setting and not as complex as it could be. As the conflicted storyteller in this drama, and the gay Williams' alter ego, a more haunted and troubled presence is needed here.

Calarco's direction is gently paced, with a focus on creating an atmosphere of dreamlike reverie and visual beauty. This makes the play feel longish in its talky scenes, but always pleasing to the eye. It runs two hours, 45 minutes, with intermission, and feels it.

"The Glass Menagerie" remains one of the true classics of 20th century American theater and in its day, offered groundbreaking style. Reinterpreted for the 21st century, the Globe's "Menagerie" still delivers on atmosphere and acting, but a different set and perhaps a different Tom would have made it better.

"The Glass Menagerie"

When: 7 p.m. Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays; through May 18

Where: Cassius Carter Centre Stage, Old Globe Theatre complex, Balboa Park, San Diego

Tickets: $42-$59

Phone: (619) 234-5623

Web: www.theoldglobe.org

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