Tennessee Williams Comes to Life
In The Glass Menagerie at Vintage Theatre
Emma Messenger and Clara Papula as Amelia and Laura. RDGPhotography
The Glass Menagerie was written in the 1940s and, more than many of his fellow writers, Tennessee Williams's work endures, in large part because of his originality and emotional power. The themes continue to matter, the poetry of the language still calls to something deep within us. And of course Williams also endures because of the theatre companies--often working with small budgets and in tucked away places--that continue to bring his plays to life. Menagerie is currently showing at Vintage Theatre's black box, a space that's a bit awkward because it's so much more horizontal than deep and seeing what's happening at the sides takes a bit of head craning. But this doesn't distract for long since director Bernie Cardell has plotted the action and rhythm so well and assembled an excellent cast.
Most theatre lovers know something about this wistful memory play. It begins with a prologue given by Tom Wingfield, a storyteller desperate to get away from the manipulations of his mother, Amanda, and find adventure and a private place to explore his own writing. This play is strongly autobiographical and Tom clearly stands for his creator, torn between his ambitions and a sense of duty, as well as some element of love toward his impoverished family, and in particular his shy sister, Laura who, earlier in life, suffered an attack of pleurosis that left her with a limp. One-time southern belle and desperately controlling Amanda struggles to make ends meet and longs to find a beau who will love and protect her daughter, while Laura lives in a quiet, private world created by a menagerie of glass animals, fascinated by the light shining through them.
I was a little nonplussed at first by the deliberate theatricality with which Matthew Murry plays Tom, whom I had thought of as a writer rather than a would-be actor. Still, we do find out later that his workmates have dubbed him Shakespeare and the opening speech does assert that the play is not realistic. We also understand that memory itself can distort or magnify. And certainly the contrast between Tom's drawling drawer room manner at the opening and his naked rage and grief after a violently ugly confrontation with his mother does make the ending particularly moving.
Clara Papula plays Laura with gentle reserve but we can see a heart-breaking narrative of longing and loss crossing and re-crossing her expressive face.
As you perhaps remember, the fourth person we meet here is the young man Jim, whom Amanda dubs The Gentleman Caller. He is the fellow worker that Tom invites to dinner at his mother's urging and whom she hopes will take a liking to Laura. Cameron Davis brings him to vivid life. This man is very young, sometimes silly, and very boastful, spouting Norman Vincent Peale-type self-improvement aphorisms that he thinks will bring Laura out of her shell. But this actor also emanates a genuine warmth and charm as well as a gentle empathetic heart that does in fact speak to Laura.
I'd always known Amanda as a destroyer--one of those monstrous devouring mothers you encounter fairly often in fiction, but Amanda combines the silly fluttering southern belle she has never outgrown with the roaring monster she's become--a roar periodically interrupted if not tempered by wistful lost memories.
Which gets me to Emma Messenger, whom I've profiled here before (“Emma Messenger is an Actor to the Core”). In Messenger's portrayal, Amanda's anger doesn't exist on a single loud, repetitive note. It's a bottomless well and within it swirl all the disappointments of a frustrated life, of every dream destroyed, and every effort blocked. As for that rage—almost all of it directed at Tom--well, you don't want to encounter anything like it in your own life. But it's not unalloyed. There's an equally deep love for those disappointing children, and a fierce protectiveness. Surprisingly, Messenger’s Amanda is also very funny and you won't soon forget her primping and preening as she prepares for The Gentleman Caller's visit.
It's a lovely thing to find a gem like this brought to vivid life.
Since I'm sure you want to know, it plays through April 21 at 1468 Dayton Street. info@vintagetheatre.org 303-856-7830.