These Are My Friends. See How They Glisten.

Review: The Glass Menagerie
American Repertory Theater, Cambridge
February 19, 2013

"The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic."

As John Tiffany's Cambridge production of The Glass Menagerie opens, we're already lost in fantasy. Set designer Bob Crowley places the Wingfields' New York walk-up on a sea of reflective blackness, with a fire escape rising to the heavens. Tennessee Williams's elegiac words pause for movement: characters stare over the edge of the stage, faces lit up, sometimes reaching out. These interludes aren't always clear, but they feel right.

Otherwise, Tiffany's production stays close to the text. Cherry Jones is no fragile, fading violet as Amanda. And she couldn't be more right: indomitable and often funny. This Amanda will not let the world get her down. She sees promise in that great abyss. Zachary Quinto's Tom may be too contemporary (his gayness is never in question), but he's hot-blooded and full of bile, eschewing the idea that Tom should be passive or distant.

For me, the play hinges on the Gentleman Caller. Celia Keenan-Bolger and especially Brian J. Smith are moving as Laura delicately opens up to Jim, in the intimacy of candlelight. Smith enters the Wingfield apartment with an overcompensating charm, wincing behind Amanda's back at her every excess. But his braggadocio fades into empathy for Laura, his feelings as surprising to him as to her. He's almost in tears after kissing Laura; I'd guess he's never shared a moment this unflinching with Betty, his fiance. Keenan-Bolger's Laura speaks in an adolescent whisper, with a limp that's barely noticeable. Her imagination has grossly magnified her condition. But that same imagination has transformed a few pieces of glass (the audience sees only one) into an obsession and a refuge. Cherry Jones said in an interview she has to believe Laura does indeed marry. If not, the play's too sad. And why not leave the theater with one flicker of hope?