Opinion: CTC's 'Glass Menagerie'

"The Glass Menagerie," Tennessee Williams's second play and first masterpiece, has probably had more productions than all his other works combined.

Its small cast of five, three of them young, makes it attractive to schools and other groups on tight budgets, while its language and emotions are so accessible no special effects are needed to convey them.

This rare and beautiful simplicity does not insure success, however. The play has also probably had more god-awful productions than all his other works combined.

A New Approach

Mounting yet another "Glass Menagerie" requires not only a discerning sensibility, but also the fortitude to follow in the footsteps of such great stars as Laurette Taylor, Helen Hayes, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Lawrence, to name but a few unforgettable Amandas.

So CTC Theater Live had its work cut out for it: most of us have a cherished version of the play enshrined in our hearts, to which we cling with fanatical devotion. Could it be approximated? Could we be won over?

The answer is a resounding yes, and for a fascinating reason. The production running at Guild Hall for the next two weekends (8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2:30 on Sundays) has been approached from what seems to be a completely new viewpoint.

A "memory play" set in the Wingfield apartment in St. Louis in 1944, when it was written, "The Glass Menagerie" is introduced and commented on by Tom Wingfield, the Narrator (Steve Ford).

Young Tom (Robert Meehan) is holding down a dead-end job in a shoe warehouse and trying to steer clear of his demanding, critical, mother, Amanda (Vaughan Allentuck). He writes poetry and practically lives at the movies.

Amanda, whose husband abandoned his family to join the merchant marine some years before, scrambles to keep food on the table by selling magazine subscriptions over the phone.

"Gentleman Callers"

To compensate for her humiliating circumstances she reimagines scenes of the "gentleman callers" of her girlhood, and focuses on her daughter, Laura (Randy Lee Hendler), a partial cripple who has withdrawn from a real world she cannot cope with into the safer universe of her glass-animal collection.

Tom must bring home a gentleman caller for Laura, Amanda insists, fearing her daughter will wind up a "barely tolerated spinster, one of those little bird-like women without any nest."

Even though her own marriage brought her nothing but poverty and humiliation, a husband, she believes, offers the only salvation possible for the excruciatingly shy girl.

No Happy Ending

When Tom finally comes through with his fellow-worker Jim O'Connor (Ken Wiesinger), a charming Irish jock Laura idolized in high school, for a radiant moment she breaks out of her isolation.

But a happy ending is not in these calamitous Southern cards.

The success of any "Glass Menagerie" hinges on the performance of the actress playing Amanda. Traditionally she has been portrayed as a genteel, slightly balmy former belle who lives in a past crowded with gentlemen callers, one of whom she will marry and be "well-provided-for."

A Different Amanda

Ms. Allentuck, the current president of CTC Live, puts a different spin on the role. Her Amanda is a scold who hounds her children to "masticate" their food and mind their posture, and yells at Tom to "rise and shine."

There's nothing delicate about this wife who's been dumped by her husband. Driven by the hellish fury of "a woman scorned," she exaggerates or perhaps even invents the gentlemen callers - "17 at one time!" - in a desperate attempt to salvage her shattered ego.

This Amanda is not a frail little daffy thing, she's mad as hell and quite delusional in Ms. Allentuck's moving and deeply original performance.

Don't Miss It

The rest of the cast mostly keeps up. Mr. Wiesinger is marvelous as Jim, the long-awaited gentleman caller, absolutely charming and guyish and, well, perfect.

Ms. Hendler seemed a little tentative as Laura on opening night, but her scene with Jim and the candelabrum was breathtaking. Under Barbara Bolton's sensitive direction, the two find the fragile joy in the brief contact their characters have.

Mr. Ford makes a charming, rueful Narrator, while Mr. Meehan is affecting as the moody, restless Tom, the tormented young Tennessee Williams of this beautifully remembered play.

Steven Espach's compellingly sepulchral set and lighting design evoke the dark mood of this early work, as do Chas W. Roeder's costumes and Paul Bowes's original music.

This "Glass Menagerie" will add new dimensions to your image of Mr. Williams's haunting elegy for the death of his family; be sure to see it.