A Cracked Menagerie

Never before has The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams’ autobiographical memory play, seemed quite so autobiographical. For the [Roundabout's current production], Director Gordon Edelstein has taken Williams’ production notes for the published version, in which Williams advises future directors to shy away from approaching the play with too much realism, and run with them. And so we have Tom (Patch Darragh) workshopping the play we’re seeing in a rundown hotel room.

Instead of addressing the audience with his opening soliloquy, Edelstein has Darragh reading it from a page fresh out of his typewriter; when Tom’s mother and sister enter the room, Darragh mutters their dialogue along with them before retreating to the sidelines with a notebook to take notes. The effect is far from realism, but a great deal more distracting than Williams perhaps intended for this play about the fragility of both hope and the human spirit.

If the performances overcame the directorial vision imposed upon the play, it would be a different story, but with one major exception, the actors are always a shade or two off. Darragh takes his cue from Williams himself, and presents us with a Tom who is so effeminate that we’re unsure of whether or not the gentleman caller he’s bringing to dinner is for his crippled sister Laura or himself. And when he tells his mother that he spends all his free time at the movies, one is reminded that Williams once wrote a short story about gay men cruising in the balconies of movie theaters. Keira Keeley’s Laura is so terminally shy that she seems simple, unable to cope with even the simplest of human tasks. There are no gradations to her shyness; she’s as awkward among her family as she is with Tom’s co-worker Jim (Michael Mosley), the gentleman caller on whom the family’s hopes are pinned. Mosley nails the period language, but comes across as such a blowhard that he seems more like a motivational speaker hired by Tom to bring his sister to life than a regular guy over for dinner.

Then there’s Judith Ivey as Tom and Laura’s mother, Amanda. Amanda Wingfield has been so firmly entrenched in audience’s minds as the character for aging dramatic actresses that there’s a certain anti-climactic aspect to the performance during the show. Only in retrospect do certain things stand-out in your mind (perhaps fittingly for a memory play): the way Ivey conveys Amanda’s desperation to live gracefully by using her company laugh as a trowel to smooth over the rough patches when reality intrudes; her terrible daintiness when she greets Jim in an ancient dress from her youth; her unhinged desperation when she discovers that Jim is effectively already engaged, shattering her dreams of a chance for Laura and a vicarious shot at a new ending to her own story. Ivey towers over the rest of the play in a way that makes us forgive the directorial trespasses and the off-kilter performances, but regret the lost chance at making this revival into something blinding. Perhaps this Menagerie will become something greater in the memories of theatergoers.

> The Glass Menagerie

Through May 20, [Laura Pels Theatre], 111 W. 46th St. (betw. 6th & 7th Aves.), 212-719-1300; $70–$80.