Review: LitMoon's THE GLASS MENAGERIE Shows Life After the Bough Breaks

The work of Tennessee Williams features the cruelty of life stripped of potential and the suffering of characters who hold hope for rescue from the disappointments of an unexpected life. Much of this turmoil reflects the personal suffering of the playwright, who lived a life of repression and stifling familial obligations. The Glass Menagerie is a memory play that exemplifies the frustrations of the playwright through his character proxy, Tom Wingfield, both of whom struggle with an overbearing mother, a mentally ill sister, and an absent father.

The three Wingfields are emotionally caged to the point of self-annihilation. Aging Southern Belle Amanda cannot come to terms with the fact that her socially unhinged daughter, Laura, will never live up to her example of a charming debutante. For a modern audience, the stakes of this relationship seem low until it's made clear that both Amanda and Laura depend on Tom's income to survive in their dingy flat. Tom, saddled with a life of solitary obligation to his family, wants desperately to be free of their weight. These characters push against each other's needs until a pressure point bursts within the delicate balance of the shattered Wingfield family.

Directed by John Blondell, Litmoon's penetrating production of The Glass Menagerie gives a glaring view of this dysfunctional family. Performances offer consistently strong choices that show vulnerability leaking through aggressive tendencies toward rage, defiance, fear, and the ambivalence of repressed despondency. Viewers are invited to empathize with each character while still acknowledging their disastrous dysfunction. Tom (Stan Hoffman) shuffles through the play in a state of beaten acquiescence that gives the feeling of a character on the verge of evaporating into nothing-a lovely harbinger of the play's conclusion. Tom does his best to appease his demanding mother (Victoria Finlayson), an aging Southern belle frantic to procure a gentleman caller for emotionally disturbed daughter Laura (Paige Tautz). Tom, confident that chances of finding a man for his disabled sister are slim, does his best to appease his mother without real hope for salvation. Described by her family members as "shy," Tautz plays Laura with a depth of insecurity consistent with mental instability, inserting heartbreaking severity to the task of finding her a husband. Laura is childlike and wide-eyed, but prone to uncontrollable emotional meltdown, and most likely incapable of managing any sort of real romance. Tom is left with two women who depend on him completely-it's a tragic victory when he finally follows in his absent father's footsteps.

Blondell's creative staging offers a bold take on this show. Lines are delivered out to the audience rather than in conversation, forcing viewers into the claustrophobic world of the play. This dialog isn't generally driven by reactive response between characters, so Amanda and her children talking over each other and out to the audience shows these discussions as overlapping monologues in which each character's point of view is never truly heard by the rest.

On the set (design by Danila Korogodsky), the canopy of barren winter branches is an unyielding ceiling of decay. When the gentleman caller Tom brings home does not change the family fortune, the branches fall: winter is nearing, and the very walls of the production close in on the family. After Tom abandons his mother and sister to fulfill personal potential, Amanda and Laura wander through the fallen brambles, affixing petals to the branches-a misguided and futile attempt to force blooms on dead boughs.

Litmoon's production captures the resounding void of the Wingfields' desperation. The Glass Menagerie's characters, flawed past self-awareness, anxiously grasp at a lifestyle unavailable to them. The audience champions their hopes while simultaneously recognizing the folly of their untenable desires. Striking and complex, Litmoon's The Glass Menagerie offers a view of the constant regret that haunts those bereft of realistic hopes for a better future.

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