Theater review: 'The Glass Menagerie' at the Mark Taper Forum

Amanda Wingfield is one of the greatest roles in American drama, but this scene-stealer from “The Glass Menagerie” isn’t as easy to get right as some might assume.  All credit then to Judith Ivey, who magnificently incarnates this mother making a last-ditch effort to get her grown children onto a path of respectability and security after a long and embarrassing detour of family hardship. It’s a performance that I’ll set down with Vanessa Redgrave’s in “Orpheus Descending” as high-water marks in my Tennessee Williams theatergoing.

“The Glass Menagerie,” which opened Sunday at the Mark Taper Forum in a production directed by Gordon Edelstein, shouldn’t be missed by any devoted admirers of Williams’ writing. It captures better than any play I know the claustrophobic reality of family life, with its jostling interests, imposing expectations, burdensome concern and overwhelming love. Notice the way Ivey’s ears prick up when she hears a cough. Could Tom (Patch Darragh) or Laura (Keira Keeley) be coming down with something? Hands marshaling scarves and milk, this Amanda is a maternal general maintaining a heavy surveillance on potential enemies from her cramped St. Louis tenement.

Nothing has been the same, as the family joke goes, since Tom and Laura’s father, a telephone company worker, fell in love with long distances. Abandoned, Amanda and her two children have been in survival mode ever since. The Depression has further constricted possibilities, and the future seems almost too forbidding to contemplate, with the world careening toward all-out war and the trio’s personal prospects not much brighter.

Employing her gift for gab while swallowing her dignity, Amanda sells magazine subscriptions by phone to acquaintances who hang up on her. Laura, crippled from a childhood illness, has retreated into a realm of her own, taking solace in a collection of glass animal figurines. And Tom, a budding writer who serves as the play’s narrator, slogs by day in a shoe warehouse and escapes to the movies at night, returning drunk to the apartment that has become his prison.

The naturalness of Ivey’s characterization is almost Darwinian. Accent in place, the gray hair and frayed outfit just right, she paces around the stage as though in her private living room, spying, intruding, pressuring and consoling. Her words tumble from her like improvisational thoughts. When trying to build up her daughter’s self-esteem, she urges Laura to cultivate other things to make up for her slight physical disadvantage, such as “charm — vivacity — and charm!” That second “charm,” yanked determinedly when words fail her, registers as a mother’s willful determination to rewrite her child’s story in the only way she knows how.

Misguided and oppressive, Ivey’s Amanda can also be playful and even a bit silly. Recalling the army of suitors that courted her in her Southern heyday, she squeals at the storybook memory of those myriad men who showered her with her beloved jonquils. And when Tom announces that he has invited a co-worker for dinner, Amanda, who has been pestering him relentlessly to help her find a gentleman caller for Laura, can barely contain her excitement. Her tendency to jut her tongue at jests and kick up her heels in the throes of enthusiasm goes into overdrive.

Edelstein’s production, which began last year at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven and had a successful off-Broadway run in the spring for the Roundabout Theatre Company, unfolds on an appropriately grim apartment set designed by Michael Yeargan. A scrim in the background lights up on the faces of characters who emerge as if in a dream, and a picture of the absent Mr. Wingfield hangs as an eternal reminder of the handsome charmer responsible for all this mess.
 
The staging takes Tom at his word that “The Glass Menagerie” is “a memory play,” and as such the transitions are as fluid as the use of the space. But there’s more realism than diaphanous flutter. Artistry isn’t allowed to candy-coat the starkness.
  
Some of the production’s more daring interpretive leaps involve Tom, who’s actually writing the characters that are appearing before us and occasionally even typing the dialogue that’s being spoken. Bolder still is the way Darragh suggestively plays this young scribe as a gay man who has yet to fully acknowledge his secret to himself. Williams’ biography lends credence to these choices, which are consistently eye-opening if at times awkwardly executed by Darragh, whose jumpy mannerism and wavering accent are offset by a brave originality and emotional truthfulness.

The production slowed for me in the second half, when the dashing Jim O’Connor (Ben McKenzie) arrives with Tom for dinner, setting Laura’s fragile heart aflutter and turning Amanda into a ludicrously affected old belle. The deliberate pacing here was nearly as sluggish as the play’s opening when Tom fidgets for inspiration before beginning to compose the drama we’re about to watch.

But perhaps it was just the heartbreaking futility of it all that made me a tad restless. McKenzie’s charming Jim would have made a great catch for Keeley’s endearingly defeated Laura, but the prospect of a happy ending was as dim as the living room after the lights went out, thanks to Tom’s failure to pay the electric bill. (Lighting designer Jennifer Tipton illuminated the scene with candles, another risky maneuver that made visibility difficult but was somberly atmospheric.)

“The Glass Menagerie” is not only about family but also about an artist’s difficult coming of age. Underneath all the humorous hostility of this household lies the exquisite tenderness of a compassionate writer. One moment, incidental probably to some, epitomized this quality for me. It occurs when Laura has run out of the apartment on an errand and is heard stumbling outside. The alarm and fluster of Amanda and Tom tell you all you need to know about the play’s stakes and the playwright’s heart.

But where Williams excelled most is in the creation of larger-than-life female characters, who refuse to bow to circumstances intent on toppling them. And Ivey, finding her own stamp on a character first immortalized by the legendary Laurette Taylor, inhabits every molecule of Amanda’s flamboyant being. After seeing a number of dull productions of “The Glass Menagerie” in the last decade, I’m pleased to report that Williams’ colorful genius has been gloriously redeemed.

— Charles McNulty

twitter.com\charlesmcnulty

“The Glass Menagerie.” Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Call for exceptions. Ends Oct. 17. $20 to $65 (213) 628-2772 or www.centertheatregroup.org Running time:  2 hours, 55 minutes.

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Photos: Top: Patch Darragh and Judith Ivey. Bottom: Keira Keeley and Darragh. Credit: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times.

Comments

[Brad]

I'm very excited to see this, and even more so with the Redgrave comparison. I saw her in Orpheus Descending as well and it was brilliant - one of the best performances I've seen. I'm excited that this one may match it!

[Tom O]

Wow. In the same league as Vanessa Redgrave in "Orpheus"? That is strong praise indeed. I had decided to skip this production because I have been fortunate enough to witness Maureen Stapleton, Geraldine Fitzgerald and Jessica Tandy each play Amanda Wingfield in my lifetime. But after reading this glorious review I may have to add Judith Ivey to the list of incandescent Amanda Wingfield's. And speaking of Vanessa, I'd love to see her play Amanda too.

[Richard C]

Couldn’t appreciate director Edelestein’s tepid approach in the staging of the Glass Menagerie as a comedy or at best a tragicomedy. Frequent laughter in the Glass Menagerie? ??? Not what I wanted.

[Theatre maven]

I saw this production in previews and marveled at Ms. Ivey's performance. Go, go, GO!

[Stephen]

They laughed because the play has comedic moments!

[Valerie]

Took our sons, 22 and 24, and the whole family loved this production. The Taper has brought us another winner. And Judith Ivey is a sublime Amanda!

[marc waveman]

The original Television version played by Katherine Hepburn portrayed Amanda Wingfield as a somewhat befuddled character. This version at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles shows Amanda as a dominating force that cripples the lives of everyone. Judith Ivey, as Amanda, does a masterful job of castrating her son and crippling her daughter. The psychological motive is her narcissism and attempt to recapture the spotlight form her youth when she was a "lovely Southern Belle". Her crippled daughter, Laura, is to be pitied when her mom retells the stories of the many gentlemen callers from her youth; Laura has never had a gentleman caller. Laura stopped going to high school and dropped out of typing school because of intense shyness and lack of self-esteem. The daughter cannot compete with her mother and inhabits a magical world of small glass animals: the glass menagerie. The lack of love is tangible because glass conducts heat and light only when it has been infused with heat and light. One senses that the daughter has never experienced an infusion of love and inhabits a cold universe. Laura keeps the glass menagerie on a table where the animals absorb light and heat and transmit it in small doses back to the emotionally crippled girl. In this production, Laura dispenses with the metal appliance on her foot early in the first scene, this is a mistake because the character played by Keira Keeley drifts around the scenes with one foot raised at an awkward angle that converts her crippled condition into farce.
The key figure in the menagerie is a unicorn that would be just like a horse except for the horn growing from the center of its forehead. Both the daughter, Laura, and the son Tom become associated with the unicorn in unusual ways. Laura dances with her gentleman caller in the second act and the unicorn drops and the horn falls off, making it just like any other horse. Could this be a foreshadowing that Laura is destined to become ordinary like any other girl? It is unlikely. In this production, Jim O’Connor, the gentleman caller, played by Ben McKenzie, gives Laura a little “ferverino” telling her to have “self-esteem”. At times Jim appears to be a character from a late-night infomercial invoking courage and faith and telling Laura that all she needs is “self-esteem”. This performance appears a little anachronistic in a pl
ay that is set in a time period prior to World War II. It also appears a little silly. It is apparent that what Laura really needs is love, and she begins to blossom prior to the moment when Jim rejects her and tells her that he is already engaged to another girl. One feels that without Jim’s love Laura will revert to the reflected love and light from her glass menagerie.
The unicorn also mirrors Laura’s brother Tom, and seems to symbolize introversion. Tom wanders out of the house every night and claims to attend the “theater”. He is often drunk. One suspects that he will abandon his mother and sister just like his father. In the original production Tom was more of a drunk, in this production the actor Patch Darragh portrays Tom in a manner that undercuts the psychological tension and makes for a more farcical portrayal. The Glass Menagerie is written by Tennessee Williams, but Tom appears to be played as a caricature of Truman Capote.
The farcical condition of all of the characters except for Amanda Wingfield, as played by Judith Ivey, makes her performance darker than that of Katherine Hepburn. This is a haunting portrayal of a character bent on devouring all love, light and oxygen. Such a person cripples, drives away and destroys all of the people in her world.

[Jaime M. Schvartzman]

Outstanding show. A must for those who appreciate quality theater.

[David]

Did not care for the way Ivey portrayed the character. The minimal amount of emotional range did not evoke the pathology needed to understand character depth. Additionally, the direction seemed to be playing for laughs rather than depth. Frankly, the first half of the play left me half-asleep. The second half rebounded better especially during the interaction between Laura and her gentleman caller.

[markiejoe]

I've seen maybe a dozen stage productions of this play in my lifetime, and I loved this production as much as any, with one major quibble. But I was riveted through most of it, as was the rest of the audience. (Seldom have I "heard" a quieter theatre audience, especially in L.A.)

I thought Ivey was wonderful in her very different but nonetheless affecting portrayal (and yes, as my favorite acting teacher used to say, the first order in any drama is to find the humor!). The insights Ivey conveyed through some of her line readings were quite amazing. And I found every motivation understandable.

And once I figured out that the actor playing Tom was playing Williams himself, I marveled at the layers that brought to the events as they unfolded. Interesting choice, and effective. Well done.

My only problem was with the portrayal of Laura, which I found annoying to the max. I don't happen to think Laura is either a simp or mentally retarded, which is how she came off to me in this production. I'm totally with the reviewer in that the production also slowed for me in the second half with the arrival of the Gentleman Caller. Having seen some daring and really moving versions of this extended two-person scene between Laura and Jim, this one didn't do it for me.

But all in all, considering my usual experiences with live theater in L.A., this production ranks right up there at the top.