Tennessee Williams's "The Glass Menagerie"
Last Thursday TH and I saw Roundabout Theatre Company's production of this American classic. Directed by Gordon Edelstein, this production offered the innovation of setting the entire play in the New Orleans hotel room in which Tom Wingfield lives out his unfulfilled literary ambition, after he abandoned his aging mother and crippled sister. The staging made clear that the play is Tom's creation, from different parts of remorse and self-justification. We saw things from his point of view as oppressively as we remained in that dingy, spartan room. As if to match the dourness of the setting, the lyricism of Tom's speeches had also been exchanged for the gritty realism of the work of an incompetent writer. Patch Darragh was rather inconsistent in his portrayal of Tom, at different times fey and butch, as one NYT reader commented. The interpretation leaves no doubt that Tom is gay, and that the movies is an excuse for frequenting the bars. Judith Ivey was convincing as the na...