Better still, he’s too internally present to be dwarfed by Amanda’s grandiosity. His accent and appearance might not jibe with the Tom of our imagination, but he embodies the concentrated distractedness of a young artist plotting his necessary escape from the workaday world. Much like the scenic effects of a match that refuses to extinguish and a fire-escape that climbs directly into the darkened future, memory is being transmuted before our eyes into dramatic prose that bends ineluctably toward poetry.Ī good deal of the lyrical credit goes to Quinto. Tiffany’s production foregrounds the narrator, giving his monologues time and visual enhancement that never let us forget that this act of remembrance is also a triumph of writing. This is the opposite of Taylor’s approach, which critic Stark Young described as “naturalistic acting of the most profound, spontaneous, unbroken continuity and moving life.”īut my ambivalence toward Jones’ supercharged characterization didn’t diminish my gratitude for this “Glass Menagerie.” Much of this has to do with the way Tom assumes a greater prominence than usual. In her determination to highlight the survivalist strength and determination of this single parent, she inadequately modulates her vibrant force, maintaining a monotonous intensity that brought to mind the Stanislavskian distinction between living a role and performing one.Īrms flamboyantly aflutter, Southern accent cresting its way to the back mezzanine, her Amanda is a theatrical conjuration, a virtuosic display of histrionic artifice. My own take on the matter: Jones offers a technically accomplished performance that makes up in fervor what it lacks in subtlety and variation. Friends and colleagues have used words such as “calculated,” “hammy” and “baroque” to describe an Amanda touted by the New York Times as “one for the ages.” The last great Amanda I saw was Judith Ivey when she reprised her fine performance in Gordon Edelstein’s production at the Mark Taper Forum in 2010.Ĭherry Jones has received some glorious reviews, but her performance has also drawn quite a few detractors. Maureen Stapleton, Jessica Tandy and Julie Harris are a few of the storied talents who have essayed the role on Broadway. The play has since been a vehicle for serious actresses of a certain age.
Her portrayal of Amanda sealed her legend and helped launch Williams’. Laurette Taylor, the star of the original 1945 Broadway production making a final comeback after years of alcoholic misery, gave what has been described as one of the greatest performances in the history of Broadway.
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I’d rather not recall the misuse of Jessica Lange in David Leveaux’s 2005 airy-fairy treatment of “The Glass Menagerie.” But can it really be that the last truly great Broadway production of a Williams play I’ve seen was Peter Hall’s 1989 staging of “Orpheus Descending” starring Vanessa Redgrave at her most transcendentally moving? A quarter of a century is a ludicrously long time to wait for Williams at full strength.Īn early play with a mature vision, “The Glass Menagerie” propelled Williams from relative obscurity to national renown. And if inflated claims have been made for this one it’s partly because of the poor way Williams’ work has fared on Broadway in recent decades. No revival of a masterwork can be considered definitive.
Equally noteworthy, John Tiffany, who won a Tony for his staging of the musical “Once,” is collaborating again with choreographer-movement director Steven Hoggett in a dramatic application of their signature lyricism that’s hauntingly accented with Nico Muhly’s music.īut the real star of the production is possibly the oldest name in the playbill, Tennessee Williams, whose indelible memory play is heard in all its breath-catching delicacy.
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Zachary Quinto, the 21st century face of Spock and an actor of compelling interiority, plays Tom, the narrator and burgeoning writer burning to break free of his suffocating family responsibility.
But this isn’t the only stellar attraction. NEW YORK - The revival of “The Glass Menagerie” that has Broadway abuzz boasts two-time Tony winner Cherry Jones in the role of the Southern gothic matriarch Amanda Wingfield, among the greatest parts in the repertoire for a mature actress.
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