In Tenessee Williams' classic "memory play," narrator Tom recalls that his mother Amanda Wingfield is a faded, jilted Southern belle, desperate to assure a future for her lame, plain, obsessively shy daughter, Laura. Half living in a Blue-Mountain past where she entertained myriad "gentlemen callers," Amanda ceaselessly nags her son to better himself and contribute more to the family. Aspiring writer Tom can't help but identify with his father, a telephone repair man who "fell in love with long distance" yet remains prominent in a picture on the shabby apartment wall. Grinning. While Amanda's children have her "at wit's end," she's almost always center stage in Sharon Spelman's portrayal. Director Kent Paul has focused on Amanda's plight: Can she change her children? And on the matter of finances: Will Amanda's acting-with-phone- script sell magazine subscriptions, her emphasis on costs make Tom less a spendthrift and Laura less wasteful, her preparations for Laura's first gentleman caller pay off?
Emotionally, Spelman handles deftly Amanda's swift transition from pitiful (facing, along with Laura, lifelong humiliating dependency) to plotting ("just going to see that" Laura will marry some nice young man). From then on, she becomes herself a director to stage the drama of a visit from a gentleman caller. The latter is Tom's shoe factory co-worker , Jim O'Connor, surprisingly Laura's suppressed love from high school. Anyone less engaging could easily have been overwhelmed by Amanda, greeting him in an off-the-shoulder, flowered gown trimmed with lace from better days. Brit Whittle's Jim, however, seems every enthusiastic inch the man of both their dreams. Courteously flattering, ambitious, outgoing, Jim comes to the Wingfields through likeable Whittle as an emissary from reality. Although obviously trying out the power he believes he's gained from taking a public speaking course, Jim almost succeeds in bringing Laura out of her shell. But when he accidentally breaks the horn off a fragile unicorn, a symbol for Laura and her favorite in the glass collection to which she is devoted, he in effect reduces both to "ordinary." Amanda is not to dictate the episode's denouement - it seems Jim has a fiance. She blames Tom for not knowing that, but he has already planned his escape, not just in illusion by going out drinking or to the movies. Instead he's joined the merchant marine, where he ponders Laura's fate from another side of the world.
If there is any problem with Spelman's performance, it is that she starts out on such a high that there is little chance for her to go anywhere but on the same plane. Thus, the audience may tire of her tirades just as do Amanda's children. Physically, none of them seem related, and Sarah Stockton's dark Laura is anything but fragile. It's hard to tell if her indisposition comes from real withdrawal and nausea or if she's faking illness to avoid interaction with Jim and family.
Totally miscast, Mark Thornton is a too-young Tom who seems to be reading lines rather than narrating or acting. There's a split focus toward the end when too much memory action distracts from Tom's words, especially since they're not delivered with much strength. But then, little attention is paid to his performance by a director who has chosen to make Amanda a tragic heroine and Sharon Spelman to glory in that interpretation.
Banyan Theater Company is fortunate in having its new home in a new theatre with good sight lines and acoustics. Sound and lighting are well integrated, a true feat in a play staged in memory. St. Louis brick is used judiciously for the setting, though there's little sense of the Paradise Ballroom that's outside across from the Wingfields' fire escape.
