Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie is a gentle, sensitive play about a frustrated family: mother (Cherry Jones) who is delusional about realities as she tries to hold things together and possibly find a husband for her daughter with a bad leg; daughter (Celia Keenan-Bolger), whose delicate shyness is as fragile as her collection of glass animals; and a restless son (Zachary Quinto) who feels trapped. As directed by John Tiffany, the acting by Jones and Quinto is overblown, starting with Quinto’s introductory speech which he sings in a half-crying tone (he does the same in his coda) and an overbearing, over-the-top Jones who shouts and chews up the scenery in both Act 1 and Act 2. Keenan-Bolger is fine — an almost ethereal wisp of a girl withdrawn into her dreams. The play’s dialogue has within it the emotional vagaries of the content; they just need to be said, not shouted or cried. Thus, the gentle simplicity here is destroyed.
Brian J. Smith is spot on as the very believable gentleman caller in Act 2. Some of the southern accents drift here, and missing from this production is a Southern gentility that Williams infused in his plays.
I believe that Bob Crowley is the best designer in the world. But in this production, he has out-innovated himself. His abstract construction suggesting a tall building with fire escapes is creative, original, and sets the scene well. His idea to have a reflective pool of water covering the downstage so that part of the audience (on the mezzanine and above) can see a reflection of the action, is ridiculous. So is his caricature of a costume for Jones in Act 2. Still, ya gotta love a man who will stick his neck out like this.
