The Glass Menagerie

The Glass Menagerie at the Liverpool Playhouse

I had not intended to review this production from Shared Experience as I went to see it for pleasure but in honour of my first blog, here goes.
It is a play I have seen many times over the years and, to be honest, I have never seen a bad production. No play is actor-prooof, but this one gets pretty close.
The semi-autobiographical early drama from Tennessee Williams follows a few days in the life of a dysfunctional family.
The mother Amanada Wingfield has been deserted by her husband many years ago and lives with her crippled daughter Laura and warehouse worker son Tom.
Tom (based on Williams himself) has dreams of becoming a writer while daughter Laura is crippled not only physically but mentally with an overbearing shyness.
The mother, who talks constantly of the many men who courted her in her youth, is now determined to find a man for her daughter.
No one is happy although the mother has a false sense of gaiety, earning money by selling subscriptions to a romantic magazine over the telephone. Tom escapes his dull, routine life, by visits to the cinema and bars.
All this is explained in the first half of the play while the second is devoted to the arranged visit of a workmate of Tom's to the family home. Mother sees him as a possible suitor for Laura (the so-called "gentleman caller" ) while Laura is petrified when she discovers he is a chap she used to idolise at High School.
The man himself ,Jim, just thinks he is popping by for a visit, not even knowing Tom has a sister.
Of course, the meat of the drama is in this second half as all four characters connect in different ways.
But Williams was able to interest us in his characters in that first half exposition - and how brilliantly he did it.
Tom acts as a narrator, talking directly to the audience in a very intimate way.
Williams likened his play to a film and interestingly this production uses a back screen on which old blurry, black and white movies play, sometimes Westerns, sometimes romantic dance scenes.
It seems unnecessary but it works here although I was not sure about bringing some of the characters from the past on stage in mimed performances including the missing father. Perhaps a play about memories which this is should remain no quite so boldly stated.
Whatever, it does not take away from the essential substance of Williams's play which is about how family life can be damaging to all involved.
Imogen Stubbs as the mother is younger and better looking than actresses in other productions I have seen. This caught me off-guard at first but thinking of it, she was still old enough to have grown-up children and there is no reason why she has to be an old crow. So it was a different performance but one that still made sense and Ms Stubbs is a fine actress and created her own Amanda.
Emma Lowndes caught the fragility of the shy Laura, a girl whose life revolves around her collection of glass animals. Her sad-eyed expressions were truly heart-wrenching. Patrick Kennedy provided a solid Tom and Kyle Stoller gave the gentleman caller more personality and energy than I have seen before, bringing the rather anonymous character alive.
So, an excellent production, nicely staged. The play has always been my favourite 20th Century drama and Shared Experience did not let me down.
I would rate this 9/10