More than 60 years after its 1944 debut, The Glass Menagerie still has the power to move, as New Theater in Coral Gables shows. Under artistic director Ricky J. Martinez, the play gets an involving, ultimately haunting production.
Today's audience and the Tennessee Williams characters of the Great Depression both are operating in difficult economic times amid wars abroad, but this production succeeds with on-the-money performances and imaginative staging, not historical parallels.
This is the story of the fragile Wingfields of St. Louis Tom, the poet/dreamer/ warehouseman who wants out; Laura, his limping, painfully shy sister; and Amanda, the saleslady/mother who relies too much on Tom and obsesses over Laura's poor prospects. But for almost all of Act II it's the story of what happens when Laura is visited by a Gentleman Caller -- Jim, a good-hearted, ambitious colleague of Tom's and high school classmate of Laura's. The memory of struggling late into their chorus rehearsal with her leg in a bulky metal brace still haunts Laura: "I had to go clumping all the way up the aisle with everyone watching."
Cliff Burgess as Tom moves seamlessly from a syllable-savoring narrator at the opening to a believable player in the family tragedy. Katherine Michelle Tanne delivers a Laura that's shy to the point of sickness but not whiny. Angie Radosh is pitch- perfect from the start as Amanda, a clear-eyed schemer in difficult straits (and that eye-popping red scarf seems to be just the sort of thing a struggling saleswoman like her might wear to attract attention).
And Christopher Vicchiollo exudes a clear-eyed, nice-guy optimism as Laura's Gentleman Caller. The audience may be surprised at that. In an earlier scene, Jim lighting Tom's cigarette has a striking, sexual overlay. It's a moment that has no connection to the character Vicchiollo convincingly plays out later. Still, Martinez more than makes up for that curious decision with Tom's exit up the theater's center aisle. Tom leaves as he entered, flipping the metallic lid of his cigarette lighter, but now that sound carries with it the haunting memory of his sister struggling against her confining leg brace.
http://media.miamiherald.com/smedia/2009/03/03/10/614-4997551.embedded.p..." />
