Updating an old classic, Court Theater's The Glass Menagerie is a refreshing but ultimately unsatisfying production. There's a lot to like and dislike, and it's likely to be a crowd splitter. But shows that have this effect tend to because they introduce something bold or unusual to us, and whether we like them or not, they often are the types of plays that remain in our memories much longer than shows that more or less play it safe.
As Tennessee Williams' memory play, productions of Menagerie have, or should have, a sort of license to reinvent the play, given that it all takes place in the mind of the main character, Tom, and that Williams himself was more interested in non-traditional forms of theater to get at the truth than to sticking with the norm. Given this, Court's reimagining of the house Tom grew up in as a mean, cold, steel frame changing colors of a nauseating yellow, seems to have been expected as some point, and it's striking to look at.
Where director Charles Newell goes wrong is that he doesn't push it all the way, and that's why we leave the theater unsatisfied, like we've glimpsed something amazing, really bold and fresh, but that something wasn't confident enough to come out all the way.
Jay Whittaker as Tom is cynical and somewhat sarcastic. Tom's sister Laura, played by the beautiful Chanon Cross, is a cripple and spends her time playing with her glass collection of animals, a symbol that has multiple meanings in the play, referring to its title. When Tom brings home a date for his sister at his mother's request, the stage becomes naturally light, and a moment of realism takes place that seems longer than any other scene. In this touching scene, after Laura has an anxiety-attack, she confesses her long-time crush on Jim, her date, and as she swells with hope we watch with sadness as Jim lets out his confession: he's engaged.
While this happens, Laura's glass unicorn gets its horn broken off, and at the same time, her adolescent paralysis gets shattered. She falls to pieces and realizes she has to grow up if she ever wants a life like Jim's. Playing with see-through figurines is not preparatory or helpful to playing with opaque and complex people, namely her date.
Williams called Menagerie the saddest play he'd ever written, and it is a weepy, but any sort of solid emotion gets distracted from and scrambled by this half-baked -- though, at times, brilliant -- production.
