The Glass Menagerie

Thu, 19 Mar 2009, 11:25 am

‘The Glass Menagerie’, a semi-autobiographical play by Tennessee Williams, is Black Swan State Theatre Company’s Production of this American classic, performed nightly at 7.30 until Saturday 28^th March. There are several matinees.

Tom Wingfield (Steve Turner) is a warehouse worker in St. Louis during the ‘30s depression, and the play starts with Tom standing on the fire escape terrace of his home listening to the blues sax music (Graeme Blevins and Paul Grabowsky) drifting up from the night club below. As he relates the start of his story, his overbearing, manipulating mother (Gillian Jones) calls him to the dinner table. The hate is immediately obvious in his eyes. He is desperate to leave home and all the petty squabbles, but his sister Laura (Melanie Munt) who has ‘a little defect’ adores and needs him. Laura has had every ounce of self-confidence sucked from her, by her control-freak mother. Laura has trouble even speaking to anyone and so finds sanctuary caring for the animals in her glass menagerie. If Tom were leave, what would happen to this fragile sister? Could his conscience allow him to desert her, just as his father had deserted them 20 years earlier?

The mother decides that it is time for Laura to have a ‘gentleman caller’, and Tom is ordered to find someone. He invites a workmate (Myles Pollard) around one evening for dinner. Will this be the answer to all of their prayers?

The set (Adam Gardnir) is designed in Picasso’s cubist style, linking it to the references of Guernica in the script. It has mainly Perspex floors, walls and ceilings, all with grossly distorted perspective depicting the chaos in the family structure. This innovative and very effective set also gave the impression that the characters were glass animals in a glass case. With so many reflecting surfaces, the lighting problem for Jon Buswell must have been a nightmare but the final result was superb.

Director Kate Cherry decided to go for the original script, full of raw, politically incorrect dialogue, instead of sweetening it up as so often happens. The whole cast was outstanding. Here, Steve Turner tackles yet another genre magnificently, but it was Melanie Munt in the second act who stole the play. The candlelit scene was one of the most delightfully tender moments that I ever seen in the theatre.

This play will be a sell-out.

Here is another viewpoint

Thu, 19 Mar 2009, 05:42 pm

Walter Plinge

Here is another viewpoint from STM arts writer Alicia Bridges, available at PerthNow (http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,25211227-5005368,00.html) March 18, 2009 LACKING direction from the start, The Glass Menagerie failed to find its way before the lights dimmed on its opening night. The Tennessee Williams play was the first post-PIAF production by Black Swan State Theatre Company in 2009. The impressive set, a cobweb of abstract shapes in glass, greeted the audience at the Playhouse Theatre before the saxophones started, marking the smoky entrance of the protagonist Tom Wingfield (Steve Turner). When his poetic introduction was complete, Wingfield led the audience into the home he shares with his pedantic mother Amanda (Gillian Jones) and painfully shy older sister Laura (Melanie Munt). Set in the deep-south in the 1930s, the story follows the monotonous life of Tom as he humours his mother’s relentless efforts to find a suitor for Laura. But somewhere along the way, the relationship between Tom and Laura becomes too distant. Although attempts are made to show the character’s compassion for his sister through his sensitivity to her welfare, the scenes are not successful in portraying the strength of this bond. In the end, it is this downfall which brings the play to its knees. After the scene in which Laura is let down by the gentleman caller (Myles Pollard), the most engaging of the play, the show wraps up so quickly and with so little emotion that the ending seems tacked on. The final scene, in which Tom farewells the audience and his family, seems detached because the character speaks of a bond which was not evident in the play. While the roles of Amanda and the gentleman caller were superbly acted by Jones and Pollard, it seems this production has slightly skewed the context in which the characters were written, creating gaps in the storyline and leaving loose ends untied. The Glass Menagerie Black Swan Theatre Company Wed, March 19 Director: Kate Cherry Reviewer: Alicia Bridges (bridgesa@sundaytimes.newsltd.com.au)

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The Glass Menagerie— Gordon the Optom19 Mar 2009

Here is another viewpoint— Walter Plinge19 Mar 2009

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