Review: THE GLASS MENAGERIE at Antaeus Theatre Company

When THE GLASS MENAGERIE debuted in 1944, it put Tennessee Williams on the map, launching one of the brightest and acclaimed theater careers of the 20th century. It has since been turned into numerous radio, film, and television productions, in addition to revivals on the stage, winning many awards.

The “memory play,” a phrase coined by Williams to describe the show, meaning it is narrated by one of the characters who is telling the story through his recollections, also pulls from real life as Williams drew inspiration from his own upbringing. Focused on the struggling Wingfield family, narrator Tom (Josh Odsess-Rubin), matriarch Amanda (Gigi Bermingham), and fragile Laura (Emily Goss), the story takes place in 1930s St. Louis. Mr. Wingfield abandoned them years before to seek adventure, so Tom supports them by working in a warehouse, though he has a poet’s soul — he also has his father’s blood, longing for excitement, leaving him frustrated and resentful. Amanda is a faded Southern belle, putting on airs and trying to mold Laura into a younger version of herself and find a man (to support them) while Laura wants nothing more than to play records and spend time with her collection of glass animals. She’s painfully shy and self-conscious of a limp she exhibits. Their lives all change when Tom invites a coworker, Jim (Alex Barlas), from The Warehouse to dinner. And throughout it all, a portrait of the absentee father hangs, overseeing everything, always a presence even in his absence.

Williams’ setup is delicate as are his characterizations. There’s a fragility that runs throughout the text, the relationships as delicate as Laura’s menagerie. There’s a gossamer aspect to it all, a dreaminess, but it is not as treacly as it could be; it has a brittle vein that runs through it. That said, there is almost no humor as written either. Yet director Carolyn Ratteray has Odsess-Rubin and particularly Bermingham lean into comedy, which undermines the story’s power and its heartbreak. While Odsess-Rubin’s Tom is snarky, almost smarmy, sneering at his life even as he recalls it in retrospect, you can see how his regrets may be skewing his perspective on the past, but Bermingham is too broad, too rushed when her gentility is supposed to be waning with dignity. The other characters are grounded and complex, Goss perfectly modulated, playing Laura, yes, as mousy, but also sympathetic when she could be pitiable and vulnerable when she could be weak, imbuing her with a nervous, fluttery Sandy Dennis–like quality. Barlas, in the show’s trickiest role, shines as former golden boy Jim. You can see why Laura crushed on him in high school and why Tom feels quietly for him himself. While he could be just another “peaked in high school” sad sack, Barlas is magnetic without being desperate and confident without being a blowhard. He’s natural, affable, expansive; you want to be pulled into his orbit, which makes him all the more charismatic in the Wingfield’s hushed and dusky lives.

The costumes by Beryl Brachman are exquisite, especially Laura’s dresses, and the scenic design by Angela Balogh Calin makes fine use of the size of the stage, the family home dreary and dim aside from Laura’s glass animals, which are sharp and bright.

Williams’ script is a masterpiece of the human condition, and it would land harder if it were understated versus the inclusion of misplaced humor. Sometimes it’s best to let the melancholy, the loss, the bittersweet to win out. After all, our existence on this mortal coil is sometimes dark and harsh and shadowy. There aren’t always slashes of light.

Photos by Craig Schwartz Photography

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