'The Glass Menagerie': Theater Review
8 / 10
'I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion,' says Tom Wingfield, the thinly veiled stand-in for playwright Tennessee Williams in the opening monologue of his semi-autobiographical memory play, The Glass Menagerie. In a bold experiment that's often riveting but seldom wholly satisfying, director Sam Gold rips away illusion like a bandage off a wound - along with other signatures of the playwright such as poetry, magic, artifice - in a forensic examination that fights against the text just as Tom clashes in his love-hate relationship with his domineering mother, Amanda. Despite some fine work from the actors, you end up being moved more by the sheer resilience of the writing than by the intrusive presentation.
