April 20, 2010
Poor Tom Williams: stuck in a cramped St Louis apartment with his loony Mum and his crippled sister, working at a dead-end day job in a shoe warehouse and spending his nights either escaping at the movies or tap-tapping out his stuff on a portable typewriter. So he runs away to become a writer, changes his name to Tennessee (which is not too bad, he could have chosen Rhode Island), and knocks out a Hollywood screenplay about his own family. This then becomes a stage play called The Glass Menagerie, and you can see an excellent production of it at the Oxford Playhouse this week.
Tom’s invented family is his mother Amanda Wingfield (played by Imogen Stubbs), his sister Laura (Emma Lowndes), and himself (Patrick Kennedy). The fourth member of the family is his father, who left them all to it 16 years prior to the start of the play (set in the 1930’s). Father’s picture stares out at the action from the sideboard. Tom narrates his “memory play” about the weeks leading up to the incident which precipitates his departure.
The family lives in poverty. Tom does his warehouse work and his mother sells magazine subscriptions on the phone. She urges him to invite a “gentleman-caller” back from the warehouse, nominally for dinner, but really to come and woo his sister, who is painfully shy and lacking in confidence and doesn’t seem to have much of a future. Amanda is using a mental model for Laura’s future based on the values of the old South, a touch Scarlett O’Hara-ish, remembering a time when she herself had lots of “beaux” a-calling. Laura would prefer to play with her menagerie of glass animals and to listen to 78s.
The cast members are all very good. You might expect Imogen Stubbs to shine, and she does, but then so do the other three (with Kyle Soller as Jim O'Connor). It is a most convincing version of the play, admirably directed by Polly Teale as a joint Shared Experience/Salisbury Playhouse production. I was impressed by the set, which recreates the cramped bedsit-like conditions to which the family are reduced, contrasting with the space and cool of the fire-escape landing.
The use of old 30’s movies playing on the back wall is inspired and responds sensitively to the progress of the play: Imogen Stubbs enters in her primrose Southern Belle finery at one time, and her appearance is enhanced by dashing couples dancing in some long forgotten oater. Tom’s long roll to become Tennessee starts with this play, and gives the audience a memorable evening.
Tom’s invented family is his mother Amanda Wingfield (played by Imogen Stubbs), his sister Laura (Emma Lowndes), and himself (Patrick Kennedy). The fourth member of the family is his father, who left them all to it 16 years prior to the start of the play (set in the 1930’s). Father’s picture stares out at the action from the sideboard. Tom narrates his “memory play” about the weeks leading up to the incident which precipitates his departure.
The family lives in poverty. Tom does his warehouse work and his mother sells magazine subscriptions on the phone. She urges him to invite a “gentleman-caller” back from the warehouse, nominally for dinner, but really to come and woo his sister, who is painfully shy and lacking in confidence and doesn’t seem to have much of a future. Amanda is using a mental model for Laura’s future based on the values of the old South, a touch Scarlett O’Hara-ish, remembering a time when she herself had lots of “beaux” a-calling. Laura would prefer to play with her menagerie of glass animals and to listen to 78s.
The cast members are all very good. You might expect Imogen Stubbs to shine, and she does, but then so do the other three (with Kyle Soller as Jim O'Connor). It is a most convincing version of the play, admirably directed by Polly Teale as a joint Shared Experience/Salisbury Playhouse production. I was impressed by the set, which recreates the cramped bedsit-like conditions to which the family are reduced, contrasting with the space and cool of the fire-escape landing.
The use of old 30’s movies playing on the back wall is inspired and responds sensitively to the progress of the play: Imogen Stubbs enters in her primrose Southern Belle finery at one time, and her appearance is enhanced by dashing couples dancing in some long forgotten oater. Tom’s long roll to become Tennessee starts with this play, and gives the audience a memorable evening.