Savage tale of futility of hope

Despite being possibly Tennessee Williams’ finest play, most productions of The Glass Menagerie tend to overlook the play’s original expressionist and symbolic elements, opting for a more naturalistic interpretation.

In this production of the play (at the Young Vic, London), however, the director Joe Hill-Gibbins remains faithful to Williams’ original intention of portraying this as a ‘memory play’ and skilfully evokes the script’s themes using a very expressionistic style.

Hill-Gibbins does not go as far as taking Williams’ suggestion of using a screen on which words and images are projected between scenes in typical Brechtian fashion; yet he has successfully blended the visual and aural elements at his disposal to give the production a dream-like quality and imbue it with a freshness that most productions of this wonderful text generally lack.

The split-level setting of the Young Vic is used to excellent effect by designer Jeremy Herbert to allow each scene to flow seamlessly into the next without the use of lengthy blackouts or distracting scene changes.

His design is spartan yet evocative, and at all times beautifully lit and framed. The music is similarly minimalist in style, with the musicians in full view and forming an integral part the production. It is ironic that a play based on the theme of illusion can be portrayed so powerfully by stripping away the conventional illusions of traditional theatre.

It is the fragile illusions of the American south in the grip of the Great Depression that Williams so brutally dashes to pieces in this play; in particular, the illusion that one can be anything one wants to be regardless of circumstance.

The fragility of this illusion, symbolised by the collection of glass animal figurines that give the play its title, is brilliantly personified by the character of Laura, the crippled young woman around whom the action revolves.

Sinead Matthews delivers an outstanding performance, using her body and voice to excellent effect to bring out her pain at being imprisoned in a crippled body and a crippling family dominated by her overbearing mother (a finely judged performance by Deborah Findlay) and her absent father.

Not even her brother Tom (superbly played by Leo Bill) can offer her any solace. He too is caught up in his own illusions, constantly escaping to the movies to get away from the drudgery of his day job in the warehouse and the suffocation of life at home.

It is only in the person of her childhood crush Jim (another very sensitive performance by Kyle Soller) who Tom invites over for dinner to their house one evening that Laura catches a faint glimmer of hope, only to have her dreams dashed as fast as they are aroused.

The Glass Menagerie was based on various elements in Williams’ own life, and that is why it is largely regarded as an autobiographical piece.

It’s a sad yet moving masterpiece that can easily border on over-sentimentality. The Young Vic’s production is, however, anything but a sentimental piece. It is a savage tale of the futility of hope written by a playwright gripped by his own devastating guilt.

For information on theatrical productions in London visit Jes’ blog at www.jescamilleri.wordpress.com.