Old City’s Arden Theatre Company starts its 35th anniversary season with a new iteration of the idolized Tennessee Williams’ classic, ‘The Glass Menagerie’.
Directed by longtime Producing Artistic Director Terrence J. Nolen, ‘Menagerie’ is on stage now through Nov. 6. Part of the decision tostart the 2022-23 season with Williams’ 1945 work stems from the Arden’s own take on another Tennessee classic, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ with its young, racially diverse cast in January of this year.
“Seeing how hungry that audiences were for great plays, younger audiences, too, totally caught up in Blanche and Stanley’s drama, the stakes of ‘Streetcar’, led me to thinking of other plays that we haven’t done at the Arden, especially in regard to Tennessee Williams,” states Nolen.
Considering the Arden’s seasonal lineup, which includes new original works (‘Every Brilliant Thing’ starring Scott Greer), rarely staged classics (August Wilson’s ‘Radio Golf’) and children’s shows (adaptations of ‘Charlotte’s Web’ and ‘Red Riding Hood’), Williams’ poignant iconic theater makes for an auspicious beginning to this, and any season.
While ‘Streetcar’s torrid, Southern tale looks at the culture of privilege, mental health, manhood, misogyny and sexual assault — a prescient work considering the 21st century’s hot button topics — ‘Glass Menagerie’ is one of Williams’ most autobiographical plays.
“Certainly, it is his most profoundly personal theater work,” says Nolen.
Tom in ‘Glass Menagerie’ hues toward the playwright’s real name, Thomas, and his own life, with his mother being the dramatic inspiration for the matronly character of Amanda Wingfield and Williams’ own mentally-troubled older sister, Rose, being the basis for the play’s sickly Laura (whose nickname in ‘Glass Menagerie’ is Blue Roses). Introduced by Tom, ‘Glass Menagerie’s protagonist, the story is told as a memory play, a recollection of his family’s rough-edged past in all its glories and sorrow and vivid imaginings.
The “memory play” concept was one created by Williams, non-realistic and highlighted by one’s emotional values “for memory is seated predominantly in the heart” wrote the playwright in his original staging notes.
“It’s an interesting thought how these older forms play out in the present,” Nolen said. “Being in this play’s present – now – is so much different than how we’ve witnessed the ‘Glass Menagerie’ of the past, on film for example, where it feels old and tidy. Because it is, however, so deeply personal, his “memory” allows me to see the inner workings of my family. My hope is that Williams’ text and his characters – the same deeply personal story – will touch anyone who sees it now, that it resonates in a contemporary fashion.”
Arden Theatre’s production is highlighted by a young cast: Krista Apple plays Amanda as a “faded remnant of Southern gentility” living in an apartment with her son, Tom (Sean Lally), and daughter, Laura (Hannah Brannau). When Amanda convinces Tom to welcome a “gentleman caller” (Frank Jimenez) from his day job for Laura, all illusions that Tom, Amanda and Laura have each created to make life bearable fall like a house of cards.
“Tennessee Williams certainly poured everything that he knew about his family, and had been subjected to during his youth, into this play,” says Nolen.
‘The Glass Menagerie’ is on stage at Arden Theatre Company, 40 N. 2nd Street, through Nov. 6. For information and tickets, visit ardentheatre.org
