With any playwright who achieves the kind of iconic status that Tennessee Williams had both during and beyond his own lifetime, I always find it fascinating to look back and examine how that writer transformed into the canonized figure he is known as today. For Williams, that break-through moment came in 1944 with The Glass Menagerie, which was his first major success as a playwright. The critical embrace of this play opened the door for Williams’ entire career, leading to classics like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Suddenly Last Summer, among many others (the latter two revived here at Roundabout in 2005 and 2006, respectively).

What particularly interests me about The Glass Menagerie being Williams’ earliest success is the fact that it is widely-known to be a highly autobiographical work. Tennessee was, in fact, born as Thomas Williams, and he chose to give the name Tom to the play’s narrator and son, who also happens to be a writer. Like the character, Williams was born to a Southern belle mother. And just as the play’s Laura is a fragile character with the nickname Blue Roses, Williams himself had a sister named Rose who struggled with mental illness and was eventually lobotomized.

The fact that the playwright drew from his own family is not unique – but it’s very interesting when compared to Eugene O’Neill’s A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which is arguably the other great American play that is well-known as an autobiographical work. O’Neill famously kept this most personal play hidden until his death, leaving behind instructions for its posthumous publication. While O’Neill went through his brilliant career without finding it in himself to witness his family tragedies played out on stage (or perhaps deal with the fallout from revealing so much of his private life to the world), Williams was somehow able to begin where O’Neill ended.

Director Gordon Edelstein (who first staged this production at the Long Wharf Theatre last year) has found a way to give The Glass Menagerie a context that, to me, sheds light on why Williams was able to, or needed to, reveal so much from his personal history on stage. In this production, Gordon puts an emphasis on this as a memory play. We look back with Tom as he struggles to write the story of his past. And as he commits his family to the page, his memory conjures them into being, and these haunting figures enter both his mind and the very room in which he sits. In a way, it’s as though Tom needs to face the ghosts of his mother and sister in order to exorcise them and move on with his life. This is the same battle that Williams faced, and one can easily see the play as a manifestation of his survivor’s guilt. Williams ran away from his family, leaving his fragile sister behind, and he uses Tom and this play to move on. Perhaps Williams, unlike O’Neill, needed to confront his past and make peace with it before he could write the many brilliant plays that were to come.

I think Gordon has used this personal connection between author and play to enter the story in a new way that illuminates the play. He also has the wonderful Judith Ivey (last at Roundabout in 2001’s Follies) playing Tom’s mother, Amanda Wingfield, in a performance that, to me, is an extraordinary and surprising take on an iconic character.

Finding a new way to approach a famous play like The Glass Menagerie is one of the most exciting aspects of producing revivals, and I know that this production will give you much to discuss. I hope that you will share your thoughts with me by posting your reponses here on the blog.

I look forward to seeing you at the theater!

Todd Haimes

Comments

1. Richard Barron Says:
   March 7th, 2010 at 10:19 am

   Mr. Edelstein was sitting in my row last night and I wondered who he and his companion were, laughing loudly and receiving texts from time to time. I suddenly realized from the note pad his companion carried that he was indeed the Director. I wish I had the opportunity to tell him how much I enjoyed the production. Loved some of the things he did – the writer conceit, the hint that Tom might be gay, the candlelight that really made me listen to the gentleman caller scene as if I’d never seen it before, the fact that Tom is looking back on the past from WWII years. It’s all in the text, but this was such an interesting interpretation and totally organic, not superimposed. Thank you for doing this beautiful play so well. And, of course, my compliments to Ms. Ivey and your wonderful cast.

2. Diana Multare Says:
   April 3rd, 2010 at 12:03 pm

   What is so important about this Roundabout production is the reassurance that great plays are forever young. The older members of the audience can savor it like classy wine, while the younger audience will discover what brilliant writing, acting and directing is all about.

3. Fred Vitale Says:
   April 27th, 2010 at 5:53 pm

   I was disappointed with the “Glass Menagerie”because of the bad acoustics in the theater and the heavy southern accents. Two individuals seated in back of us were laughing hysterically while no one in the audience was reacting at all. Each of the actors should have had wireless microphones to project their voices so they could be heard. My wife and I had to leave the theater at intermission. We didn’t enjoy the performance at all.

4. Rhea Albert Says:
   May 13th, 2010 at 5:23 am

   Boy was this play long…and more so with those long pregnant
   pauses. I could hear perfectly (in my preferred last row Aisle
   Balcony seat).
   I decided to stick it out but was drained upon leaving. Miss
   Ivey was excellent as usual, the male lead weak but at least the ‘gentleman caller” perked up the second act.
   Not one of of my fave Roundabout productions.

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