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Sometimes an audience is treated to a dramatic performance so spellbinding that its appreciative applause at play's end feels more like insult than adulation.
The effect of Thursday's debut of “The Glass Menagerie” upon a modest opening night crowd at Umpqua Community College's Centerstage Theatre was such that, as the lights dimmed for the last time on the sad Wingfield family tableau, it almost seemed a sacred stillness was being broken by the final ovation.
This Tennessee Williams classic tells the tale of Tom and Laura Wingfield and their overbearing, if well-meaning, mother, Amanda. The Wingfields have been left to shift for themselves in Depression-era America after being abandoned by Amanda's husband, “a telephone man who fell in love with long distances” and never returned. The absence of a male breadwinner in 1930s urban America has consigned the Wingfield family to a tenuous existence in an unremarkable tenement that both shelters and stifles its youngest tenants.
Tom, a young man just a few years out of high school, writes poetry, dreams of joining the Merchant Marines and goes out to the movies until late at night — anything to escape the tedium of his current life, which compels him to work a dead-end warehouse job to help support his mother and sister.
Laura, two years older, is described as physically crippled and socially withdrawn. If Tom feels trapped by his socio-economic condition, Laura is hobbled by a native reserve and lifelong self-consciousness over her perceived disability. She is a wide-eyed innocent with no social life outside of the family, and few interests beyond her glass figurine collection, or glass menagerie. It is not until her brother — at the behest of Amanda — brings home an unwitting “gentleman caller” for Laura in the form of a friend from work, that her delicate spirit blooms momentarily before closing in on itself once more.
Amanda's push to find Laura a suitor, which follows closely on the heels of her daughter's failure at secretarial school, becomes the focal point of the plot. The mother scarcely helps the daughter in this cause by repeatedly — and perhaps exaggeratedly — referring to her own days as a Southern debutante, when she could scarcely find seats for all of the young men who came to call, creating a standard that is impossible for Laura to live up to.
Fragile and sweet-natured Laura, played by Amanda McNulty, commands the affections and unflagging devotion of mother and brother alike, and their concern for her forms the emotional core of the play. She is the calm, if timid, center of a tempestuous family life driven by the gales of Tom's frustrated aspirations and the unrelenting waves of their mother's well-intentioned nagging.
The playwright's opening descriptions of the play's setting and the situation of the Wingfield family are unmistakably bleak. The conditions are reflected in the characters themselves — in Tom's barely contained rage at his frustrated dreams, or in his mother's nostalgia for her long-gone glory days. However, Director Dean Remick's rendering of the play resists descending into cynicism.
Though Snyder's Tom is comically sarcastic in critiquing his mother's actions and motives — not to mention volcanic in temper when roused — Snyder infuses his character with an easy warmth and folksy good nature. The tone of his narration is agreeably reflective, rather than darkly pessimistic or world-weary.
Carina Reeves Blanck files some of the rough edges off the loquacious Amanda Wingfield, rendering her not only sympathetic but even endearing. Though her character's vain boasts of former romantic glory still grate, they are forgivable quirks of character in Blanck's deft hands. The disagreements with her son that finally provoke him to leave for good seem honest differences in perspective rather than the result of a willfully heavy maternal hand.
McNulty plays an appropriately understated role for much of the play, as befits her shy character. Her Laura lingers worriedly in the background during her mother and brother's fights, and averts her eyes and shifts uncomfortably when confronted about her own inadequacies.
It is the reserve McNulty maintains for the bulk of the play that allows her character to blossom so radiantly before the momentary attentions of her gentleman caller, Michael Burns' Jim. And it is the crushing of this delicate flower in the play's final scenes that delivers the play's most poignant moments, providing images that haunt Tom for the rest of his itinerant days and that stay with the audience long after the curtain call.
Christian Bringhurst of Winston is a former city editor and reporter for The News-Review who now teaches at Camas Valley Charter School. He can be reached at brin5186@juno.com.
The effect of Thursday's debut of “The Glass Menagerie” upon a modest opening night crowd at Umpqua Community College's Centerstage Theatre was such that, as the lights dimmed for the last time on the sad Wingfield family tableau, it almost seemed a sacred stillness was being broken by the final ovation.
This Tennessee Williams classic tells the tale of Tom and Laura Wingfield and their overbearing, if well-meaning, mother, Amanda. The Wingfields have been left to shift for themselves in Depression-era America after being abandoned by Amanda's husband, “a telephone man who fell in love with long distances” and never returned. The absence of a male breadwinner in 1930s urban America has consigned the Wingfield family to a tenuous existence in an unremarkable tenement that both shelters and stifles its youngest tenants.
Tom, a young man just a few years out of high school, writes poetry, dreams of joining the Merchant Marines and goes out to the movies until late at night — anything to escape the tedium of his current life, which compels him to work a dead-end warehouse job to help support his mother and sister.
Laura, two years older, is described as physically crippled and socially withdrawn. If Tom feels trapped by his socio-economic condition, Laura is hobbled by a native reserve and lifelong self-consciousness over her perceived disability. She is a wide-eyed innocent with no social life outside of the family, and few interests beyond her glass figurine collection, or glass menagerie. It is not until her brother — at the behest of Amanda — brings home an unwitting “gentleman caller” for Laura in the form of a friend from work, that her delicate spirit blooms momentarily before closing in on itself once more.
Amanda's push to find Laura a suitor, which follows closely on the heels of her daughter's failure at secretarial school, becomes the focal point of the plot. The mother scarcely helps the daughter in this cause by repeatedly — and perhaps exaggeratedly — referring to her own days as a Southern debutante, when she could scarcely find seats for all of the young men who came to call, creating a standard that is impossible for Laura to live up to.
Fragile and sweet-natured Laura, played by Amanda McNulty, commands the affections and unflagging devotion of mother and brother alike, and their concern for her forms the emotional core of the play. She is the calm, if timid, center of a tempestuous family life driven by the gales of Tom's frustrated aspirations and the unrelenting waves of their mother's well-intentioned nagging.
The playwright's opening descriptions of the play's setting and the situation of the Wingfield family are unmistakably bleak. The conditions are reflected in the characters themselves — in Tom's barely contained rage at his frustrated dreams, or in his mother's nostalgia for her long-gone glory days. However, Director Dean Remick's rendering of the play resists descending into cynicism.
Though Snyder's Tom is comically sarcastic in critiquing his mother's actions and motives — not to mention volcanic in temper when roused — Snyder infuses his character with an easy warmth and folksy good nature. The tone of his narration is agreeably reflective, rather than darkly pessimistic or world-weary.
Carina Reeves Blanck files some of the rough edges off the loquacious Amanda Wingfield, rendering her not only sympathetic but even endearing. Though her character's vain boasts of former romantic glory still grate, they are forgivable quirks of character in Blanck's deft hands. The disagreements with her son that finally provoke him to leave for good seem honest differences in perspective rather than the result of a willfully heavy maternal hand.
McNulty plays an appropriately understated role for much of the play, as befits her shy character. Her Laura lingers worriedly in the background during her mother and brother's fights, and averts her eyes and shifts uncomfortably when confronted about her own inadequacies.
It is the reserve McNulty maintains for the bulk of the play that allows her character to blossom so radiantly before the momentary attentions of her gentleman caller, Michael Burns' Jim. And it is the crushing of this delicate flower in the play's final scenes that delivers the play's most poignant moments, providing images that haunt Tom for the rest of his itinerant days and that stay with the audience long after the curtain call.
Christian Bringhurst of Winston is a former city editor and reporter for The News-Review who now teaches at Camas Valley Charter School. He can be reached at brin5186@juno.com.
If you go...
WHAT: “The Glass Menagerie,” presented by Centerstage Theatre at Umpqua Community College
WHEN: Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through Jan. 8. WHERE: 1140 Umpqua College Road, Winchester COST: $8 in advance or $10 at the door INFORMATION: 541-440-7700 |
