‘The Glass Menagerie’ features stunning Cherry Jones, Zachary Quinto

NEW YORK — Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie is being given a first-rate revival at the Booth Theatre on Broadway. Thanks to an excellent cast, led by the indomitable Cherry Jones as the matriarch of a broken family, the production is the highlight of the fall season and deservedly playing to packed houses.

John Tiffany directs the drama with an intimacy that is rare on Broadway. The stage at the Booth is sectioned off to display a small apartment with a fire escape offering the only connection with the outside world. The setting is surrounded by a pool of water, which allows reflections of the characters as they collectively come to the realization of their unfortunate existence.

Amanda (Jones) is the mother of the family, a woman who used to wine and dine with the best of the South. She has fond memories of her time in the spotlight, but now she’s forced to look at her son Tom (Zachary Quinto from Star Trek) and daughter Laura (Celia Keenan-Bolger) with much disappointment and simultaneous hope. She wants them to fulfill their potential, or at least her potential for their individual lives. She demands to know why Tom spends so much time at the movies, always away from home and never sharing stories of his life. Laura, on the other hand, is almost homebound, nervous to leave the domineering shadow of her mother and unwilling to let the outside world see her limp. The members of this triptych somehow need one another and are also repulsed by one another.

Jones, Quinto and Keenan-Bolger, plus Brian J. Smith as a gentleman caller who arrives in Act II, are expertly cast in their respective roles. Jones refuses to see the reality of her family dynamic, constantly putting on airs that this family is not broken. The actress’s accent is high-pitched and sort of fake, as if she knows the theatrical lights are burning bright. Quinto’s Tom looks out from the fire escape and realizes his life is floating away from him; he sees his mother as a suffocating force, someone unwilling to accept his true identity. He’s repressed and yet unable to break from the orbit he so despises. Keenan-Bolger’s Laura is a basket case of nerves, coming close to tears when Amanda and Tom bring a gentleman caller over to the apartment for dinner one night. She cannot put together two words in front of company and would much rather melt into the background.

Tiffany keeps the pacing just right, slowing the dramatic scenes when the characters offer deep introspection into their dashed expectations, and he also has fun with the uncomfortable sequences involving the gentleman caller. There’s a genuine feeling that the cast and creative team know the strengths of Williams’s words, and they hang on to each beautifully written phrase for support throughout the entire two-hour-30-minute evening. They blanket themselves in the poetry of this southern playwright, bringing the family’s story to full realization, letting us peer into their souls. We feel extremely uncomfortable when spotting those ghostly reflections.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• The Glass Menagerie

• By Tennessee Williams

• Directed by John Tiffany

• Starring Cherry Jones, Zachary Quinto, Celia Keenan-Bolger and Brian J. Smith

• Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

• Currently playing at the Booth Theatre at 222 W. 45th St. in New York City. Click here for more information.

• Rating: