The Glass Menagerie at
the Booth Theater
L-R: Zachary Quinto, Cherry Jones, Brian J. Smith and Celia Keenan-Bolger in The Glass Menagerie.
It is
altogether right and good that the new production of The Glass Menagerie ends on February 23rd. It is a blessing in a thick and impenetrable
disguise. It may be incomprehensible that
the closing of a show so masterful, so enjoyable, and so, so well-acted might
be a blessing, but indeed, after the five-minute standing ovation that followed
a mid-January performance of this phenomenon, it was the primary thought in my
head.
This production
of The Glass Menagerie is too good
for us. We do not deserve it. We dirty it, besmirch it, through our very
existence. Every time someone in the
world speaks, it is an affront, a slap in the face, to the air of genius that
infects every syllable of Tennessee Williams’ script. Every time a stage set is designed, somewhere
in the world, it will be a disgrace to the memory of Bob Crowley’s perfect
scenic design. Every time someone in the
world reads a page aloud, or even thinks of acting, it will be tantamount to
sacrilege as compared to the godly performances of Cherry Jones, Zachary
Quinto, Celia Keenan-Bolger, and Brian J. Smith. And anyone who puts on a play between now and
February 23rd must feel nothing but shame at their efforts.
While this
production, indeed, while this show, exists, how can anyone think of artistic
achievement? How can anyone hope to
write a poem, paint a picture, smile at something they optimistically call
their art? While the curtain rises,
eight times a week, on the three hours of theatrical paradise that director
John Tiffany has crafted, how can pencil or brush or word be put to paper? It is difficult to think how society manages
to function by comparison to this ideal, let alone art.
From the
moment Tom Wingfield (Quinto) steps onto the stage, telling us of magic and
memory, ‘til the moment he leaves it for the last time, bemoaning what he does
remember, there is not a single thing wrong with this production of what
advertising refers to, rightly, as “the greatest American play.” One cannot help but be transfixed by Mr.
Quinto’s sharp-eyed, shadowy figure; the hauntingly beautiful movements of Ms.
Keenan-Bolger as his sister, Laura; the brash yet sincere ingratiating of Mr.
Smith’s Gentleman Caller; and especially the gorgeous performance of Ms. Jones
as Amanda, the matriarch of a dying family.
Ms. Jones shades her portrayal of the ultimate Williams mother with an
acting ability developed over years as a paragon of her profession. Like the play, there is not a wrong note in
her rendering. It could well change one’s
perception of family, ambition, and that flighty characteristic we hesitate to
call “sincerity.”
The
Wingfield apartment, where the play is set, is done in three hexagons of varying
sizes, sparsely furnished and dimly lit, set among a stage flooded with an inky
black liquid—the ocean of the world, in which the Wingfields, on their island,
are suspended. On this island we are
treated to those most dichotomous of human emotions, love and hatred, shaded
not too subtly and not too overstatedly by four people who, upon leaving the
theater, I came to realize were some of the greatest actors I had ever shared a
room with. The stationary lives of the Wingfields,
coming to a head upon the arrival of a gentleman caller with a mysterious
background, become more than characters on a page—they are Old Master
paintings, Frost poems, all that is melancholic and transcendent, all that art
can achieve. It is for this reason that,
until the end of February, artists all around the world must cease in their
tribulations. For, next to perfection,
what’s the point?
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