Too many times, a mediocre production of a play her alded as a classic leaves you wondering what the fuss is all about. A dull “Othello” — oh, the agony. An endless “Death of a Salesman” — death of an audience.
But then comes a show that makes you get a particular work’s reputation — such as Gordon Edelstein’s haunting take on “The Glass Menagerie,” which opened last night at the Laura Pels Theatre.
It’s easy to reduce Tennessee Williams’ 1944 play to ripe, hothouse-grown clichés: the dominating, flirtatious older woman; her fragile daughter, obsessed with miniature glass animals; a frustrated dreamer of a son. No wonder Christopher Durang wrote a parody, “For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls,” in which a sad-sack hero collects cocktail stirrers.
This Roundabout production sheds the folksy baggage like so much dead skin.
Holed up in a shabby room, Tom Wingfield (Patch Darragh) is reminiscing about life with his frail sister, Laura (Keira Keeley), and their mother, Amanda (the magnificent Judith Ivey). Amanda is desperately holding on to her past as a popular beauty, and often brings up the day she greeted 17 gentlemen callers. Laura, paralyzed by nerves, can’t get a single one.
Trapped by character and circumstance, the family escapes into fantasy.
Then one night, reality comes knocking in the shape of Jim O’Connor (Michael Mosley), a potential suitor for Laura.
You have to be patient with the three-hour show, but it builds in intensity as the actors delineate their characters in light, precise brush strokes. Ivey and Darragh make Amanda’s nagging and Tom’s petulance funny without losing sight of the frustration and pain running underneath.
Subtle directorial touches only reinforce the sad inevitability of it all. Barely lit, the key scene in which Laura opens up to Jim shows a young woman with untapped humor and warmth. But all the while, the menagerie glows almost malevolently on its table, a constant reminder of the depth of Laura’s problems. If only she realized that strength can grow from sensibility.
Edelstein and his crew, at least, understand that perfectly.