At Least You Can Act by Anna Duffy

At Least You Can Act

By: Anna Duffy

Blow up giraffe? Table standing? These are only some of the unexplained aspects shown in the play The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams. The Glass Menagerie is an American classic production and considered by many to be one of the greatest plays ever created. I witnessed this creation on Wednesday March 11, 2015 at the Chace Theater in Providence, Rhode Island. This particular production was directed by Brian Mertes and put on by the Trinity Repertory theater company.  

The Glass Menagerie had unbelievable acting and music, but an off-putting and disordered set design with arbitrary features that did not seem to fit the story. When I first walked into the room where the production would take place, I was confused. I expected it to be a typical theater that has rows of seats with a classic stage in front. However instead of a classic stage, it was just a raised wooden platform with no sides. Also, all the props were in view, even the ones used later on in the play. Just when you think it could not get any worse, whenever the stage crew would come on to do something, they were wearing black but totally in view, and on purpose. All of these aspects made the show very distracting to watch. To add on to this, there were some random props and actions that did not seem to make sense within the production. For example, when each of the cast was playing the kazoo in a line sitting on chairs, there was one chair in the middle of all of them that had a blow-up giraffe sitting on it. This did not have much to do with the scene or plot. Another example is that sometimes when characters were talking, they would stand on tables while they did it. This was something that I cannot explain, and something that did not really add much to the scene for me personally. It was a bit distracting and annoying in my opinion. However, the actors did a fantastic job portraying their character in the best possible way, while the singing and instrumental was very skilled, clean, and beautiful. 

The Glass Menagerie had great acting and music, but a distracting and messy set design with random features that did not seem to fit the plot. The stage was open, the props and stage crew were in view, random unexplainable aspects were put in, and amazing acting and music took place. I do not recommend seeing this play if you get easily distracted, but the play itself is pretty well done. 

Good Play But The Directing? Meh by Lisa LI

Unfortunately, The Glass Menagerie is not a fairytale about a collection of glass animal figurines. The Glass Menagerie is a story of a broken family narrated by an ambitious young man, whose mother doesn’t give him enough attention and whose sister is disabled, under extreme pressure of family responsibility. It is a memory play originally written by Tennessee Williams. A recent production of this play was presented by the Trinity Repertory Company and shown from Feb. 26^th to Mar. 29^th in the Trinity Repertory Theatre Chase Theatre in Providence, Rhode Island.

            The storyline of the play is very simple. It involves four major characters, Amanda Wingfield, her daughter Laura, her son Tom and Tom’s friend/Laura’s old crush, Jim O’Connor. After Amanda’s husband has left her to persuade his big dreams, she alone raises her son and her daughter, who is physically disabled. She focuses on letting Laura live a normal life, have a decent job and marry a rich and responsible man. Meanwhile, she tends to neglect Tom, who is constantly drunk because he is so stressed from the family pressure that is put upon him. Tom introduces his friend, Jim O’Connor to Amanda and Laura, and Amanda really wishes that Jim would marry Laura. However, Jim is already engaged to another girl. The play ends in a sorrowful tone, with Laura reserving herself in her obsession with her glass menagerie, Tom leaving home for his own ambitious dreams, and Amanda agonizing for her son’s disloyalty and her daughter’s disability.

What make the story interesting are conflicts within the characters between their own idealistic desires and reality. Amanda wants her son to be successful and reliable, but in reality he is a drunk. She also creates a false image in her mind that Laura is normal and will marry a rich and responsible man, but in reality Laura is unconfident and unloved, and communicates with no one but her Glass Menagerie. Laura is stuck in her old crush on her high school classmate, Jim O’Connor, but in reality she is too timid about expressing her love, and when she finally has enough courage to do so it is too late because Jim is already engaged with another girl. She ultimately returns to her reserved self, obsessed with her glass menagerie. Tom has ambitious desires for his career, just like his father, but in fact he is an unskilled worker, who feels bad leaving his beloved sister behind and whose mother puts the entire family responsibility on him. These conflicts in characters make the audience wonder what is going to come next, and whether dreams can eventually defeat reality. With this constant wonders in audience, the play is never boring.

            Despite an interesting plot, it is not well executed by the Trinity Repertory’s production. The set design of the production was very unique, which makes it appealing, yet it can also distract the audience from paying attention to the plot of the play. A wooden stage was in the middle of the front of the theatre, with all the props and instruments surrounding it. The stage crew and musicians also worked directly on stage. This kind of set was transparent to the audience, letting them see what would normally be the backstage operations. However, it can be very distracting. The visibility of music and stage crew working on stage sometimes took away the audience’s focus on the monologue or dialogue between characters. There is a piano put in front of the stage that served as a patio of the house, which is rather pointless because it was almost never played and also, when the characters stand on it, the audience worried about them falling off rather than the dialogue between characters. Putting props around the stage, also, can pull the audience’s attention from stage, leave them wondering what the props are for.

            The actors for this production were all very talented and committed. They interpreted their characters in their own way and engaged themselves fully into the performance. The director, however, inserted many distracting elements into the production, and wasted the actor’s talents and hard work. In one scene, Tom is having an intense conversation with Amanda, and Laura is singing in the background in a booth on stage where the violinist occasionally plays. Laura has an amazing voice that the audience really wanted to hear, but they can hardly hear it. As the audience tried to focus on Laura’s voice, the important conversation between Tom and Amanda was missed. As a result, the audience heard neither Laura’s voice in a comfortable volume, nor understood the conversation between Tom and Amanda. The director should have separated these two events to make them both clear to the audience. In another moment, when the four actors line up on stage and sing “let’s go to the movies,” Laura comes in with an inflatable plastic giraffe. The giraffe makes an appearance and never comes back again. We learned in the Q & A session between the audience and Mia Ellis, the actor who plays Laura that the giraffe is supposed to represent Laura’s glass menagerie.  The director could not decide whether to use real glass animals or inflatable plastic animals as the glass menagerie, so he decided to keep both. Bad mistake, director, because now the audience are just wondering about the meaning of the giraffe instead of focusing on the scene!

            The directing made the characters confusing, especially Tom. Tom first appears with red nail polish on both his finger and toenails, and talks in a non-sense manner, which makes me think that he was insane. My assumption was proven even more by his constant talking about movies and his unrealistic ambitions. However, Tom is not supposed to be insane, he is just drunk and stressed out. Nevertheless, in this production, Tom speaks in a manner that makes him seem mentally ill, and dresses in pajama styled clothing that makes him seem like a loafer. He appears to be the disabled one in his household, more ill than Laura, who is actually physically disabled. Such confusion can make the audience misinterpret the play.

            This production definitely does not present the best and most classic version of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie. I would suggest not wasting your money on it, unless you really have nothing better to do. However, if you are a theatre teacher of a middle school or high school, please bring your students to see the show. It will incite an intense class discussion about the quality of the production. It will also allow students to practice criticizing set design, character interpretation and directing. Such activities would make theatre students better actors and directors.

The Glass Menagerie by Theresa Rauh

The Glass Menagerie by Theresa Rauh

 

Have you ever seen a movie and wished you were the character in it, or dreamed a dream and wished it would continue and be real? Can you imagine that the sound or an image form the past suddenly looms larger than the present for somebody? This is what happens to the family in the play, The Glass Menagerie the entire time. They live in their memories, dreams and expectations for the future.

The Glass Menagerie is a play by Tennessee Williams, which premiered in 1944. It is a four-character play. The oldest character in the play is Amanda Wingfield, a women who was abandoned by her husband many years ago and now trying to raise her children under harsh financial conditions. She is in love with the memories from her youth, and also wishes her children to have the same comforts as she does. She desperately hopes to find a suitor for her daughter Laura, who never leaves the house because of shyness and complexes concerning other people, as soon as possible. Tom Wingfield is Amanda’s son, who works at the warehouse to support his family. He is frustrated by his job though and goes out every night to the “movies”, which also contains going to bars and smoking in my opinion. “Going to the movies” is just an expression for him for leaving the house at night, to escape from reality for a little while.

Laura Wingfield is Amanda’s daughter and Tom’s younger sister. She is mental disabled in a way, and is therefore really shy. She can barely talk to other people, but her family and has isolated her from the outside world. She has created a world of her own, symbolized by her collection of glass figures. The fourth character in the play is Jim O’Connor, a guy, who went to high school with Jim and Laura. He was Laura’s one and only high school love. Jim is pretty self-confident, although his fame and success in high school didn’t keep continuing, however, by the time of the play's action he is working as a shipping clerk at the same shoe warehouse as Tom, which is why he comes to dinner one night to the Wingfield’s house. But even as he comes to dinner Laura is unable to join the table because of her shyness. After having dinner with Tom and Amanda, Jim joins Laura in the living room and starts having a conversation with her, in which he also advises her to think more for herself. This piece of advice is very enlightening to her in my opinion, as it comes from her high school love. In the end they are having a slow dance and Jim kisses the shy girl. However Jim leaves, as we find out that he is engaged to marry. In the end Tom also leaves his smother and his sister, Laura blows of the candles and the play ends.

As the play was performed on an open stage, you could see what was going on “behind the stage”, which I personally don’t like that much. But overall I really enjoyed the performance. And the more I think about it, I really understand the message, which they wanted to get across. The family is trapped in a menagerie of memories and unreality, every single member of them tries to get out of this differently and while doing this they still try to hold together and love each other the way they are. This part is what was very inspiring for me. This message was brought across pretty well by the actors, as they performed really emotionally and were really committed to their characters.

 

 

Talented Cast and Crew, but Plagued with Distractions By Ryan LaPointe

Talented Cast and Crew, but Plagued with Distractions By Ryan LaPointe

Brian Mertes' take on The Glass Menagerie proved a little hard to follow, but the talent of the actors and crew was undeniable.  We saw this production on Wednesday, March 11, at Trinity Rep's Chace Theater in Providence, Rhode Island.  The show was directed by Brian Mertes, with musician Phillip Roebuck and actors Brian McEleney, Anne Scurria, Mia Ellis, and Dennis Kozee.

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play, drawn from the memories of Tom Wingfield, who is both the narrator and a character in the play.  The play revolves around the struggles of Tom's family leading up to Tom's inevitable flight, leaving behind the troubles and following in the footsteps of his father.

The venue contains a single curved, steeply sloped bank of seating looking down onto the floor for the performers.  The Glass Menagerie was performed on a raised deck which was constructed on this floor.  In the Chace Theater, nothing was hidden from the audience's view.  The deck on which the performance occurred was surrounded by various props and pieces of furniture which the actors would use during the course of the performance.  The stage crew made no effort to hide themselves, working right alongside the actors currently performing, and once even handing objects to the actor currently speaking.  Other crew members could be seen throughout the show sitting at a table with several computer monitors and other tech, placed behind the deck but well within the sight of the audience.  The musician for the show was always visible while playing, and at one point even went onto the deck and interacted with the actors while playing the guitar accompaniment.

The technical aspects of the performance were executed superbly.  The lighting looked fantastic, and the sound effects sometimes made me feel true dread. The members of the crew were always in sync with each other, and the sound, lights, and set changes were coordinated to the highest degree.  Many times, sound effects were synchronized with actual sounds to produce one seamless effect.

Throughout the play, there were many times when secondary actions were occurring onstage that distracted from the primary plot.  Due to these frequent distractions, I found that I had to concentrate to keep myself focused on following the main plot of the play. With mild effort, I was able to stay focused and aware of what was happening in the central plot of the show, unlike some of my friends, who became distracted and confused at times.

While there may have been shortcomings in terms of the choices made by the show's director, the acting was fantastic.  I was immediately impressed by Brian McEleney, who played Tom Wingfield, the narrator, and kicked off the performance by speaking directly to the audience, with an in-character introduction to the background and characters of the play.  I was also especially absorbed by the performance of Anne Scurria, who played the narrator's mother, Amanda Wingfield.

Overall, I highly enjoyed this performance of The Glass Menagerie, despite the frequent distractions and the play's heavy subject matter.  I would recommend it to anyone who is willing to spend some effort to keep their attention from going astray.

The Glass Catastrophe by James Curley

            From the open set, to the standing on chairs, to the poor decision in props, The Glass Menagerie failed, and did not meet expectations. This play was directed by Brian Mertes, was shown March 11, 2015, and took place in Providence, RI through the Trinity Repertory Company in the Chace Theater.

            The Glass Menagerie was interesting to say the least and had potential, but failed to reach the finish line. A main aspect of why I did not like the play was its open set, I got distracted from time to time and I think this did not go well with the play, because the audience tended to be more focused on the moving of props and what was happening in the booth for the music, that some of the dialogue and important scenes were lost. Finally an aspect that took the cake was the lack of explanation. An example of this was Tom and his “going to the movies” saying. This antic left the audience questioning, where is he going? Why is he going? What’s his secret? This lack of explanation led to a very important part and one of the main messages lost, and this could have been cleaned up with some simple explanation or just Tom saying where he was going. The Glass Menagerie had minimal but some positive ideas, but given the opportunity, do not see this play, under any circumstances.

            Overall The Glass Menagerie was an abysmal play, and should be revamped before shown again. It brought physical pain, to see these actors trying to attempt the awkward play style. To see these mediocre and decent actors stuck with this terrible play style it was disheartening because they were good actors, just stuck with an atrocious director. To top off the play’s success, many audience members fell asleep. This play has potential but if shown in this fashion again it will leave audience members with the wrong interpretation of The Glass Menagerie. Definitely do not see this play unless it is given a serious face lift.

Misguided Leadership by Coby Goodrich

             The small stage held many big ideas, but many of the ideas failed to communicate. On the 11^th of a beautiful March day (the first after many days of cold snow), we traveled into Providence just after breakfast to watch the show The Glass Menagerie. It took place on a small open stage, with the audience seated in chairs all around. The cast included everyone seen and heard, from the characters to the musicians, and even the stage crew. The play contained four characters, three of which were family members, and the fourth a friend of the older brother in the family. The family consists of a mother, an older brother, and a younger sister. It is clearly evident that the family is struggling and there is lots of conflict within the family. Tom, the older brother and narrator of the play, struggles with his internal problem of providing for the family and his wish to leave for adventure and escape his demanding mother.  

            I’ll start with the positives. The play was very open in that no character, stage crewmember, or piece of stage equipment was hidden from the audience. This allowed the audience to see everything that was going on around the stage (not a good thing as it turns out for this play), giving the performance a different “closer” feel. The character’s of the play were very believable and carried out their roles with well executed comedy, sadness and power. The talented actors seemed to enjoy themselves, and the play held lots of potential, its only flaw was the director. The director caused many issues with the play. Throughout the performance, there were distractions by actors off set as they were busily doing something related to the performance but the intention of what they were doing was unclear. There were also some stage directions that remained unexplained and confusing, such as characters standing on chairs for no reason, and blowup animals. During a question and answer at the end of the performance, one of many confused audience members asked what the blowup animals had been for. The response was that the blowup animals had been a past idea of the director, and he had kept some in the play simply because he liked them. In the play, the blowup animals had made no sense and kept the audience guessing what they were supposed to be representing. The whole play seemed to be a muddle of the director’s ideas, almost none of them fitting together. The result was a confusing play with good characters but a bad script to follow.

            The Glass Menagerie kept the audience guessing, in a bad way. The play was a collection of muddled ideas that masked the true talent of the characters in the performance. The play left me confused and with a headache. I would not highly recommend a friend to see this play, however art is meant for interpretation and people will interpret it differently. So if your feeling adventurous and don’t mind feeling let down, try this play out. Otherwise, see a different play.

 

A Unique Spin on a Classic Play by James Finneral

                The Glass Menagerie is a play written by Tennessee Williams that premiered in 1944. It is a four character play that heavily revolves around three of the characters who are family members. The family has a mother, Amanda Wingfield, a son, Tom Wingfield and a daughter, Laura Wingfield. There is significant turmoil within the family as they wonder how to support themselves without the father around. Tom is also the narrator throughout the play and the play revolves around Tom’s lack of desire to provide well for his family. Tom would constantly take trips to the “movies” where he would actually be doing something he is not supposed to be doing. Throughout the play, Amanda wants Laura to find a guy with a decent paying job so they can get married and he can help the struggling family. Laura is an extremely shy girl who dropped out of her college business course and is constantly spending time with her glass menagerie. Later on in the play Jim O’Connor, a friend of Tom’s and an acquaintance of Laura enters. Amanda desperately wants Laura and Jim to get married, but it turns out that Jim is already engaged. Amanda is heartbroken and at the very end Tom announces that he will be leaving, following in his father’s footsteps. Trinity Repertory Company put on a production of The Glass Menagerie on March 11th 2015. The production was extremely unique and many different things caught my attention.

                When you first set foot in the theater you will see an elevated stage with no curtain covering backstage. The set continues in front of and behind the stage with many props scattered all over the place. At the start of the play the audience could see a couple of stage managers operating technical things in the play, but then a curtain was used to block a visual of them. This was instantly confusing as to whether or not they wanted us to see the stage managers or not. Although this was confusing I enjoyed how the stage managers would come out and help with props or costumes for the characters. This shows that they are not trying to recreate a parallel universe, but just let the people know that they should just enjoy the acting. This adds to the fact that this production was more presentational than representational meaning the company was not trying to create an absolutely realistic set. The more presentational style of the production ultimately helped it out. 

                Some of the directorial choices from Brian Mertes made the production less effective. There would be moments in the play that just did not make sense such as Tom having to wear red nail polish as well as put on makeup at the beginning of the second act. That choice was very unnecessary and would have benefited the play if it was not there. Another thing that really bothered me during the performance were the multiple things going on stage at once. An example of this was when Tom and Amanda were having a conversation and Laura was in the back studio singing. Another time was when Tom and Amanda were talking again and Laura was on the lower level looking at her glass menagerie and Jim was sitting on a couch at the very back of the stage reading a book. This caused me to look in multiple places during the scene and lose focus on the point of the scene. Mertes brought very unique ideas to the production, but they definitely did not do the show justice.

                Lastly the best part of the production was easily the actors. Anne Scurria brought a very fun and energize quality to the role of Amanda which made her character very interesting. Mia Ellis did a nice job carrying a seriousness to the role of Laura even during outrageous situations for example when she could not answer the door. Dennis Kozze made his presence known late in the show with many comedic lines as Jim O’Connor. Lastly Brian McEleny stole the show with his historical portrayal of Tom. He took on such a ridiculous role with seriousness which made his performance that much more entertaining. Although I did not enjoy when he put on makeup, I understand that it was more of a directorial choice than his own. The actors really did help keep this production afloat.

                If you are a person who is willing to work extra hard to comprehend the play then I recommend going, but if not do not waste your time because there are many choices in the production that are very confusing and take away from the meaning of the play.   

 

The Glass Menagerie by Ebie Quinn

The Glass Menagerie by Ebie Quinn

The Glass Menagerie, as performed by Trinity Rep, was insane in all senses of the word. It was insanely weird, insanely random, and mostly insanely entertaining. The insanity began as soon as the audience entered the theater.

The set itself was very non-traditional. It consisted of a platform with a few random objects, a bed and a piano and a few other things set up around the stage. From the audience’s point of view, you could easily see the lighting/sound box which was directly next to the stage. You could also see all the lights and the bare bones of the theatre. The set and costume changes themselves were also questionable. The show makes no effort to hide the crew members. They walk on stage and do whatever needed to be done, seemingly as if they are part of the performance. This is also different from many shows I’ve seen, and if anything, it only adds to the chaos.

The play itself was about a mother and her son and daughter. The play is told from the perspective of the son, who explains at the beginning that this story is his memories, and they will probably be cloudy, confusing, and exaggerated. The son and daughter are adults in their early twenties, but they appear to still be living with their mother. The son works at a shoe factory, providing for his family and the daughter is emotionally and physically fragile. She lives at home collecting glass trinkets after dropping out of high school and business collage. The husband isn’t in the picture and the mother is hell-bent on finding a “gentlemen caller” for her daughter. It is clear from the beginning that this isn’t going to be a traditional production. The son and mother are loud and pretty crazy. They are constantly standing on things and yelling. To give you an idea of the randomness of the show I’ll provide a few details. Believe it or not, these details taken out of context make about as much sense as they do in the context of the show. There are random paper flowers scattered around the stage for no reason. At one point there is a blown up giraffe floating around. The actors pretend the piano is a fire escape, and subsequently stand on top of it. With no warning the scene quickly transitions into a weird musical number. These are only the details that stood out to me, there is so much more disorder in the show. It is done purposeful because it is supposed to be stream of consciousness/memory. It is up to the audience members to accept the version of reality the actors present. In this production, the world works in crazy ways, and you have to just go along with it.       

        At the beginning of the production I was taken aback and thoroughly thrown off. What I was expecting I don’t know, but it certainly wasn’t this off-kilter show filled with crazy set changes, nonsensical soliloquies, and random objects. I had trouble following the show at first. I thought that the actors were trying to convey a larger message and theme to the audience, but I couldn’t quite get at what it was. The symbolism of seemingly random lines, objects and musical numbers was lost on me and I felt frustrated. I even had trouble following the story itself because it was interrupted with so many erratic lines and scenes. Despite these oddities, once I began to get used to the style of the show I found the story, and the way in which they told it, to be compelling. By intermission I was engrossed in the storyline and my own curiosity as to what they would say or do next. That being said, the confusing things were ultimately distracting and outweighed the story line and the actors performances. I thought that the dream-like memory state attempted to explore an interesting concept, how a story is affected by someone’s personal memories. It could have been quite successful, but I think the director took this idea to far and it ended up being detrimental to the shoes overall quality.

        The craziness of this show was somewhat balanced by stunning actors. The production was bold and risky, and without the help of brilliant committed actors, it would have failed miserably. The Glass Menagerie featured four actors each with a different important role. Their roles were all filled with high emotion, and the actors had the audience laughing one second, and the next focusing in on a serious scene. It was a skilled performance and it impressed me immensely. They were the highlight of the show and I felt that their skills could have been utilized even better if the set wasn’t so distracting.

        I recommend this to anyone with an open mind. It is not ideal for young children, not because the content was inappropriate, but because it would go over their head. It is one of the stranger plays I have ever witnessed. If you choose to watch this I advise you to allow yourself to open up to the craziness and consider new ideas. But, if you are looking for a more traditional piece of theatre, this production is not for you.