“The Glass Menagerie” which plays at Bridge Street Theatre in Catskill until Sunday, defines the reason classic plays should be revived on a regular basis. First produced in 1944, it is an exquisite work given a breath-taking production.
Aside from being Broadway’s first “memory play,” the Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece is unique in that the four roles in the play that have become classics unto themselves. They have each been played by the most famous of actors, but I doubt that many have been better than what is on display at Bridge Street.
As well as setting the ideal pace for the production, director Steven Patterson guides his actors to performances that provide new insight to each character. One example is the portrayal of Jim, the Gentleman Caller played by Russell Sperberg. The actor stays true to the traditional playing of the role as a genuinely decent young man who is a stable, caring and ambitious person. However, Sperberg somehow shows the Gentleman Caller to be equally as tragic as the others. His curse is normalcy which will doom him to a dull, uninteresting life. It’s this type of work that adds rich shading to familiar characters.
The process of rethinking the familiar extends to the portrayal of the mother, Amanda. She is the first of Williams’ many female characters who are mired in the present by living a past that is probably mostly fantasy. Leigh Strimbeck is fearless as she accentuates every negative trait of this woman who, in trying to love her children, drives them away. Strimbeck plays the mother from hell as annoying, self-centered and manipulative. Yet, her performance gains the audience’s sympathy no matter how much you despise her methods of parenting.
Sarah Jayne Rothkopf takes a dangerous path playing the young Amanda as almost pathologically shy. Reclusive because of a severe limp, she lives in a world filled with fragile glass figurines led by a unicorn. It could be a sullen interpretation of an anti-social person. However, because of Rothkopf’s elevated skills at signaling emotional pain, her relationship with the Gentleman Caller is touching and poignant rather than pathetic. It’s an indelible portrait of a person doomed to loneliness.
Tying the entire production together is the superb work of Brett Mack as Tom. He is trapped in a world that sucks his soul dry. Tom is a sensitive young man who yearns to write and live an adventurous life. Instead, he goes to the movies, works as a stock clerk in a shoe factory and is treated as a child in a home in which he is the sole provider.
Mack is endearing and ideally naturalistic in this role. However, he shines as an older Tom, who narrates the story of his memories. Here he finds ephemeral beauty in Williams’ poetic use of language. Though it’s uncertain as to how he developed a southern drawl later in life, it does evoke the sound of the playwright’s own speech patterns.
It plays on an attractive set designed and lit by John Sowle. Typically played as a seedy apartment, Sowle creates a tasteful set of rooms that can still be improved upon for the arrival of the Gentlemen Caller. One could argue it goes against the economic situation of the family and removes a claustrophobic presence from the production. But, it does define Amanda as a woman for whom appearances are important. Michelle Rogers‘ costumes serve the same purpose.
This production adds music that accompanied the original production. It has mixed success. Sometimes it adds a sublime beauty and other times pushes a scene towards melodrama.
The only technical element which is jarring is Patterson’s use of Brecht-like signs that foretell the following moments. It tends to be distrustful of the audience’s ability to grasp the moment and in act two it often takes you out of an important intimate situation.
Quibbles aside, this production of “The Glass Menagerie” is “must see” theater. Bridge Street Theatre is only 30 miles south of Albany. It’s worth the short trip. For tickets and schedule go to bridgestreettheatre.org
Bob Goepfert is theater reviewer for the Troy Record.
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