A beautiful and thoughtful production of The Glass Menagerie is on now at the Meat Market Stables in North Melbourne. It is the second creative collaboration by two Melbourne-based independent theatre companies: Victory People Productions and Running with Scissors Theatre.
The Glass Menagerie was written soon after the US depression and during World War II. First shown in Chicago in 1944, by 1945 it was winning awards. The play’s massive success launched the career of one of America’s greatest playwrights, Tennessee Williams.
Co-directors Nick R.T. Reynolds and Nadia Sirninger Rankin said the play stood out to them because of the way it tackles the experience of marginalised people and because of Williams’ exceptional skill in characterisation. Additionally, the story of young adults in the 1940s facing a deeply unstable world resonated with Nick and Nadia’s generation.
What is rewarding about this version of The Glass Menagerie is the care and thought invested in the interpretation of the characters. The new, more nuanced and sophisticated way they are portrayed lifts the bar for all future renditions of this play.
Tom, the narrator, is played Oliver Gorringe. Historically accurate, and in contrast to past productions, this audience is presented with Tom as a young gay man. He has a self-contained and gentle disposition, communicating his sensitive and poetic nature. Tom is neatly dressed, his expression is often wide-eyed, as though in shock, or dissociating.
It is obvious from Amanda’s scathing remarks about his literary interests, that it is not safe for Tom to be himself, so his true self is withdrawn. Consequently, this Tom has a type of dreamy, sleepwalking, inhabiting-higher-philosophical-realms manner. Gorringe captures Tom’s struggles, as a queer man, to feel belonging in the world. It is a sensitive and illuminating portrayal.
As Laura, Caitlin McCallig’s performance is one of the triumphs of the play. Key to the play’s story is Laura’s shift from feeling hopeless to temporarily blossoming, embodying hope and new confidence, and then absorbing another cruel blow from life.
At the start, Laura is shown not so much as a one-dimensional fragile person, as she is sometimes shown, but rather a battered child, a victim of psychological abuse. She flinches from her mother’s touch, holds her head down and has the impression of a person highly anxious.
Biographical accounts of Rose, Tennessee Williams’ actual sister, whom Laura is based upon, suggest she may have been raped by her father. Accordingly, Laura may be best understood as experiencing trauma and lost self-worth associated with child abuse. McCallig depicts that.
Jim, the gentleman caller, is perfectly cast and played to perfection by Columbus Lane. He embodies the dream that might have been. At the same time, Lane also captures the casual brutality of the beautiful, successful people of the world.
Linda Cookson’s portrayal of Amanda is so powerful and disturbing that it lingered with me for days after seeing the play. It seems the audience is shown Amanda through Tom’s child’s eyes, a mother who is frightening, macabre and menacing. Cookson embodies this through her sudden aggression, such as slamming down a book, the fierce glares, and her unkempt hair.
Amanda’s actions can partly be explained as a fierce desire to ensure Laura doesn’t end up living a pitiful ‘old maid’ existence, which Amanda has witnessed and knows is an awful and often impoverished, miserable fate. Thus, this other dimension to Amanda, of a protective mother and the hard ‘voice of reality’ also comes across well.
The set transports the audience back to the 1940s. Incredibly, this play also has its own beautiful score. Songs composed especially for this production are lovely and well matched to the historical era. Overall, the sound support to this production by Rohan Dimsey is superb.
The litmus test for the success of this play is whether it can deliver the emotional intensity of the final scenes. Well, it does. At key moments, it seems everyone in the audience is holding their breath. At the finale, there were heavy sighs, shakes of heads, glassy eyes and then, thunderous applause.
The Glass Menagerie is a play that was written 80 years ago, by and about young adults, and it still resonates with and is brilliantly told by today’s creative young adults.
The Glass Menagerie runs to 2 August at Meat Market Stables, 2 Wreckyn St, North Melbourne VIC 3051.
Tickets: https://events.humanitix.com/the-glass-menagerie-wqqg7rve
Website: https://meatmarket.org.au/meat-market/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/runningwithscissorstheatre
Photo credits: Matthew Chen
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