The Glass Menagerie
Arguably, Ensemble Theatre’s production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie deserves a better audience than it got on opening night.
At a key point in the play, well-meaning faded golden boy Jim O’Connor (Tom Rodgers) accidentally breaks a tiny glass unicorn, part of the titular collection of knick-knacks that shy, anxious Laura Wingfield (Bridie McKim) is obsessed with.
It’s a moment laden with meaning and pathos. Laura – who was left with a limp by a childhood illness, and is so shy and awkward that she dropped out of secretary school rather than face day after day of simply sitting in class with other people – is finally, tentatively, making a connection with Jim, her high school crush. Unbeknownst to her, the future of her family depends on this connection. The meeting has been engineered by her younger brother, Tom (Danny Ball), and mother, Amanda (Blazey Best). Marrying off Laura will free Tom, who works in a shoe warehouse to support the family, to run off and find the adventure he craves in the merchant marines. It will also elevate Amanda from the crushing poverty she’s endured since her estranged husband, whose faded photo dominates the stark set, ran off years ago.
But Laura is far too fragile for such a burden – she’s as delicate as the glass unicorn that Jim so carelessly crushes. And the quiet, crystal moment in the aftermath of that tiny, terrible accident was itself shattered when some halfwit in the first few rows stage-whispered, clear as a bell...