The Glass Menagerie

Tennessee Williams play is currently showing at The Playhouse, and seemed pretty much sold out when I went yesterday.

In the tenement apartments of St. Louis, the Wingfield family struggle to make ends meet. As America is ravaged by the Depression, Amanda clings to memories of her idyllic youth in the South, where she was wooed by scores of rich and handsome suitors. With her husband long gone and her own days of courtship over she is determined to find her daughter a husband. But Laura is painfully shy. She plays with her collection of glass animals and lives in a world of her own. And Amanda's son, Tom, an aspiring poet in a dead-end job, secretly dreams of escape.

The performances are thoughlly compelling- especially Imogen Stubbs, who plays the mother. You quickly get over the southern American accents, which initially sounded a bit wierd. The past few plays I went to have been big story lines, with either loads happening or faster paced, this isn't, its more a concentration on a family life, all set in their front room. I didnt realise but it was a  kind of self portrait of Williams early life, and feels like the preamble to On The Road, just before Jack Kerouac sets off on his cross-country adventure, he has to deal with his family buisness- that being his sisters spazzy leg and mothers moidering. The Glass Menagerie (collection of glass animals) seems to be an alagory (oooohhh) for his sister, who never does anything, except play with her bits of glass, one of which breaks.