By George Maguire
Ross Valley Players has at last been able to re-mount Tennessee Williams’ classic play The Glass Menagerie.
First seen for a very short time in 2020 pre-pandemic, the estimable company has brought back this production and the rewards are ours to behold. Anchored with a stunning performance by Tamar Cohn as Amanda Wingfield, the mother of iron, this production draws on the finest of both technical and actor/director support making it a must-see for the final two weeks of its run.
…Ross Valley Players has given us a gift not to be missed….
Written in 1944, The Glass Menagerie catapulted an obscure Thomas Lanier Williams to the heights of fame. His promise continued with Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Night of the Iguana, Sweet Bird Of Youth, Suddenly Last Summer and many more plays indelibly etched in the American Theatre psyche. A playwright/poet of astonishing language skills, Williams (who adopted the name “Tennessee”), weaves together memories, idiosyncratic characters and pain in this first of his great works.
The play is set in 1937 in a small St. Louis flat inhabited by Amanda Wingfield, her son Tom (David Abams) and her emotionally and physically fragile daughter Laura (Tina Traboulsi). Looking down on them is a portrait of the father, who left for parts unknown years earlier, sending only a postcard with the words “Hello” and “Goodbye.” Laura spends her time tending to a collection of glass figurines which her mother calls “Laura’s glass menagerie.” Tom keeps the family afloat working at a shoe warehouse and dreaming of joining the merchant marines.
Wanting Laura to break through her intense shyness and hopefully meet and marry, Amanda coerces Tom to bring home a “gentleman caller” for Laura to meet. Tom invites his work colleague Jim O’Conner (Jesse Lumb) without knowing that Laura has had a crush on him since high school.
The RVP production has a simple but almost gauze-like set by Tom O’Brien complete with pastel walls and a see-through curtain separating the dining space from the living room. Outside is the landing with a fire escape where Tom smokes and narrates the memory tale. Spot on costumes by Michael Berg, an imaginative and evocative lighting design by Michele Samuels and period victrola music collected by resident sound designer Billie Cox, complete the fragile memories that Tom illuminates.
This is indeed a memory play as Tom tells us directly guiding us into his world of painful guilt as he looks back on the family he left behind when, like his father before him, he leaves and never returns.
The RVP cast is exemplary. Tom is played with deep sincerity, beautiful vocal assuredness and pained recollection by Abrams, also the director of the production. Tina Traboulsi brings all right qualities of awkward shyness and yet an underlying strength to Laura. She eschews a leg brace which is often used in productions, and instead adopts a slight limp, which she of course sees as a monumental obstruction. Jesse Lumb’s warm, comforting and caring gentleman caller is pitch-perfect. His scene lit by candlelight with Laura is a particular highlight of emotional excellence.
The production however belongs to Tamar Cohn and her astonishing portrayal of Amanda. Wielding wiles of ever imaginative possibilities, this force-of-nature mother cajoles, primps, screams in frustration and anger, and utilizes every tool in her arsenal to help her children. Underlying it all in this beautiful performance is love – a love that shines through the gauze like a beacon of hope. Stunning!
Memory plays such as The Glass Menagerie and Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa necessitate such simplicity of distance bringing us into the narrator’s world, so we feel the pain, anguish and the love of our own lives long past and yet long remembered.
Ross Valley Players has given us a gift not to be missed.
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ASR Contributing Writer George Maguire is a San Francisco-based actor/director and is Professor Emeritus of Solano College Theatre. He is a voting member of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact: gmaguire1204@yahoo.com
| Production | Glass Menagerie |
|---|---|
| Written by | Tennessee Williams |
| Directed by | David Abrams |
| Producing Company | Ross Valley Players |
| Production Dates | Thru Oct 14th |
| Production Address | Ross Valley Players "The Barn" 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, Greenbrae, CA 94904 |
| Website | www.rossvalleyplayers.com |
| Telephone | 415-456-9555 ext. 1 |
| Tickets | $35 |
| Reviewer Score | Max in each category is 5/5 |
| Overall | 4.5/5.0 |
| Performance | 4.5/5.0 |
| Script | 5.0/5.0 |
| Stagecraft | 4.5/5.0 |
| Aisle Seat Review PICK? | YES! |