Playwright: Tennessee Williams
At: Shattered Globe Theatre at
Victory Gardens Greenhouse, 2257 N. Lincoln
Phone: 773-404-7336; $25-$35
Runs through: Nov. 2
Shattered Globe's production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie is downright respectable.
There are no avant-garde interpretations like Charles Newell's take at Court Theatre. And certain conservatives ( like editorialist Cal Thomas ) will be pleased that it features no color-blind casting like the upcoming Steppenwolf for Young Adults production.
The only slight deviation from Williams' detailed stage directions in Shattered Globe's production is the use of historical film and animated text.
From the start, broody Tom Wingfield details that what transpires on stage is a memory play. Certain words, images and situations stick out in the author's admittedly biased and poetic perspective.
Yet in Shattered Globe's version, video and sound designers Mike Tutaj and Kevin Viol interpret Williams' suggestions for projections on a grand scale. The entire back wall becomes a big screen occasionally awash in illuminated text and film footage that can distract. Particularly jarring is when an actor slightly deviates from a projected play quote.
The video work also give a weighted monumentality to the play, reflecting more on its pillared place in the American theater canon rather than the wistful Depression-era family drama transpiring in front of us. Tutaj and Viol's video designs are certainly beautiful and ingenious, but they pull focus from the fine actors.
Director/set designer Kevin Hagan certainly chose well with his Tom of David Dastmalchaian. He gets the agitation and frayed nerves just right of a poet trapped in an emotionally smothering home and a monotonous factory job.
As Amanda, Tom's mother and sparring partner, Linda Reiter is feisty with her embodiment of the fading Southern belle whose bitterness at life's injustices is tenuously concealed behind a façade of charm and gentility. The pain on Reiter's face is palpable, particularly when her remaining hopes and expectations get dashed for her children.
Mike Falevits is spot-on with his period enthusiasm and snappy demeanor as Jim O'Connor ( a.k.a. 'The Gentleman Caller' ) . With his red hair and goofy grin, Falevits certainly fits the ideal suitor for anyone's grown daughter.
This leaves us with Allison Batty as Tom's cripplingly shy and meek sister, Laura. Batty does what she's supposed to when it come to crying on cue or doting on her prized collection of glass animals. Yet Batty brings an enthusiasm to Laura that doesn't jibe as real. Hence Batty gets overshadowed by her peers.
The Glass Menagerie is an American theater landmark, even it if does prescribe to the outdated psychology of the day that an absent father and an overbearing mother lead to ( a strongly hinted at ) gay son. Shattered Globe's handsome production reminds us what a great piece of work Williams' play is, even when certain aspects of it get blown up to grandiose proportions.