"I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion…”

Opening night of The Glass Menagerie whilst buzzing and exciting, generally made me nervous and slightly anxious. Feeling slightly out of my depth surrounded by regular theatre goers who I can only assume are theatre students, I only became more nervous—I inherently have a slight sense of nervousness for smaller productions which rely on a small cast, as small mistakes are often more obvious. However, whilst naturally there were a few, the production was generously funny and striking.

The Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, whilst sometimes hidden by the director’s subversive and comedy heavy approach, curiously prompts us to question the standard to which we regard the accuracy of memory, and the carefully curated illusions we work so hard to create and uphold. 

The Glass Menagerie follows narrator and main character, Tom Wingfield, who feels and effectively is confined and trapped in a dingy, St. Louis apartment. The apartment feels hardly fit for himself, his overbearing mother, Amanda, and his helpless, disabled younger sister, Laura. Throughout the play, Tom recounts his complicated relationships with his family, under the looming portrait of his absent father, while the characters’ self-destructive illusions of one another create the intolerable pressure that drives Tom away from his family and home. The catalyst of the play is introduced as Tom announces he has found a potential suitor for his sister Laura, sparking hope in Amanda that her terribly shy daughter will pursue a life outside of her idyllic world created by glass figurines.

Director Wilson’s approach to plastic theatre was resonant in the stunning simplicity of the set and lighting, which truly allowed the talent of the actors to shine. Plastic theatre, created by Wiliams himself, involves using physical production elements (stage design, music, props, lighting) as the key tools in conveying depth beyond solely the actors and characters themselves. What makes Williams so brilliant was this style of ‘plastic theatre,’ in playing with production elements and stylised movement to break the boundaries of prosaic realism. A personal favourite was the lighting used to reflect the passing days, with light reflecting through the grates of the fire escape, casting a hazy and dreamlike glow across the set. The fire escape acts as a central symbol in the play, and this tasteful yet monotonous detail helped display the characters' desperation to seek freedom from their mundane lives. Nonetheless, the sound design was relatively uneventful and forgotten against the engaging dialogue. Where the sound could have been used to create this subtle undercurrent of tension and general unease, it felt like it would simply fade in and fade out, more as a scene-setting or background filler. For these production elements, I feel that it would have been more impactful for them to have been a reflection of the characters’ inner thoughts and feelings, rather than just simply lighting up the stage, and including music.

The character Amanda, played by Alison Whyte, requires the actress to wholeheartedly take on the loving and generally well-intentioned aspects of a mother whilst masked by being smothering and overbearing. Whyte truly delivered in this aspect. Her depiction of the fraying ‘Southern belle’ had almost all the audience stifling their laughter throughout the performance. There is truly no one else who could have made the audience burst with laughter at the simple utterance of the words ‘gentlemen caller’ in her brilliant, yet largely inaccurate southern drawl. In Tom’s mind, she burdens him with expectations as the breadwinner of the family, yet to me, Whyte’s portrayal of this complex character made me feel a sense of quiet sympathy towards Amanda. Tom, played by Tim Draxl, was a perfect fit who captured the frustrated yet complex character who yearns for more but is held back by his selflessness. Monologues flowed with ease and his natural presence and ability to capture the audience shone. Whilst different to most performances of the play, Tom’s suggested queerness was perhaps more prominent in his stage presence. Nonetheless, director Mark Wilson’s work tends to be more subversive, which may not be enjoyed by all, but I found it still stuck to the general tone and themes of the play. Each argument with his mother is perfectly tense thanks to Whyte and Draxl’s wholly realistic chemistry of mother and son. I was captured in the switch from comedic banter between the two characters, rapidly devolving into yelling and heartbreaking conflict. Lastly, Laura, played by Millie Donaldson, added to the overall tense and anxious atmosphere of the play, however at times the little sympathy I felt for the character was lost upon her occasionally exaggerated incompetency.

Whilst Wilson’s version of this play was perhaps more exaggerated in its dark comedic approach to the story, the very nature of The Glass Menagerie is emphasising the work as a memory play. In his original production notes, Williams urges directors and designers to produce the play in light of moving away from strict realism. Other critics of MTC’s rendition have noted the overacting and melodramatic nature of the actors, but perhaps this is Wilson’s very intention, to acknowledge the limitations of Tom’s memory, as William writes, giving us as the audience ‘truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion. Thus, the portrayal of the characters as particularly exaggerated and melodramatic, perhaps were to highlight Tom’s need to justify his eventual departure from his family to ease his mind and regrets. That being said, there were notable moments where the fragility of the material and the important themes in the play were overshadowed by the overindulgence in the unconventional, due to Wilson’s direction. Nonetheless, the show still manages to make for an entertaining and easy watch with satisfying chemistry between the cast and moments of tasteful humour.