The Glass Menagerie review - A slow-burning classic on Coventry stage

The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams’ first major play, and according to him one of the saddest he wrote, is a powerful tale of a family that just about hangs together, until it doesn’t.

The story is told in flashback by Tom Wingfield (Kasper Hilton-Hille), only son of Amanda Wingfield (Geraldine Somerville), a faded Southern Belle and abandoned mother, struggling to maintain traditional standards in the face of poverty and the conflicting aspirations of her children. Her daughter Laura (Natalie Kimmerling) is disabled, not least by her shyness, which drives her to drop out of college and retreat into her collection of glass animals, the menagerie of the title. Amanda realises, or rather believes, that Laura’s only chance of status in this world is to get married. This is the last thing Laura wants. Her mother nevertheless pursues this ambition ruthlessly, having more or less given up on her son, who wants nothing more than to watch movies and to be a poet. She persuades Tom to invite one of his friends, Jim O’Connor (Zacchaeus Kayode), to be Laura’s ‘visiting gentleman’.

If everything is tense and fragile about this family, the production is anything but. The action is played upon a huge glass-like circular stage out of which erupts a pillar with a sign, ‘Paradise’, in big neon letters on top. The sign refers to a dance hall just across the street from where the family live, a fantasy place of dreams and romance, symbolising their aspirations. Around the circle are placed Laura’s glass animals, and in the second half candles lit one by one as the romance between Laura and Jim bursts briefly into flame. Beneath the false gentility and Tom’s frustrations, one cannot help but glimpse the fact that between them, willingly or not, Amanda and Tom are pimping Laura. This is a play about psychological pressure within the abstract space of the characters’ minds.

Amanda’s plans do not work out, much to Laura’s pain and shame and Amanda’s fury, though not before Jim and Laura connect in an extended scene that is breathtakingly beautiful to behold. Jim’s desire for her to be what she wants, and Laura’s joy at her release from the trap of her own disbelief, is a lovely thing in itself and is one of the many pleasures of this production. The tragedy is that it will not be fulfilled.

The acting is superb throughout, and Atri Bannerjee’s direction flows with a quiet power. This is a long slow-burner, moving and thoughtful. The one criticism I’d make is that from the back of the auditorium it was sometimes difficult to hear what was being said. Many theatrical productions nowadays use rather heavy amplification, but here for once a little more might have suited the Belgrade’s large main auditorium.

The Glass Menagerie runs at the Belgrade Theatre until Saturday March 23 and is on tour until May 2024. Visit belgrade.co.uk to book.