At its smaller venue, Roundabout presents a controversial interpretation of Tennessee Williams' haunting memory play, starring two-time Tony-winner Judith Ivey as the former Southern belle, Amanda Wingfield.
The Off-Broadway production of The Glass Menagerie closed June 13, 2010. For current Off-Broadway show listings and tickets, please click here.
Written in the early 1940's, "The Glass Menagerie" is one of the best-known American plays. This production, which emanates from New Haven's Long Wharf Theatre, seems to have critics and audiences split almost down the middle.
Rather than setting the play in the Wingfield's St. Louis apartment, the director, Gordon Edelstein, has chosen to set the action in a seedy New Orleans hotel, where young Tom Wingfield (very clearly here a stand-in for Tennessee Williams, performed as a petulant, immature, and unambiguously gay alcoholic) is writing the play as it is being performed. He jumps in and out of the scenes, often observing (and sometimes lip-syncing) the dialogue between his over-bearing mother (Ms. Ivey) and his physically and emotionally damaged sister Laura, alternately typing or making handwritten notes as the action plays out in his head. Only the play's final scene, the long-awaited visit of the Gentleman Caller, is played in a semi-realistic fashion.
Depending on your point-of-view, you may find this non-traditional take "fiercely moving and seriously funny" (Charles Isherwood of the NY Times) or a "willful and tedious rethinking" (Linda Winer in Newsday). In any case, we think you'll find the game worth the candle, as the old expression goes.
Judith Ivey talks about why she wanted to take on this challenge:
What's the Roundabout? One of the great nonprofit dreadnaughts of the New York theater scene, the Roundabout has two Broadway venues and an Off-Broadway stage in midtown. Prominent artists are usually engaged, significant work is usually done, and even at the smallest of the theaters, the work has the uniform quality that one would expect from such a large and prominent shop. More here.
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Thomas from Chula Vista, CA In The Heights 2 tickets. Saved $51
