A gloomy affair is saved by the belle: The Glass Menagerie is glum but Cherry Jones gives a fine turn, writes QUENTIN LETTS  

By Quentin Letts for the Daily Mail

Published: 19:43 EST, 2 February 2017 | Updated: 19:45 EST, 2 February 2017

The Glass Menagerie (Duke of York's Theatre)

Verdict: Glum, glum glum

Rating:

American actress Cherry Jones (pictured) gives a fine turn as Amanda Wingfield in a Glass Menagerie first seen in Boston, Massachusetts, four years ago

American actress Cherry Jones gives a fine turn as Amanda Wingfield in a Glass Menagerie first seen in Boston, Massachusetts, four years ago.

Fading southern belle Amanda is frantic to find a man for her lonely daughter, Laura. Miss Jones makes her almost a Hyacinth Bucket figure, over-anxious for social grace, a desperate snob whose drunken husband long ago fled the nest.

There is always some bleak humour to be had in this 1944 play, but playwright Tennessee Williams still leaves you with an unremitting sense of misery.

I loathe The Glass Menagerie — and did so the first time I saw it as a teenager — yet this is a strong rendition of the play, should your taste run to claustrophobic glumness. When Miss Jones's Amanda hears that a 'gentleman caller' is eventually going to come to dinner, she skips barefoot around the living room of her dingy St Louis apartment.

It is as though she herself, and not shy Laura, is going to be the young woman on offer.

Kate O'Flynn's Laura is suitably hesitant and physically lame — Miss O'Flynn gives her a tremulous voice. Brian J. Smith is charming as Jim, the gentleman caller.

I was less taken by Michael Esper as Laura's useless brother, Tom. The set is pared back and there is miming of certain props and of the food served at Amanda's table.

Tom, who claims to spend many of his nights at the pictures, rails against Hollywood for providing Americans with vicarious thrills.

Jane Wyman (pictured) played Amanda Wingfield's daughter, Laura, in the 1950 film, The Glass Menagerie

He feels that people should go and explore life and find adventure in the flesh.

Watching Williams's gloomy plot unfold once more, it struck me that a similar argument could be laid against this play.

Does it perhaps provide vicarious pessimism for a theatre-going public, who actually have plenty to be cheerful about?

The production is enhanced with mod music, but perhaps it should really finish with a song called Always Look On The Bleak Side Of Life.

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