An innocuous visit from a potential suitor unsettles the sheltered Wingfield family. Matriarch Amanda fiercely protects her adult children from the harshness of others, but doesn’t realize that her own eccentricities are the biggest threat to their psychological survival. Brimming with poetic language and indelible characters, this play about the enduring but limiting nature of love and family made Tennessee Williams a household name.
Please note that this production will use e-cigarettes and a water-based hazer.
Running Time: 2 hours and 30 minutes, including one 15-minute intermission. Late seating at House Manager’s discretion.
Better Lemons readers receive $5 off with the discount code ANWLemon when you purchase your tickets.
Tennessee Williams' bitter yet shimmering memory play The Glass Menagerie is so very fragile, so dangerously close to self-indulgence and parody. An overindulgent turn by the actor playing delusional matriarch Amanda or Tom, and the playwright's examination of artistry and family turns mawkish and unintentionally comic.
No such fate awaits the Menagerie at A Noise Within where Geoff Elliott, the director and frequent ANW player sets a firm course for this journey with four performers guiding the ship with equal finesse. During the company's 1997-98 season, Elliott himself played Tom Wingfield to the Amanda of longtime company member and resident artist Deborah Strang. To the great good fortune of her fans and anybody who missed that production, the actress is back as Amanda,...
Geoff Elliott's sublime direction and the beautifully detailed performances from his quartet of actors makes this production of The Glass Menagerie truly one for the memory.
The play asks us, ‘What price are you willing to pay for freedom…and who pays it?' – ultimately becoming a quest to “Let Me Out” instead of “in.” We've likely all known someone like Amanda, who demands nothing less than all of our own ambitions and self to serve her own. But to come away with something like hope after an evening of those demands is the special gift of this particular production – well worth seeing and always, worth feeling.
It may be confusing to hear hospital sounds over the PA system before the play begins in Geoff Elliott has managed to meld Tennessee Williams' fictional recreation with images of his real-life sister, Rose. With Rafael Goldstein as Tennessee Williams' narrator, Tom, Deborah Strang moves the character of his mother, Amanda, up a notch in an absurd journey into her youthful past. As Laura, Erica Soto works with a distinct “clump” to accompany her own intense introversion. Actor Kasey Mahafy paints the gentleman caller, Jim, as just as much of a desolate character as the rest of the family, who finds himself trapped in the tedium of a depression-era Southern town.
Goldstein, Mahaffy, and Soto are three of the best actors in the ANW company, this time portraying complicated and conflicted people that are relatable...
THE GLASS MENAGERIE is an enjoyable play that you should see.
After personally bearing witness to a string of poorly done contemporary renditions of American classics, A Noise Within's “The Glass Menagerie”was a needed palette cleanser. Elliott returns to a focus on Williams' 1944 vision and affirms this production as a must see this season.
However, once the gentleman caller exits the stage, the energy is once again deflated. The final image we are left with is a director's choice, not in the script, which references the real life tragic fate of the writer's sister, a stage picture that feels both hopeless and a cliche.
For Tennessee Williams, his 1944 autobiographical play, The Glass Menagerie changed his life forever. Upon its premiere in Chicago, then its transfer to Broadway, William's went on to become one of America's most beloved playwrights. The motto “write what you know” comes to mind when discussing Menagerie—there are glimpses of the writer and his family all over the play, especially in the character Tom. It's a play that is a look at the strength, and simultaneous fragility that exist in any family unit, thus its themes still resonate even today. This classic play is brought to life by director Geoff Elliott and the rest of the players at A Noise Within Theatre company in a poignant revival that eloquently takes us back to simpler times to reacquaint audiences with this American classic.
Director Geoff Elliott reinvigorates a 20th-century classic to stunning effect in A Noise Within's 2019 revival of Tennessee Williams' 1944 chef-d'oeuvre The Glass Menagerie, ... as memorable a revival of this American masterwork as any Tennessee Williams fan could possibly wish for.
Tennessee Williams' bitter yet shimmering memory play The Glass Menagerie is so very fragile, so dangerously close to self-indulgence and parody. An overindulgent turn by the actor playing delusional matriarch Amanda or Tom, and the playwright's examination of artistry and family turns mawkish and unintentionally comic.
No such fate awaits the Menagerie at A Noise Within where Geoff Elliott, the director and frequent ANW player sets a firm course for this journey with four performers guiding the ship with equal finesse. During the company's 1997-98 season, Elliott himself played Tom Wingfield to the Amanda of longtime company member and resident artist Deborah Strang. To the great good fortune of her fans and anybody who missed that production, the actress is back as Amanda,...
Geoff Elliott's sublime direction and the beautifully detailed performances from his quartet of actors makes this production of The Glass Menagerie truly one for the memory.
The play asks us, ‘What price are you willing to pay for freedom…and who pays it?' – ultimately becoming a quest to “Let Me Out” instead of “in.” We've likely all known someone like Amanda, who demands nothing less than all of our own ambitions and self to serve her own. But to come away with something like hope after an evening of those demands is the special gift of this particular production – well worth seeing and always, worth feeling.
It may be confusing to hear hospital sounds over the PA system before the play begins in Geoff Elliott has managed to meld Tennessee Williams' fictional recreation with images of his real-life sister, Rose. With Rafael Goldstein as Tennessee Williams' narrator, Tom, Deborah Strang moves the character of his mother, Amanda, up a notch in an absurd journey into her youthful past. As Laura, Erica Soto works with a distinct “clump” to accompany her own intense introversion. Actor Kasey Mahafy paints the gentleman caller, Jim, as just as much of a desolate character as the rest of the family, who finds himself trapped in the tedium of a depression-era Southern town.
Goldstein, Mahaffy, and Soto are three of the best actors in the ANW company, this time portraying complicated and conflicted people that are relatable...
THE GLASS MENAGERIE is an enjoyable play that you should see.
After personally bearing witness to a string of poorly done contemporary renditions of American classics, A Noise Within's “The Glass Menagerie”was a needed palette cleanser. Elliott returns to a focus on Williams' 1944 vision and affirms this production as a must see this season.
However, once the gentleman caller exits the stage, the energy is once again deflated. The final image we are left with is a director's choice, not in the script, which references the real life tragic fate of the writer's sister, a stage picture that feels both hopeless and a cliche.
For Tennessee Williams, his 1944 autobiographical play, The Glass Menagerie changed his life forever. Upon its premiere in Chicago, then its transfer to Broadway, William's went on to become one of America's most beloved playwrights. The motto “write what you know” comes to mind when discussing Menagerie—there are glimpses of the writer and his family all over the play, especially in the character Tom. It's a play that is a look at the strength, and simultaneous fragility that exist in any family unit, thus its themes still resonate even today. This classic play is brought to life by director Geoff Elliott and the rest of the players at A Noise Within Theatre company in a poignant revival that eloquently takes us back to simpler times to reacquaint audiences with this American classic.
Director Geoff Elliott reinvigorates a 20th-century classic to stunning effect in A Noise Within's 2019 revival of Tennessee Williams' 1944 chef-d'oeuvre The Glass Menagerie, ... as memorable a revival of this American masterwork as any Tennessee Williams fan could possibly wish for.
