Review: The Glass Menagerie, Theatre Royal Bath – ‘The final exchange had audience and cast members in tears’

Tennessee Williams wrote The Glass Menagerie to address the sadness he felt over the fate of his sister, whose schizophrenia led to her being lobotomised in 1936. The play was an instant hit when it opened, and the royalties from it helped fund her care for the rest of her life.

This is an exercise in disappointment, desperation and guilt. Narrated by Tom Wingfield, who lives with his faded belle mother Amanda and cripplingly anxious sister, Laura, it is the story of a family trying to survive abandonment and loss of hope.

Tom is planning to leave home and is hanging on to a dead-end job while he writes poetry and dreams of a life at sea. His workmate Jim is invited to dinner on the instruction of his micro-managing mother, who is determined to find a man for Laura, given that her nerves mean she’ll never be able to support herself.

Geraldine Somerville as Amanda

This is the first ‘gentleman caller’ Laura has ever had, except Jim doesn’t know the plan and isn’t playing the game. Tom, Amanda and Laura yearn painfully for something they don’t have, and Jim’s easy capacity for love just makes their frustration worse.

Designed by Rosanna Vize, the show is staged on a huge circular base, under a rotating neon sign reading ‘Paradise’ (the ironically named dance hall across the street) the production is sparse, with a constant, hypnotic underscore and a backdrop of industrial lights. The bakelite records Laura would have played on the Victrola she keeps mentioning are here replaced with headphones and portable player. Laura’s unspoken desire is played out to the strains of Whitney Houston.

Geraldine Somerville as Amanda and Kasper Hilton-Hille as Tom

These anachronisms in the creative concept are surprising at first, but lend the play a contemporary flavour which reminds us that theatrical storytelling is always, ultimately, about the human condition. Director Atri Banerjee bases this concept on the developing pictures that make up our memories – layered over time and embellished by wishes mixed with reality.

Geraldine Somerville plays Amanda, switching effortlessly between instruction, encouragement, flirtation and anger. Her delivery is occasionally too quiet but she maintains a level of nervous energy which justifies the resigned frustration each of her children feels.

Zacchaeus Kayode as Jim O’Connor and Natalie Kimmerling as Laura

Natalie Kimmerling is excellent as Laura, fragile as the glass she collects but with a strength her family don’t see. Kasper Hilton-Hille and Zacchaeus Kayode play Tom and his colleague as men whose dreams are yet to be fulfilled, and whose confidence that they will get what they want is in sad contrast to the never-to-be-realised fantasies of the women.

The final exchange between Tom and his sister had people around me, and the cast, in tears. Sadness is based in the truth, for Williams as it is for all of us.

The Glass Menagerie is at Theatre Royal Bath from May 13-18, at 7.30pm, with additional 2.30pm matinee shows on Wednesday and Saturday. Tickets are available at www.theatreroyal.org.uk.

All photos: Marc Brenner

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