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Theatre Journal 57.2 (2005) 308-311


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The Glass Menagerie. By Tennessee Williams. Directed by Gregory Mosher. John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Eisenhower Theatre, Washington, DC. 18 July 2004.

When Michael Kaiser became president of the Kennedy Center, he brought with him a predilection for festival formats and a stated plan to increase the Center's theatrical presence. To that end, the Kennedy Center has produced two theatre festivals: the critically-acclaimed Sondheim Festival (summer 2002) and Tennessee Williams Explored (summer 2004). Kaiser's model for these festivals follows the museum retrospective in which a single artist is featured, allowing the audience to compare multiple works. In contrast to museum [End Page 308]


Click for larger view		 Figure 1
Sally Field as Amanda, Jason Harner as Tom, in The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams. John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts, Washington, DC. Photo by Joan Marcus.
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practice, Kaiser endeavors to present fresh interpretations of familiar productions. Gregory Mosher's The Glass Menagerie, part of Tennessee Williams Explored, achieved that end. His production proved to be a startlingly innovative interpretation of a play that, for some, has become a predictable workhorse of educational and regional theatre. Each aspect of the production, executed with the precision and excellence expected of the Kennedy Center, revealed the complexity of the entangled lives of Amanda, Tom, and Laura in Williams's reknowned memory play.

Although Mosher's approach to the text was mostly traditional—the time and settings remained true to the original—the critical aspect of memory changed. The audience was not presented with only Tom's subjective view on the situation: rather, the social and economic realities of the family came to the forefront. This small shift produced a more nuanced interpretation that allowed the subtlety, humor, and complexity of each character and their relationships to surface.

Sally Field, as Amanda, exceeded expectations. The actress's reputation for persuasive performances of psychosis (Sybil in the movie of the same name and Maggie in television's ER, two of her award-winning roles) would seem to have made her a natural choice for Amanda, a character usually interpreted as desperately eccentric, verging on psychotic. Instead, Field gave Amanda tremendous depth, imbuing her with both love and pragmatism. Field's interpretation revealed a hard-working, frustrated woman and mother whose actions emerge from a maternal desire for happiness for both her children and security for her daughter. The Gentleman Caller's visit was particularly effective. Eschewing the usual hysteria of an aging Southern belle extraordinaire, Field made it clear that her costume choice was driven by economic necessity and that her behavior was a desperate attempt to keep Jim in the apartment until Laura regained her composure. Amanda's reminiscences became not only table-talk filler, but a touchingly simple wish for better times.

Field's Amanda achieved her most poignant and heart-wrenching moments in her scenes with Tom. Their mutual frustration in a life neither wanted formed the center of their conflict. Amanda's claim, "I want my children to be happy" (a line frequently delivered with sublimely passive-aggressive subtext), became a sad statement of truth recognized as unattainable by both the audience and Amanda.

Jason Harner's approach to Tom also shed new light on an old stereotype. In Harner's interpretation, Tom was not driven by bitter hatred of his mother and the life she forced upon him, but rather by hatred of a situation over which he had no control. In Mosher's production, Tom displaced his hatred onto the only sane and resilient object in his world, his mother. The two actors carried the show in their struggles against the world and clashes with each other.

Jennifer Dundas and Corey Brill also uncovered new dimensions in Laura and Jim. Crippled both physically and mentally, Laura's physical deformity was made substantial as she struggled to cross the room without her brace to let her besotted brother into their flat. Her shyness expanded to full emotional retardation in her interactions with her glass menagerie, which seemed disturbing...

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