The Glass Menagerie

Belvoir The Glass Menagerie photo by Brett Boardman editorial MalthouseFresh from a sell-out season at Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre, The Glass Menagerie is considered one of Tennessee Williams’ finest – an intimate play about loss and regret and the possibility of hope, it will be presented at the Malthouse Theatre from 18 May 2016.

Amanda Wingfield is a single mother. Her husband abandoned the family years before. She is no longer living the life she dreamed of as a young Southern belle. Her son Tom works in a warehouse, setting aside his own ambitions to support his family. Her daughter Laura is achingly shy. Her health is not good and she has secretly withdrawn from secretarial college.

The three of them live in a small apartment that is haunted by the absence of Amanda’s husband and pent up with fantasies and rage. Amanda’s only hope is for a suitor for Laura to bring some romance to their lives.

Winner of the 2015 Helpmann Award for Best Play, Eamon Flack’s new production subverts Williams’ own own vision of a ‘memory play’. In real time onstage, the memories from the Wingfield apartment are converted live into moments from a lost black-and-white film, as Tom re-imagines those he left behind.

Williams’ intensely vulnerable characters are poignantly realised in this production, offering Melbourne audiences the chance to see Pamela Rabe (Wentworth), in her Helpmann Award-winning role, bring one of Tennessee William’s most legendary characters to life in Amanda – a woman of deep sadness and startling ferocity.

Director Eamon Flack will bring his customary light touch and huge breadth of vision to this expansive and intimate play about loss and regret and the possibility of hope, propelling the work to a devastating conclusion that depicts a family that is a stone’s throw away from collapse.

Tennessee Williams is considered to be one of the leading playwrights of his age, post-World War II America. Writing plays in the 1930s, his first play to receive a major production was Battle of Angels (1940). The Glass Menagerie (1944), his next play was a major success, winning The New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and catapulting him from obscurity to fame, signaling his great future as a significant playwright.

Later plays include: A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Summer and Smoke (1948), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). Both A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof won the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics’ Award, the two most prestigious awards given to any American play.

Director: Eamon Flack Featuring: Harry Greenwood, Luke Mullins, Pamela Rabe, Rose Riley Set Designer: Michael Hankin Costume Designer: Mel Page Lighting Designer: Damien Cooper Composer & Sound Designer: Stefan Gregory Video Design Consultant: Sean Bacon American Dialect Coach: Paige Walker-Carlton Assistant Director: Jada Alberts Stage Manager: Isabella Kerdijk Assistant Stage Manager: Katie Hankin

The Glass Menagerie
Merlyn Theatre – Malthouse Theatre, 113 Sturt Street, Southbank
Season: 18 May – 5 June 2016
Bookings: (03) 9685 5111 or online at: www.malthousetheatre.com.au

For more information, visit: www.malthousetheatre.com.au for details.

Image: Pamela Rabe and Luke Mullins in The Glass Menagerie – photo by Brett Boardman