Steppenwolf's 'Glass Menagerie' earnest, powerful
No Chekhovian gun placed onstage has ever packed as much dread as the precious little unicorn figurine when it's set precisely if tenuously on an end table in "The Glass Menagerie."
The audience invests so much in it, because the likable, endearing, equally fragile character of Laura invests so much in it, and that fragile state of dread is preserved intact in the Steppenwolf Theater's fine new Young Adult series production of Tennessee Williams' first major success.
Williams' "memory play" might have been produced during World War II, but today it has the feel of a famous singer-songwriter's first hit record. It's simple, direct and heartfelt, as if it emerged fully formed from a developing consciousness and there were no other way for it to be.
The Steppenwolf production preserves that earnestness. As Tom, the aspiring poet and St. Louis working stiff stifled by his family, James T. Alfred projects his sensitivity with his high-pitched voice, but reveals depths of feeling underneath. Shanesia Davis is the meddlesome mother, Amanda, but also brings a sympathetic feel to a character who could easily be a shrew. Nambi E. Kelley plays it straight as Laura, the terminally shy sister with the title collection, with none of the hints of madness others have brought to it, only a furrowed brow and a persistent limp. And Anthony Fleming III seizes the stage as the Gentleman Caller, the embodiment of hope in this careworn family - and hopes dashed.
Four characters - five if you count the portrait of the missing father, as Williams did - all with their own dreams and aspirations. When brought together, however, they don't nurture one another, but strike sparks against their own flinty edges.
It couldn't be simpler or more direct, and Steppenwolf bases the production on its direct proficiency. Director Yasen Peyankov, the Bulgarian-born Steppenwolf ensemble member who recently played a key supporting role in Tracy Letts' "Superior Donuts," has stated that he tried to remain as faithful as possible to Williams' original text and vision, right down to the precise stage directions - with one notable exception.
This "Glass Menagerie" features an all-black cast, although there's nothing really exceptional or even noteworthy about that, the same way Barack Obama's blackness should soon be a nonissue. Rather, these are exceptional actors doing an exceptional play, and letting the audience carry any additional cultural baggage. The aspects of dreams deferred in a family where "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" resonate, of course, but it's not as if they're peculiar to the black community. No, it's rather that this production reflects that these are problems that can bedevil any family, regardless or race or even time or place.
Left to its own devices, this simple play still communicates powerfully, and this production leaves it to the audience to draw anything else from it. Oh, those additional cultural echoes are there, of course, but they're all the more powerful for being left unstated, hidden within the lines of Williams' original text.
"The Glass Menagerie"
Rating: 3 stars
Location: Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St., Chicago
Times: 11 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, through Nov. 9. (Other performances reserved for school field trips.)
Running time: Two hours and 10 minutes with intermission
Tickets: $20
Box office: (312) 335-1650 or steppenwolf.org
Audience: Not for small children, but as part of the Young Adult series fit for 10 and older, depending on the sophistication of the child, with some parental guidance.