A STRIKINGLY RESPECTFUL TAKE
WORTHY FOR A MUSEUM
The Antaeus Theatre Company first began offering audiences superbly mounted productions over a quarter of a century ago, and for their continued success in doing so, they are recognized as one of the true jewels in the crown of the Los Angeles theatre community. An actor-driven company, their members are professionals of proven talent dedicated to presenting the revered works of the American stage with the intelligence and respect they are deserving of. However, there is a danger inherent in this noble undertaking, the danger in crossing that whisper-thin demarcation which separates a dramatic experience from a museum piece.
Antaeus’s new production of The Glass Menagerie gleams with technical precision, intelligent respect, and haunting clarity, but it occasionally crosses that line. By my stating this, please don’t assume that I am dismissing Director Carolyn Ratteray’s achievement here as lacking merit, because that is certainly not the case. I am aware that her approach to the material is perhaps more respectful of the playwright’s wishes than I am appreciative of his intentions.
This Menagerie at times feels more preserved than fully lived-in, but the achievements are undeniable. The performances are rendered with sculptural care, the visual design is painterly, and every lyric in Tennessee Williams’ aching text is given its due. If the emotional immediacy sometimes suffers under the weight of reverence, the crystal-clear storytelling and rare textual fidelity are their own reward.
The Glass Menagerie is the quintessential memory play, and those memories are faithfully laid out. All of Williams’ family members are represented excepting Dakin Williams, the playwright’s younger brother. Memory plays such as this became popular in American theater largely due to the nostalgia that grew out of World War II, but The Glass Menagerie, which was written in 1943, was the mold-breaker. So much yearning, so much repressed anger. Americans were ripe for this genre, and faded Southern belles–once carefree, now desperate–were perfect avatars.
Touching on themes of family conflict, personal failure, and the power of memory, at the heart of the story are the Wingfields, a fractured family with an angry son longing for escape, a painfully shy daughter crippled by self-doubt, and a mother torn between nostalgia for her glamorous Southern past and the harsh reality of her present circumstances.
Navigating Williams’ world of fragile memories, Josh Odsess-Rubin as Tom, the narrator and Williams’ stand-in, lends the evening a cool, observant gaze. Gigi Bermingham’s Amanda is sharply etched: a once-vivacious Southern belle now curdled into a desperate, delusional mother whose love stings as much as it soothes; her motherly instincts have become so tainted by the toxic bitterness of abandonment that her love of her children is rendered a punishment for all. Alex Barlas brings credible earnestness to Jim, the Gentleman Caller — a boy next door type and promised messiah of the Gospel According to Dale Carnegie. All three thespians, especially Barlas, seem somehow to have an overlarge presence that imbues their performances with a stylized detachment, as if each were enduring a solitary confinement within the characters desperation to escape from the inescapable. This isolation, though feeling unnatural, does reflect how our brains form memories, fabricating them via the assemblage of retained stimuli and discrete images independent of “context.” As such, each character is trapped in their own isolated dream.
Only Emily Goss, as the delicate, physically and emotionally lame Laura, seems to escape the intensified presence stylization. Goss’s performance is heartbreakingly natural and emotionally present, perhaps because Laura, in Tom’s memories, remains the most tender and least distorted.
The technical design elements heighten the production’s tableau-like atmosphere. Karyn Lawrence’s lighting, Jeff Gardner’s soundscape, and Angela Balogh Calin’s spare, evocative set design (hovering between the drabness of the Wingfields’ St. Louis apartment and the imagined freedom of the fire escape) work harmoniously to realize Williams’ vision of “plastic theater.” Every image is sharpened and distilled, like a series of frozen memory flashes.
At Antaeus, even if the characters feel carefully mounted rather than rawly immediate, the production captures those currents faithfully — like butterflies pinned under glass, somehow still trembling.
If past productions of The Glass Menagerie have wrung more visceral tears from the audience, this staging offers a different kind of beauty: crystalline precision and a deeply respectful honoring of Williams’ layered, lyrical text. Not a line is tossed away, not a gesture is muted.
This lovely outing places the performances on a pedestal; in doing so much was lost, but much was also gained. In the end, if any American drama deserves the reverent elevation of a museum piece — polished, preserved, held aloft — The Glass Menagerie is it.
Easter Eggs for the Devoted Department: Tennessee Williams wove autobiographical threads and hidden references into The Glass Menagerie for those who look closely.
- Tom, named for Williams’ real first name before adopting “Tennessee” in college, dreams of escape via “brief, deceptive rainbows” — a nod to Williams’ own refuge in movies.
- Laura’s nickname “Blue Roses” comes from a misheard case of “pleurosis” — just as Williams’ beloved sister Rose, institutionalized later in life, inspired Laura’s fragility.
- The magician Malvolio’s coffin trick, recounted by Tom under the looming portrait of the absent Wingfield father, references Williams’ real father Cornelius — grimly nicknamed “Coffin” Williams.
These small, tender markers add even more depth to a play already resonant with longing, regret, and fiercely preserved love.
Triumph Born of Near-Oblivion Department: Today The Glass Menagerie is recognized as a towering classic, but Tennessee Williams’ fragile memory play almost didn’t survive its rocky birth.
In 1943, still shut out of New York theater circles, Williams traveled to Hollywood and worked briefly for MGM — a job he hated. Believing his short story “Portrait of a Girl in Glass” might work as a film, he expanded it into a screenplay titled The Gentleman Caller, envisioning Ethel Barrymore and Judy Garland in the leads. MGM promptly rejected it, finding the piece “too literate” and “too Southern” — and soon after rejected Williams himself for the same reasons.
Disillusioned, he returned east. The discarded screenplay became the seed of a new play. Hunkered down in a Chicago theater during the brutal winter of 1944, Williams rewrote and reshaped his work obsessively, pursuing what he called a “sculptural drama” — where emotions were etched into tableaux rather than driven by naturalism.
When The Glass Menagerie opened that December, it nearly collapsed immediately. Sparse audiences braved the icy weather; closing was discussed. Williams later confessed that if the play had failed, he doubted he would have gone on writing.
But two influential Chicago critics — Claudia Cassidy and Ashton Stevens — championed the production fiercely, urging readers to brave the snow to see a young playwright’s dazzling new voice. Their advocacy turned the tide. The play transferred to Broadway, where it received 25 curtain calls on opening night and soon won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. Williams’ career — and American theater — would never be the same.
photos by Craig Schwartz Photography
The Glass Menagerie
Antaeus Theatre Company
Gindler Performing Arts Center, 110 East Broadway in Glendale
Fri at 8; Sat at 2 & 8; Sun at 2; Mon at 8
ends on June 2, 2025
for tickets, call 818.506.1983 or visit Antaeus
for more shows, visit Theatre in LA
