Moonbeams Paved with Asphalt

By RICHARD CORLISS

THE GLASS MENAGERIE by Tennessee Williams

"Yes, I have tricks in my pockets. I have things up my sleeve." With these first words from The Glass Menagerie, his Broadway debut in 1945, Tennessee Williams announced his dramatic strategies and asserted his mastery of verbal magic. To the American theater Williams lent a firefly glow through which audiences could see into the dissolving past, into the long nights of desire and failure. For the next 35 years, directors took their cue from Williams' own lazy flights of self-destruction, from his wispy-wise, Percy Dovetonsils voice, and launched productions of his plays on gossamer wings toward the aerie of poetic eccentricity. In the Williams otherworld, one tiptoed through cobwebs, was blinded by moonbeams.

What this poetic approach too often misses is Williams' deft and impish sense of humor. The Glass Menagerie is autobiography in the form of a situation comedy. The first half of the play could be called "Mama's Family": Amanda Wingfield, a fiftyish matron whose husband abandoned her 15 years earlier, plots to find a "gentleman caller" who will support her and marry her shy, lame daughter Laura. In the second half, a young man does call--no gentleman, rather an awkward go-getter whose own glory days are long past--and a bittersweet romance flutters through and out of Laura's life. Amanda, Laura and Tom (Laura's brother and the play's narrator) may be fated to melancholy, but they survive on a diet of waspish barbs and mock-courtly wit. This requiem for decayed ideals is also a giddy Irish wake.

For good or ill, the current Broadway revival brings Williams down to earth. This time the moonbeams are paved with asphalt. Though Designer Ming Cho Lee has buttressed the Wingfield's St. Louis home with fleecy clouds, he has furnished it in a sturdy naturalistic style. Director John Dexter has paced the play to move one resolute step at a time, and encouraged the actors to deliver their lines with clarion force. This is a "solid" production, but it should be buoyant. The Wingfields imbibe a kind of emotional helium; only the guy wires of propriety keep them from floating into their darkest dreams. But with the exception of Bruce Davison's Tom, who nicely mixes wistfulness and cynicism, this Wingfield family is an chored to--sunk beneath--the matter-of-fact realities of Depression America.

The production is graced with two splendid actresses in two splendid roles; each falls just short. As Laura, Amanda Plummer spends the first act in pained watchfulness, mothering her collection of glass animals, nursing herself toward psychosis. She comes to life in her scenes with gentleman Jim (John Heard, in a brisk and engaging performance). "Somebody ought to--Ought to--kiss you, Laura!" Jim proclaims. As he leans in and embraces her, Laura surrenders her body and mouth to him, but not yet her wavering right arm. The hand pauses in midair, uncertain whether or how to commit, then grasps firmly at the hem of Jim's jacket--the gesture of a little girl lost, holding for what's left of her dear life on to her image of manhood, of the father who deserted her in infancy. It is an aching moment, beautifully realized.

Of all the actresses who have played Amanda, from Laurette Taylor to Gertrude Lawrence to Helen Hayes, Shirley Booth, Maureen Stapleton and Katharine Hepburn, none brings more impressive credentials to the role than Jessica Tandy. In 1947, she was the first Blanche Dubois; now, at 74, she is playing Williams' first great cracked Southern belle. A generation too old for the part, she strides through the play on the assurance of her craft. Tandy's Amanda is flinty, not flighty; a hawk, not a dithery dove; a bustling den mother, not a senescent teenager who treats the gentleman caller to some of her own old-fashioned wooing. Williams' characters may not be as fragile as Laura's menagerie, but they deserve to be handled with care. Tandy's hand, like that of the production, is pure wrought iron. --By Richard Corliss This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.