Most of the great plays are robust; they’ll survive the roughest treatment actors and directors can throw at them. Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie – like its characters and the tiny figurines suggested in its title – is not one of them. It’s dependent on a gossamer tonal quality so delicate that a single false note or careless gesture can threaten its effects. As Williams himself said of the central metaphor in his production notes, “how beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken”.
Director Mark Wilson is an unusual choice to helm the play; he’s an artist with a subversive streak, highly mannered and idiosyncratic. His last production for Melbourne Theatre Company was a riotous Much Ado About Nothing, and he brings something of that knockabout energy to Williams’ achingly autobiographical “memory play”. He challenges the work, which in itself is a good thing to do to the classics, even if here it often feels like someone stomping on things.
