Article: 9566; Posted: April 11, 2015 at 11:45 a.m.

It’s hard to understand why there is such beauty in sadness or in the tragedy of others. Perhaps it has something to do with the purity and sincerity of the emotions and the raw genuineness of unadulterated sorrow.

There is no question that Farmer’s Alley’s “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams is a beautiful play. Tom Wingfield (Benjamin Reigel) tells us straight out that it is a memory play and then a haze sits over the perfectly built set–a genteel living room separated from the dining room with a curtain that serves as the backdrop to projections throughout the show.

The beauty, though, isn’t in its appearance as much as it is in the soul of the production, the vision of director D. Terry Williams and the heart-wrenching emotions and connections between the four actors.

It helps that they’re working with one of America’s most classic and timeless of scripts. The Wingfield family is trying to navigate their way through the Depression. Tom works at a shoe factory supporting his mother in the 16-year absence of his father. Amanda (Sharon Williams) worries over both her children, but especially over the painfully shy, crippled and beaten-down Laura (Elizabeth Swearingen).

When Laura is unable to succeed at business school, the mother is convinced the answer is to find her a husband and insists that Tom find her some “gentlemen callers” from the factory. In the second act, Jim O’Connor (Colin Woodside) comes to call on the family and he changes them in ways beyond what anyone expects.

All the actors are believable in their roles, and evoke sympathy for their deep desires and motivations. Even as the mother drives her son away, Sharon Williams makes sure we understand how deeply stuck Amanda is and how much she is worried for the future. Amanda is overbearing and Sharon Williams commands the stage every moment she is on it. She is filled with regrets and memories of how things were supposed to be, and communicates that desperation and desire to make sure her children end up somewhere different than where she did.

Reigel has some of the most beautiful language in the play and he handles the soliloquies with great depth. He connects with others on stage and it is clear in his performance how much he loves both his sister and his mother, even when they are what hold him back from his dreams and keep him from fulfilling his restless desires for adventure. He is genuinely split and spares nothing in his assessment of himself or his home.

Swearingen is as fragile a creature as Tennessee Williams intended Laura to be. She brings a consistent physicality to the role, limping with believability and giving the impression that her challenges are deeper than the turned-out leg. Her speech is halting and Swearingen shows us Laura’s limitations in a manner that is heart-breaking, especially when Jim tries to tell her she just needs more confidence in herself.

In contrast to the Wingfield family, there is vitality that Woodside brings to Jim. He’s not afraid of the future and has aspirations and hopefulness that are beyond the grasp of the family he visits. Jim’s only sin is that he doesn’t understand the fragility of the Wingfields. Woodside is bright, but not overpowering. In his scenes with Swearingen, he is gentle and it’s easy to see why he is temporarily able to draw Laura out of her shell.

But it isn’t the individual acting of these four performers that makes the play work so well. It is the connections among them that they form to build this show into something extraordinary. It doesn’t matter what you know of this show when you go into it, you want there to be a different ending than the one that is inevitable. This family loves each other so much, but that love is not sufficient to overcome what each one so desperately needs from one another and from the world.

Director D. Terry Williams keeps a delicate balance between characters, so much so it would be a matter of intense discussion to say whose play this was—was it Laura’s and her delicate sensibilities that break when in contact with the rough world? Was it Amanda’s and her lost dreams of how life was supposed to turn out for her and her family? Was it Tom’s and his restless desire for something more than the confining rooms of the apartment where nothing was his? This play gives equal weight to all of them and all of them perform as a finely-tuned ensemble that is generous in how it plays out.

D. Terry Williams also worked with an excellent technical staff. Matthew David Birchmeier’s sound design provided a constant soundtrack, the very soundtrack that Tom describes in one of his opening speeches. He also gave a different sound to the music that played from the Victrola, a scratchier, authentic sound.

Daniel G. Guyette’s scenic design created three rooms–a dining room, living room and porch in the limited space that Farmer’s Alley has for its stage. The curtain separating the living room from the dining room served multiple purposes. It not only focused attention on a given room, but it acted as a backdrop for Kevin Abbott’s projections throughout the show and created a ghostlier feel appropriate for a memory play.

Costumer Kathryn Wagner worked with hair and wig designer Garrylee McCormick to create a period look. Lighting designer Lanford J. Potts assisted with the dreaminess of the setting with numerous special effects and a plot that was in perfect harmony with the show’s overall vision.

It was “The Glass Menagerie” that made Tennessee Willliams famous in 1944, and 71 years later it is still as powerful and compelling as it was when it first premiered. Farmers Alley Theatre does justice to this American classic, re-creating the memory play with a bittersweet beauty that resonates long after leaving the theatre.

SHOW DETAILS:
The Glass Menagerie
Farmers Alley Theatre
221 Farmers Alley, Kalamazoo
April 10-26; Friday and Saturday evenings at 8:00 p.m.; Thursday evenings at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday afternoons at 2:00 p.m.
Price: $31 on Fri/Sat/Sun and $29 on Thursday evenings
(269) 343-2727
www.farmersalleytheatre.com