Printable CopyTHE GLASS MENAGERIE
The State Theatre Company of South Australia
Dunstan Playhouse
Until 26 May 2012

Review by Jamie Wright

From the moment the set pieces move like clockwork into position to a music-box like soundtrack, this production of the Tennessee Williams classic is captivating theatre.

St Louis in the 1930s: the Wingfield family, living in a dingy apartment – Tom, a frustrated poet stuck in a dead-end job that he hates, struck with wanderlust and burdened with the role of breadwinner; Laura, his painfully shy and withdrawn sister; and their mother Amanda, a nagging former Southern Belle whose husband has abandoned them. Tom seeks to escape the life he’s found himself in, but Amanda has higher hopes for both Tom and Laura – a better job and a husband respectively – and she nags constantly. Bowing to the pressure from his mother to help find a husband for Laura, Tom invites a co-worker from the show warehouse to dinner; will this lead to the happy ending that they hope for?

The strengths of the play are the complex, intriguing characters and the exquisite, often subtly funny dialogue; director Adam Cook has done a superb job of giving these the appropriate balance while also ensuring the pace – and the subsequent tension – is built and maintained throughout.

Performances from the four actors are nothing short of brilliant. Anthony Gooley is the epitome of frustration in every move he makes as he captures Tom's sense of indecision and imprisonment while, simultaneously, his lyrical delivery does the same for the poet trapped within. Deidre Rubinstein's Amanda is almost manic in her barely-contained desperation and constant longing for her halcyon days of 'gentleman callers'; later, in the scene where her façade drops, the profound contrast is astonishing.

Kate Cheel is heartbreaking as the fragile, chronically shy Laura, and her awkwardness as she struggles to overcome years of reticence in the presence of a visitor is mesmerising. Nic English oozes charm and confidence as the Gentleman Caller; his dynamic modern outlook and attitude, and with it a kind of oblivious optimism, is a stark contrast to the moody, bickering Wingfields.

Victoria Lamb's set is superb – in both function and in adding a sense of incarceration, while retaining a minimalism to convey the 'memory play' concept – and is wonderfully lit by Mark Pennington. Music, by Stuart Day adds emotion at key moments.

The result of this exceptional combination of elements is that the Wingfield family's dysfunction isn't just observed by the audience; it's experienced – watching it we feel a real sense of voyeurism, as if we were there in the tiny apartment with them, sharing Tom's frustration, Laura's chagrin and Amanda's desperation.

A haunting, bittersweet triumph. To say Adam Cook is ending his time as Artistic Director at STCSA with style is an understatement.