I haven't altogether made up my mind about what I am going to do about "The Glass Menagerie," except to say I seem to be leaning more and more each day to going. My sources tell me
Celia and Cherry nail Laura and Amanda, and that Brian K. Smith is very good as Jim, the Gentleman Caller, but that Zachary Quinto is not the Tom he should be.Yes, I know Mr. Brantley thought he was the best, but, after what I have said on here about Mr, Brantley, I am convinced he might have been talking, not through his hat, but through unfulfillment of his loins!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A "Glass Menagerie" with a less than magnificent Tom is as in danger of falling apart as one of Laura's figurines. But I will reserve comment until I see it, and report back to all my girls.
However, I want you to look at the promise in this photograph. Look at the raw glance of pain on Celia's face. Now, THAT is Laura. A girl on the brink of hopefulness, as the visit with the Gentleman Caller, at that point, had been going well, who is upstaged and embarrassed by a mother, who, whether she consciously realizes it or not, is trying to take that man away from her daughter--or still thinks she is enough of a dish that she can! And Celia's raw emotion here conveys all of this superbly, as does Cherry as well, which makes me more and more anxious to see it.
Even though, no matter how many times I have approached it--and there have been many--there is something terrifying to me in dealing with "The Glass Menagerie." That is the image I once carried of myself, during adolescence, that I, to a degree, was Laura, and, while that is certainly not true now, when anxiety rears its ugly head, as it sometimes does, the abyss of fear that I can fall into and become Laura again, appears, and wants to carry me away.
Sort of like what I go through with "Les Miz" and Fantine!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But Laura is truer to my nature, which is why I am partial to her, and why I am both excited and worried about Celia, whom I am going to watch playing some aspect of myself.
Not to put any due pressure on Celia--there is enough already, I am sure!!!!!!!--and not that there are not others out there whose feelings mirror mine. (I could tell you a sad story of a man I knew who was a male Laura, but I will save that for another time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). So that when it comes time for her to blow out those candles, at the end, even if Quinto does not render that speech as wonderfully as Christian Slater did in 2005, (and how could he, when Christian was SO magnificent!!!!!!!!) the tears will still come.
The tears for Laura, myself, and all those Lauras still out there!!!!!!!!!!!
A "Glass Meanger
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