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If walking into the Belasco Theatre feels like interrupting a rehearsal for The Glass Menagerie<\/em>, it\u2019s by design. In Tennessee Williams\u2019 familiar opening lines, the narrator Tom (a rumpled and wonderful Joe Mantello) notes that this is a memory play, so we ought to know upfront \u201cit is dimly lighted,\u201d \u201csentimental,\u201d and \u201cnot realistic.\u201d But director Sam Gold\u2019s stripped-down and finely acted production, which opened on Broadway March 9, is very often none of the above.<\/p>\nFor starters, Tom delivers this preamble in the same bright lights under which you found your seat (the prominent\u00a0lighting design is by Adam Silverman). As Tom promises to present us with \u201ctruth in the pleasant disguise of illusion,\u201d there are no signs of illusion to be found on Andrew Lieberman\u2019s spare set \u2014 just an empty black stage with a folding table, some chairs, and a gramophone. In his forward to the play, Williams insists directors toy with these ideas of art and reality, and Gold (who won a Tony for directing Fun Home<\/em>) is certainly game.<\/p>\n Even Tom\u2019s sister Laura, whose condition Williams describes in the script as crippled from childhood illness, with one leg shorter than the other, is played by a differently abled actress, newcomer Madison Ferris. Nothing about her limited mobility or degree of dependence on others feels like make-believe; Ferris brings to the role a tangible sense of fragility as well as mental isolation, aligning Laura all the more with her treasured collection of glass figurines.<\/p>\n Tom brings us back in his memory to 1930s St Louis. Their father is gone, and Tom pays the bills with a factory job while aspiring to be a writer and escaping nights to local bars (knowing Williams, likely to meet men<\/a>). Their mother Amanda (Sally Field, in a role she was born to play) frets over Laura, who\u2019s not cut out for work and has never received a gentleman caller (of the sort Amanda loves to remind us, she had to beat off with a stick).<\/p>\n Field, who has been Hollywood\u2019s quintessential mom for nearly three decades, is a marvel to see here. The earnest, doting instincts she brings to Amanda have been a hallmark of her most iconic on-screen roles (see: Steel Magnolias, Forrest Gump,<\/em> Brothers & Sisters<\/em>, the list goes on). Perhaps because we\u2019re so used to seeing Field as a mother, Amanda\u2019s grand reminiscing, micromanaging, and investment in her kids\u2019 well-being don\u2019t feel as obsessive or delusional as they did, say, in Cherry Jones\u2019 masterful (and vastly different) performance on Broadway just a few years ago.<\/p>\n In a certain way, the stakes feel higher here than in John Tiffany\u2019s hyper-imaginative 2013 production<\/a>. Gold\u2019s bare-stage approach puts the focus on fine performances from the central trio. There is another layer\u00a0of urgency to questions about Laura\u2019s future, which would seem to\u00a0add to Tom\u2019s guilt for leaving her behind. But the vastness of the empty stage also swallows up any sense of claustrophobia. And Mantello\u2019s sensitive performance notwithstanding, seeing that Tom grew into a wise adult who seems to be doing okay, it\u2019s hard to imagine he\u2019s spent most of his life running from ghosts.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s the play\u2019s emotional turning point, a scene between Laura and her presumed gentleman caller, Jim (here played by Finn Wittrock), that doesn\u2019t quite round the corner to heartbreak. Charismatic to a fault and almost compulsively good-natured, Wittrock\u2019s Jim overwhelms the candlelit scene, which Ferris plays with a more quiet intensity. By the time lights come up\u00a0a bit too harshly on\u00a0the play\u2019s final moments, the illusion of truth is gone too soon, and we\u2019re back where we started.<\/p>\n Follow Naveen Kumar on Twitter: @Mr_NaveenKumar<\/a>\u00a0(photos: julieta cervantes)<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The post Sally Field Is Starring in \u2018The Glass Menagerie\u2019 on Broadway \u2014 and You\u2019ll Really Like Her: REVIEW<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.towleroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Madison-Ferris-Sally-Field-and-Joe-Mantello-in-The-Glass-Menagerie-Photo-by-Julieta-Cervantes.jpg?resize=480%2C320\")
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