MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
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Fragile Glass
Tennessee Williams’s play is a reminder of the precarious existence of many in the US of the inter-war years, says LYNNE WALSH
Sparkling: Lesley Ewen as Amanda with Michael Abubakar as Tom
[Idil Sukan]
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
The Glass Menagerie
Arcola Theatre, London
ALL coquettish wiles and smiling scheming, Lesley Ewen commands the stage as Amanda Wingfield in this tricky old Tennessee Williams classic. It’s a huge performance at the play’s epicentre.
Her desire to raise her children beyond their abilities or ambition in the austerity-stricken St Louis of 1937 creates unbearable tension and the resultant matriarchal bullying, played at this pitch, can exhaust an audience.
Her every feature is florid, her dialogue a torrent of words. Even the Magic Flute’s Queen of the Night seemed to pause and breathe more often.
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