Oct. 17-18: The Glass Menagerie

Amanda resents that her husband abandoned her. Laura’s attraction to Jim is crushed when she discovers he has a fiancée. Tom – a struggling poet – takes solace in drink as he plots to hit the road without warning.

If this sounds like a daytime novella or the latest episode of “Desperate Housewives”, consider the impact Tennessee Williams’ autobiographical play – “The Glass Menagerie” had on audiences when it was first staged in Chicago in 1944. On the evenings of October 17 and 18 at Pasadena’s Boston Court Performing Arts Complex, drama lovers can revisit this emotionally gripping classic under the artful direction of actor Michael Gross.

Gross, a resident of La Cañada Flintridge, is quick to quip that the dysfunctional desperation of the Wingfield family depicted in Williams’ play is a far cry from that of the Keatons in “Family Ties”, a sitcom that once placed Gross at #12 on TV Guide’s list of the 50 Greatest Dads in Television. For one thing, Mr. Wingfield is completely absent from the action, save for a photograph that still remains on the mantle and reference to the only postcard he managed to send from his new life as a free spirit.

One of the most difficult things about doing a play like this - such a well-known piece - is that audiences think they ‘know it’. They may have read it or seen it a gazillion years ago, but I believe their memories are faulty. It’s a wonderfully incisive play, a great play, but there’s always a danger of taking something great and treating it with too much reverence instead of the vital, living thing the playwright intended.”

Gross confesses he thought he “knew” the play well himself until he started digging into it further. “I had a great many preconceptions about the piece - half-remembered lines or scenes - that were actually getting in the way of a fresh and honest interpretation. We’re not going to attempt to ‘re-invent the wheel’ with this production but I think audiences will be surprised at some of what they see. Amanda, for instance, is sometimes portrayed as a woman who lives in a fantasy-world. I see her as an eminently practical woman, very shrewd, who will do almost anything for her children. One might argue she tries too hard or doesn't know the right way to go about it, but her intentions, I think, are pure. She’s not crazy, not a harpy, not a nag - and is, therefore, not easily dismissed.”

He also sees an element of humor in the Wingfield clan. “There is affection and repeated attempts to keep the family intact under difficult circumstances. Though there are no neat, happy endings here, I think we can all learn something valuable from the way these people fight to keep their balance.”

Of the characters cast in an illusory setting that mirrors the playwright’s troubled past, Gross believes that the Gentleman Caller has the strongest grasp on reality. “He knows it’s a tough world out there and is trying to equip himself with the tools necessary to handle that world. Amanda, too, knows it’s a tough world, but is operating by an old set of rules which renders her ineffective. Tom is running, flailing. Laura is hiding. I think the Gentleman Caller has the best shot at ‘landing on his feet’.”

The Glass Menagerie” is the latest production of Classic and Contemporary American Plays (CCAP), a non-profit outreach drama company launched by actress Bonnie Franklin five years ago to integrate staged readings of theatrical masterpieces into the curriculum of Los Angeles teens.

Says Gross, “I enjoy staged readings as they give both audience and actors a chance to concentrate more on the audible and less on the visual. Theatre is always a collaborative art, with lighting designers, set designers, sound designers and costume designers all making their own contribution. Staged readings are an attempt to get back to basics: the text, itself. It’s a little like the difference between watching some grand biblical pageant, and just sitting quietly, Bible in hand, reading aloud.”

Much of CCAP's successful formula for introducing classic plays to high school students involves writing assignments, discussions, and guest speakers. It’s a process that Gross finds just as exciting as performing the plays themselves.

Among other things, the students have been writing essays - on love, hate, fear, divorce - emotions and circumstances raised by the play, and grappling with some of these ideas on paper. They have also begun to explore how different characters in the play express these emotions in their action, how they are driven by their desire. I understand there’s also some work going on in three dimensions. That is, the students are sculpting some of these emotions, using their own bodies, in tableaux.”

He reflects on a recent comment he heard that demonstrates how individuals subjectively interpret theatrical scenes through their own experience. “A student in an inner-city school assumed that Amanda's references to ‘entertaining 17 gentlemen callers’ meant that Amanda must have been a prostitute. From his frame of reference, it's a perfectly logical conclusion! It is the role of CCAP, theatre, art - and education in general - to illustrate that there are a great many other frames of reference.”

So which does he find more challenging – acting a role or interpreting the intent of all roles in a production and conveying that vision as a director?

I'm not certain it's harder to direct, but it is different,” Gross replies. “One has to look at things from so many different angles, to look at the entire play, as opposed to a single character. I would compare it to a symphony orchestra where the first or second violins concentrate on their contribution alone. It’s the conductor's job to teach them their relationship to the whole, to hear each individual sound as a part of something greater. There’s more responsibility, certainly - the oversight of set, lights, music, sound, etc. It’s a far more absorbing and comprehensive task.”

The October 17 and 18 performances begin at 7:30 p.m. at 70 North Mentor in Pasadena. Tickets ($20 for adults/$15 for serniors/$10 for students) can be purchased by calling (626) 683-6883, Extension 201 or online at www.bostoncourt.com/CCAP.