See The Glass Menagerie, the brilliant Tennessee Williams play about dashed dreams and a smothering home life, in a new Off-Broadway production. Half-price tickets are $32.50, for performances through May 30 (full price is $65).
The gut-wrenching is tempered by some truly funny punchlines, especially when would-be poet Tomn Wingfield is confronting his overbearing mother, a faded Southern belle.
The Glass Menagerie was Tennessee Williams’ first successful play, and remains one of his most powerful. And this cast of four New York City based actors performs it well, as NYC on the Cheap editor Evelyn Kanter reports from seeing a preview.
It’s the inaugural production of the new Masterworks Theater Company, dedicated to staging classic plays. Next play after The Glass Menagerie is Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.See The Glass Menagerie in Midtown. Get discount tickets here. The story line is based on Tenessee Williams’ own background: Tom Wingfield is a poet struggling with a mind-numbing job and a smothering home life. His overbearing mother, a former Southern belle, constantly pushes her son to bring home “gentleman callers” for his painfully shy sister. When Tom finally produces a male visitor, the guest’s presence sends shockwaves through the family — and the fragile fantasy world they’ve built is shattered irreparably. Among the actors who’ve starred in the play’s various film and Broadway productions are Jessica Lange, Jessica Tandy, Katherine Hepburn, John Malkovich, Kirk Douglas, Rip Torn, Christian Slater and Calista Flockhart.
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