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Civic Theatre to Celebrate Tennessee Williams' 90th Williams classic The Glass Menagerie opens nine days before playwright's birthday 
To celebrate playwright Tennessee Williams' 90th birthday, Civic Theatre of Allentown presents Williams' 1944 breakthrough play, The Glass Menagerie. Director Lenny Leibowitz says he plans to present the play as Williams intended it to be performed.
Williams' birthday is March 26, in the middle of the production's March 16-31 run. The production is sponsored by Air Products, Allentown Business School, and WODE, Oldies 99.9-fm.
"But Williams originally saw the play as highly stylized and impressionistic -- almost surreal, in a way -- with projections, creative lighting and heightened staging. The play's first director didn't think it would work, so Williams cut a lot of it -- but I think people should see what the playwright saw." Williams pioneered the 20th century departure from strict realism on stage, creating what he called "plastic theater." Like impressionistic paintings, his "plastic" style tried to get inside his characters' heads, and capture what it was like to experience events -- rather than simply present the story from an outside observer's perspective. The Glass Menagerie was Williams first Broadway play, and the first in which he displayed the techniques of "plastic theater." Elements include images and titles projected on the stage; stylized lighting, used to highlight specific characters' experiences; and staging which calls for actors to turn and address the audience directly. While modern audiences may find these techniques familiar, in Williams' time they were revolutionary. "Tennessee was a visionary," Leibowitz said. "He wanted a theater that was sensual, eloquent -- something new and different from the kitchen-sink realism of his predecessors. He was trying to transcend the mundane-ness of everyday reality. The Glass Menagerie is a perfect example of this, but I don't think you can really appreciate the extent of his vision until you see the play as he saw it, in his head. It's not just about the story; it's about the characters' experience of the events -- their memories and associations, their thoughts, their feelings. He captures that like no other playwright -- and hopefully we'll capture it, too." |
"Almost every production you see of Menagerie presents the play very realistically, very straightforward," said Leibowitz, in his first season as Civic's artistic director. "That includes the original Broadway production, the major New York revivals, and both of the Hollywood film adaptations.