The Glass Menagerie Lyceum Theatre 5th November 2025 Review
The Glass Menagerie is at the Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh this week (until Sat 08 Nov) and this production of Tennessee Williams’ classic play, directed by Andrew Panton (Artistic Director, Dundee Rep Theatre), raises a lot of questions that are as relevant today as when this work was first premiered in 1944. This production is from Dundee Rep Theatre in association with Citizens Theatre and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh.
At its heart, this story set in St Louis, Southern USA, is one of faded glory days, and the hopes of Amanda Wingfield (Sara Stewart) that better fortunes lie ahead for her two adult children – Tom (Christopher Jordan-Marshall) and Laura (Amy Conachan). Amanda refuses to believe (or if she does know, she is not admitting it to herself) that the fondly remembered days of her youth as a Southern Belle from a financially very comfortable family are over. Passing with her years and looks is a world that for better or worse is never going to return. Life truly is better when the past is looked at nostalgically through rose-tinted glasses.
Tennessee Williams called this work a memory play, and that is where we start, with Tom telling us all that "The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic. In memory everything seems to happen to music". To this end, Set and Costume Designer Emily James, Lighting Designer Simon Wilkinson and Composer and Sound Designer Reuben Joseph have created on-stage what Tom is describing. With pretty much everything set in a single room (always works so well on stage), this room, those memories, are pretty much as Tom describes them brought to life on-stage.
Added into this very tight closed family unit is Tom’s work colleague Jim O’Connor (Declan Spaine) and with his introduction to the mix, more memories begin to shift and take on new hopes and dreams.
Individually there are some very good performances from everyone here but, for me, the role of the mother, Amanda Wingfield, is so strong, so well defined that Sara Stewart’s performance is the one that always gains attention, no matter who is sharing the stage with her. For some reason though, I never felt that these four individual performances were merging into a combined performance, a family that we as an audience could really get involved in. There is always something about this work (no matter who is performing it) that can make you feel like an observer looking in through a window rather that being actually in this room with them, and perhaps that is what Tennessee Williams wanted, observers, not participants.
This is one of the few times for me where I have thought that if the legal requirements could be solved, this production needs re-set to somewhere that would feel more comfortable, more familiar to Scottish audiences – Glasgow 1944 maybe. This production already carries a warning about its use of outdated language, but changing that is always going to be problematic as this is a work of its times. The Glass Menagerie is a specific point and place in time, and tonight it seemed to be locked into that time with a script that on its surface can seem a little cold, almost out-of-time. A deeper study of Tennessee Williams’ words of course reveals many subtle layers to this work. Tonight, it felt like we were skimming over the surface of those words and not really exploring them in any real detail.
There was for me tonight something that was stopping me seeing that dance hall across the road from where the Wingfields were living and feeling the music from it just washing over me.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
At its heart, this story set in St Louis, Southern USA, is one of faded glory days, and the hopes of Amanda Wingfield (Sara Stewart) that better fortunes lie ahead for her two adult children – Tom (Christopher Jordan-Marshall) and Laura (Amy Conachan). Amanda refuses to believe (or if she does know, she is not admitting it to herself) that the fondly remembered days of her youth as a Southern Belle from a financially very comfortable family are over. Passing with her years and looks is a world that for better or worse is never going to return. Life truly is better when the past is looked at nostalgically through rose-tinted glasses.
Tennessee Williams called this work a memory play, and that is where we start, with Tom telling us all that "The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic. In memory everything seems to happen to music". To this end, Set and Costume Designer Emily James, Lighting Designer Simon Wilkinson and Composer and Sound Designer Reuben Joseph have created on-stage what Tom is describing. With pretty much everything set in a single room (always works so well on stage), this room, those memories, are pretty much as Tom describes them brought to life on-stage.
Added into this very tight closed family unit is Tom’s work colleague Jim O’Connor (Declan Spaine) and with his introduction to the mix, more memories begin to shift and take on new hopes and dreams.
Individually there are some very good performances from everyone here but, for me, the role of the mother, Amanda Wingfield, is so strong, so well defined that Sara Stewart’s performance is the one that always gains attention, no matter who is sharing the stage with her. For some reason though, I never felt that these four individual performances were merging into a combined performance, a family that we as an audience could really get involved in. There is always something about this work (no matter who is performing it) that can make you feel like an observer looking in through a window rather that being actually in this room with them, and perhaps that is what Tennessee Williams wanted, observers, not participants.
This is one of the few times for me where I have thought that if the legal requirements could be solved, this production needs re-set to somewhere that would feel more comfortable, more familiar to Scottish audiences – Glasgow 1944 maybe. This production already carries a warning about its use of outdated language, but changing that is always going to be problematic as this is a work of its times. The Glass Menagerie is a specific point and place in time, and tonight it seemed to be locked into that time with a script that on its surface can seem a little cold, almost out-of-time. A deeper study of Tennessee Williams’ words of course reveals many subtle layers to this work. Tonight, it felt like we were skimming over the surface of those words and not really exploring them in any real detail.
There was for me tonight something that was stopping me seeing that dance hall across the road from where the Wingfields were living and feeling the music from it just washing over me.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com