NEW YORK—All too often, people find themselves trapped in a situation far smaller than the scope of their dreams, a situation they are desperate to alter, both for themselves and for others. The most recent Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie”—its seventh—shines a brilliant light on this situation, at the Belasco Theater.
The story takes place in a St. Louis apartment in the 1930s. It is home to Tom Wingfield (Joe Mantello), a wannabe writer who works in a shoe warehouse; his domineering mother, Amanda (Sally Field), a former Southern belle who, to hear her tell it, once had dozens of eager suitors; and his sister, Laura (Madison Ferris), a young woman afflicted both by a physical condition and a crippling shyness. The latter condition exacerbates Laura’s already overpowering self-consciousness to such a degree that she prefers her collection of little glass animals to human interaction.
