Friday 18 March 2022

AMATEUR THEATRE REVIEW: The Glass Menagerie - The Forum Theatre, Romiley. Greater Manchester.


NK Theatre Arts take on one of Tennessee Williams’s most prolific works and deliver a performance filled with moving connectivity to the audience and character relationships tender enough to be truly believable.

A classic play, still relevant to today’s modern society because like Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams was able to write characters authentic and connected by fractious relationships and drama so universal to the human condition, that his works will carry on being relatable for generations to come.

‘The Glass Menagerie’ premiered in Chicago 1944, autobiographical and developed from Williams’s earlier writings, this play was the writer’s big break. The lead character Tom Wingfield (played by Callum Johnson) introduces the performance as a ‘dream play’ setting the parameters that not all in this story is going to be totally accurate. The story centres around Tom, his older crippled sister Laura (played by Eva Murray) and their imposing mother Amanda (played by Jennifer Wallis Getcheffsky). Tensions have escalated within the family due to an absent father, Amanda struggling to provide a secure future for her daughter, and fretting that her only son is (like his father) going to abandon them.

Directed by Pete Curran and assisted by Freia Reidel-Fischer the play succeeds in portraying a tight difficult family unit. Getchesffsky’s Amanda is shrill and exhausting with her endless rants about her past idyllic life as southern belle, but her redeeming feature is that she has a fiery determination to provide for her crippled daughter Laura. Getchesffsky had many difficult monologues throughout the play and her ability to deliver each with the same enthusiasm and rhythm of an excitable aged southern belle was a monumental feat.

Johnson’s Tom was very likeable and enjoyable to watch. The first actor to step out onto the stage addressing us in a monologue, Johnson possessed great skill in connecting with his audience, had our attention and transported us with him to the world of this dream like play. Great drunk acting and the affection he showed towards his sister was endearing.   

Jack Findlow gave a great effort in his supporting role as Jim, superb physicality and mime skills in handling a cigarette. His affection towards Laura and his rousing speech to encourage her to make more of herself made his excuses and departure all the more heart breaking for our ill-fated heroine.

Eva Murray gave a standout performance as Laura, a quiet tragic character Murray endowed the performance with an awkward charm and wistfulness that was clear to the audience. Though the character Laura doesn’t speak anywhere near the amount her family do, Eva’s constant state of fraught anxiousness to the drama happening around her kept her in the audiences focus and had their full sympathy. A meticulous performance of a character.

A simplistic set, a white door frame evocative of Brechtian style gave the appropriate dream-like qualities, design by Pete Curran and Dominic Stannage. Lighting and sound by Rob Henson-Brown complimented this style choice perfectly and gave this amateur production a great quality and continuity throughout that lifted the already impressive effort from all involved. A wonderful production by a cast of very likeable actors. I hope to see more from NK Theatre Arts.  

Reviewer - Kerry Ely
on - 17/3/22


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