The seventh Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' great American play The Glass Menagerie has just opened at the Booth Theatre in New York City for a 17-week run.
John Tiffany, who previously staged the Tony-winning smash Once and the stirringly kinetic Iraq War drama Black Watch, directed the new production, whose cast includes the formidable actress Cherry Jones as the suffocating matriarch Amanda, plus film, TV and stage star Zachary Quinto as her son Tom and Celia Keenan-Bolger, a Tony nominee for Peter and the Starcatcher, as her physically disabled and emotionally damaged daughter, Laura.
The same cast had a tryout run last spring at the American Repertory Theatre in Boston, where they earned rave reviews. Barbara Chai of The Wall Street Journal has already seen the show — and toured the set, a minimalist rendering of a St. Louis apartment living room, circa 1937. Chai tells NPR's Scott Simon that it's pretty squarely in the spirit of what Williams would've wanted to see.