A ‘Menagerie’ of Deft Movements and Hope

The opening of Pasadena Playhouse’s heartfelt production of “The Glass Menagerie” on Mother’s Day was especially appropriate. The American theater’s most vivid mother, Amanda Wingfield, receives an unusually respectful treatment in the hands of Susan Sullivan.

You can take the word “hands” literally. Especially so at first, Sullivan’s Amanda speaks with her hands almost as much as with her voice, sculpting her arguments in the space around her with aristocratic grace, as if she had learned to do it as part of her basic training for becoming a Southern belle.

It isn’t just the hands that make this Amanda more physically formidable than most. Although Tennessee Williams’ stage directions refer to Amanda as “a little woman of great but confused vitality” and describe “the tenderness in her slight person,” Sullivan is tall and slim. When she admonishes her son to “sit up straight,” she knows the territory. Williams might have appreciated this departure from his original notion of Amanda, for he also wrote that she must not be “copied from type.”

When this Amanda emerges in her old party dress in the second act, the image isn’t the garish caricature that’s often seen at this moment in the play. The dress provided by costumer Dione H. Lebhar isn’t as yellowed as it usually is; Amanda has obviously taken care of it, and she cuts an impressive figure. No wonder the Gentleman Caller is so charmed.

The loss of the easy gag over Amanda’s appearance doesn’t mean that she’s no longer funny. As TV viewers know, Sullivan can fling quips with the best of them. This Amanda’s Southern-flavored voice is sharp and resonant, and it’s easy to see how she could have been the toast of a sophisticated drawing room.

That’s hardly where she is, of course. She’s living amid the dreary brick walls and fire escapes of Depression-era St. Louis. Because she was trained only to be charming, not to be skilled, she has been forced into such distasteful work as demonstrating brassieres and selling magazine subscriptions over the phone. This Amanda doesn’t simply bemoan her lot; she gets a rueful laugh out of the grim contrast between her previous hopes and her present condition. But when she considers that her daughter lacks charm as well as skill, her determination to dig up a respectable son-in-law is easy to understand.

Rachel Robinson makes the usual painfully shy moves as Laura, Amanda’s daughter, but her performance, like Sullivan’s, has a distinctive look. This Laura has inherited her mother’s height, which must have made her all the more self-conscious in high school, and she has enormous, haunting eyes that express the slightest trace of emotion, even when the rest of her face is petrified with fear.

Unlike the last couple of “Menageries” I’ve seen, in which Amanda’s restless son Tom was more handsome than the Gentleman Caller, this production gets it right. Raphael Sbarge’s Tom already has a receding hairline; his feeling that he’s burning up precious time is more palpable because of it. Sbarge crunches up his features into looks of sheer befuddlement over the quixotic campaigns of his mother. Yet his affection for Laura is unmistakable; director Andrew J. Robinson has him wave a magician’s handkerchief around Laura’s head as if he would change her life through prestidigitation, if only he could. In his double role as narrator, Sbarge treats Williams’ more lyrical lines with finesse.

Tony Crane’s Gentleman Caller, impeccably good-looking, reflects the character’s studied approach to self-improvement in his square-jawed cadences, but he also has moments of appealing spontaneity. He recalls his former days as a basketball star with a sudden simulation of a jump shot. While signing an autograph for Laura, he pokes fun at his former glory by pretending to wave off other autograph hounds.

Enhanced by the descending bass line of Mitch Greenhill’s original score, Robinson’s staging creates a genuinely moving experience. Williams’ first masterpiece once again casts glimmers of light through the gloom of its characters’ dashed hopes.

*

* “The Glass Menagerie,” Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 5 and 9 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends June 18. $15-$42.50. (800) 233-3123. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Raphael Sbarge: Tom, the Son

Susan Sullivan: Amanda, the Mother

Rachel Robinson: Laura, the Daughter

Tony Crane: Jim, the Gentleman Caller

Written by Tennessee Williams. Directed by Andrew J. Robinson. Set by John Iacovelli. Costumes by Dione H. Lebhar. Lighting by J. Kent Inasy. Music and sound by Mitch Greenhill. Hair, wigs and makeup by Judi Lewin. Production stage manager Jill Johnson Gold.