Were Critics Stirred by The Glass Menagerie's Glittering Revival?

Two-time Academy Award winner Jessica Lange has returned to Broadway in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, which opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on March 22 under the direction of David Leveaux. Lange is joined in the memory play by three co-stars who all have Hollywood credits under their belts: Christian Slater, Sarah Paulson and Josh Lucas. Did critics hold fond memories of this staging of the classic?

Here is a sampling of what they had to say:

Eric Grode in his Broadway.com Review: "Without a sufficiently charming Tom, the audience remains at a fatal emotional distance from the Wingfields' diminished life. This one doesn't even come close: Slater's vocal inflections and body language are rudimentary at best. He always seems more comfortable when he has something to do... Williams' gossamer prose hits the listener's ear with a thud, and entire speeches are performed at one incessant pitch. This lack of insight proves infectious: Lange, who has spent her entire career as an exemplar of how to blend glamour with emotional honesty, has her moments in some of the play's more heated confrontations, but she also takes the easy way in any number of scenes."

Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "As staged by David Leveaux, this revival suggests that to recollect the past is to see life as if it had occurred underwater, in some viscous sea through which people swim slowly and blindly. Folks drown in this treacherous element. Unfortunately, that includes the show's luminous but misdirected and miscast stars: the two-time Oscar winner Jessica Lange, who brings a sleepy, neurotic sensuality to the role of the vital and domineering Amanda Wingfield, and Christian Slater, who plays her poetical son, Tom, as a red-hot roughneck. Within its first 15 minutes, you feel the entire production sinking into a watery grave."

Clive Barnes of The New York Post: "Lange's Amanda comes on strong… With her stiff, marcel-waved hair, her shining eyes eternally fixed on some internal fantasy of bliss, Lange flutters like a vulture. And her dresses are far too expensive and well-cut. It is a powerful performance, but lacking in the pathos some actresses… can make telling. Slater proves efficient and businesslike--although with an awkward mannerism of brushing back his recalcitrant forelock--but misses a touch of the poet. In many ways, the best performances come from Lucas as the brash, partly absurd but wholly decent gentleman caller, and from Paulson, a fine-toned Laura, almost tremulously on the very brink of tears and yet carrying on with the right wry gallantry. And, as for the play: Yes, it is still lovely."

Howard Kissel of The New York Daily News: "The Glass Menagerie is not an intellectual exercise. It should break your heart. This production simply falls flat… As Amanda, [Lange] presents an impenetrable mask as a Southern belle, unfailingly gracious and solicitous but ultimately hollow and invulnerable… Sarah Paulson conveys Laura's pain intensely and beautifully… Rather than playing Tom as the future poet, the future Tennessee Williams, as many actors do, Slater plays him as a crude, roughhouse kind of guy, making his decision to join the merchant marine totally believable… A cruder cruelty is provided by Josh Lucas, who overdoes everything as the Gentleman Caller."

David Rooney of Variety: "In his sadly wilted revival of Tennessee Williams' 1945 breakout play, David Leveaux seems willfully to favor cause over consequence. The director is so in thrall to theatrical affectation that he has--quite literally at times--thrown a murky veil over the enduring work in terms of both its singing romantic lyricism and the clear-eyed mission of its dramatic storytelling. This approach limits access to the pathos of the Wingfield family and their private prisons, rendering superficial the depth of feeling in Williams' most painfully autobiographical play."

Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "Maybe it's the lacy white curtains that swirl around a good portion of the stage, obscuring part of the Spartan, almost abstract living-room set that gives the production its icy feel. Or maybe it's because the drama's four actors seem to be in four different productions--isolated by those constantly moving curtains and the fact that they seem to be playing past each other. But there's more to it than that. Director David Leveaux has opted for a high-concept approach to the Tennessee Williams classic. He has taken to an extreme that Menagerie is a memory play. There is a dreamlike feeling to the whole evening, a hazy, amorphous quality that doesn't let anyone--either the actors or the audience--tap into what is Williams' most heartbreaking and autobiographical play."

Elysa Gardner of USA Today: "The weak link in this production--gently and, for the most part, astutely directed by David Leveaux--is assigned to the role most closely associated with the playwright himself. Christian Slater, a late replacement for Dallas Roberts, captures Tom's frustration but fails to convey his sensitivity… The leading ladies fare better. Sarah Paulson is a revelation as Laura, as heartbreaking in her shyness and lack of self-regard as she is radiant in her generosity… [Lange] seems committed to and at ease with Amanda's quirks and contradictions. We see her selfishness and her sacrifices, her ideals and obsessions in all their tragic, ridiculous and admirable intensity."

Linda Winer of Newsday: "David Leveaux has staged a tone-deaf Glass Menagerie with downright bizarre ideas about the relationships among the pushy and disappointed Amanda Wingfield Lange; her disabled daughter, Laura Sarah Paulson; and her restless son, Tom Christian Slater, the playwright's autobiographical proxy. No matter how many incarnations of the troubled Wingfield clan we have seen, we have never seen one so loving. Make that lovey-dovey. Make that laden with suggestions of incest, primarily between Tom and his agonizingly shy sister… The problem here is not Lange, whose subsequent stage work in London has turned her into a fascinating stage creature."