THE SOUTHERN Sates come to the stage of the Talisman Theatre in Kenilworth via Tennessee Williams’ classic The Glass Menagerie.
The play is based on son Tom’s (Joshua Pink) memory of his mother, Amanda Wingfield, (Julie Godfrey) and sister, Laura (Rachel Partington).
He narrates a story of his mother, the faded but domineering, Southern Belle, who yearns for the comforts of her earlier life, before her husband left her for “a long-distance love” and his fragile, isolated sister.
Tom’s story, the exhaustion of long days working in a shoe-warehouse, the “night-time” excursions and the dream of escaping the banality of his life through writing, provides a spine of poetry to the piece which is superficially about Amanda’s obsession to find a suitor or “gentleman-caller” for her daughter.
This brings in the fourth member of the quartet, Jim O’Connor (Martin Donaldson), a work colleague of Tom’s, who has been cajoled into visiting the family home, as a potential suitor.
Director, John Dawson, said: “The pleasure of bringing to the stage such a work of tenderness, passion; it is the poetry that leaves me gasping. It was this play that opened my eyes to the genius of Tennessee Williams and it is so much more moving because it is so closely biographical.”
The show runs from May 19 to 24. Tickets, priced £7 and £8.50, are available from the box office on 01926 856548.
