Last night we saw a preview of the latest Broadway production of The Glass Menagerie, starring Jessica Lange, Christian Slater, Sarah Paulson and Josh Lucas and directed by David Leveaux. I’d never read or seen the play before (I know, what kind of a drama fag am I?), so I had nothing to compare it to. Anyway:

I thought Jessica Lange, who played Amanda Wingfield, the mother, was terrific. (Matt thought she was overwrought, but it worked for me.) Unfortunately, things got kind of dull when she wasn’t around. Christian Slater just last week took over the role of the son, Tom, from Dallas Roberts, and he needs some time to mesh with the rest of the cast; he often seemed like he wasn’t in the same play as everyone else. Perhaps that will change as he settles into the part. Josh Lucas played the Gentlemen Caller with warmth and sweetness. As for Sarah Paulson, who played Laura, the daughter, I can’t decide what I thought of her. I think she overdid it, particularly whenever she moaned, “Yes, Mother?” as if she were on the verge of tears and suicide. I think she crossed the line from sympathetic to pitiful; my pity fought hard with my annoyance, but my annoyance won.

Matt’s more familiar with the show than I am, but since he probably won’t get around to blogging about it, I’ll summarize his opinion in three words: “so fucking unsubtle.” He felt David Leveaux hit us over the head with the symbolism. He also said that Tom is usually played gay, because there’s a lot of subtext in the script about that, and he found it interesting that Christian Slater didn’t play him that way. I certainly didn’t catch any of the gay subtext, and I thought it was odd at the end how Tom talked about how he couldn’t stop thinking about Laura. It seemed to come from nowhere.

Coming up in the next week are Doubt, Altar Boyz, and The Light in the Piazza, all of which I’m looking forward to. (Forward to all of which I am looking?) All hail Matt’s TDF membership!