Steel Beam brings 'Glass Menagerie' to life
Steel Beam Theatre will present a piece of classic American theater with “The Glass Menagerie.”
“The Glass Menagerie,” written by Tennessee Williams, was his first successful play and one most believed was his most personal. It premiered in Chicago in 1944 before moving to Broadway, where it won the New York Drama Circle Critics Award a year later. Williams went on to write the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramas “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”
“The Glass Menagerie” runs from Feb. 16 through March 11. Friday and Saturday performances are at 8 p.m. and Sunday shows are at 3 p.m.
Donna Steel, founder of Steel Beam Theatre in St. Charles, plays Amanda Wingfield. She’s a former Southern Belle transplanted to St. Louis in 1939, abandoned by her husband and trying to raise two children on her own in tough financial times.
Her children include Tom Wingfield, played by Dennis Edwards of West Chicago; and Laura Wingfield, played by Colleen Dilts of Chicago.
Laura is frail and fragile. She has a crippled foot and a mental condition that causes her to become isolated from the outside world. She has created her own world with glass figurines.
Tom, Laura’s younger brother, works at a warehouse but is really a frustrated poet. He supports his family but resents doing so. He is the narrator of the play and is the voice of Tennessee Williams.
Amanda is very domineering and is singularly devoted to her children.
“She is hoping to get Laura well-situated with a husband,” Steele said. “She sort of forces a gentleman caller from the warehouse to come for dinner, but he didn’t know he was being set up on a date. He already has a date. It’s kind of a sad little slice of life these people are stuck in.”
Jim O’Connor, played by Dean Gallagher of Algonquin, is a former high-school jock now working in the warehouse with Tom.
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Williams went on to write the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramas “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” “The Glass Menagerie” runs from Feb. 16 through March 11. Friday and Saturday performances are at 8 pm and Sunday shows are at 3 pm
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@ "I’d love to play Stanley [Kowalski] in A Streetcar Named Desire again"
(from the play A Streetcar Named Desire) Blanche: Whoever you are- I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. ♥
I don't like the old movie, "A Streetcar Named Desire". The play is so much better.
A good book/play to read/watch "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams so good!
@ But I hope the play project is still fun! Did you guys do Streetcar Named Desire or Death of a Salesman?