‘Glass Menagerie’ Revival With Sally Field Sets Broadway Closing

Director Sam Gold’s tradition-busting Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie will close May 21, producers Scott Rudin and Lincoln Center Theater said Tuesday afternoon.

The classic drama, with a cast led by Sally Field as Amanda Wingfield, defied convention by placing the action on a nearly bare stage in a production that employed few of the playwright’s stage directions concerning the look of the show as a “memory play.” It also broke with stage history – or, rather, made it – by casting Madison Ferris, an actress whose muscular dystrophy makes movement extremely difficult, as Laura Wingfield, the young daughter rendered housebound by self-consciousness over the limp she has had since childhood.

The show began performances February 7 and opened March 9 to a withering review in The New York Times but strong support in other quarters, including New York magazine, Newsday and Deadline, where I wrote,

“And so we have a Glass Menagerie that doubtless looks like nothing in Tennessee Williams’ imagination, and yet which in its way fulfills the playwright’s deepest desire, which was to invert the comforting conventions of “realistic” theater and shake us to the core. That, Sam Gold has done, and then some. This is why we have revivals.”

In addition to Field, a Tony nominee for her performance, and Ferris, the production stars Joe Mantello as Tom and Finn Wittrock as the Gentleman Caller.

The Glass Menagerie‘s design team includes Andrew Lieberman (set), Wojciech Dziedzic (costumes), Adam Silverman (lighting) and Bray Poor (sound).