Tennessee’s unholy mother from hell

The Roundabout Theater’s production of The Glass Menagerie is about to open and I dare anyone to say anything negative about Judith Ivey's performance. I’ve been going back and forth with a friend over the quality of the performances by the actors playing the daughter and son, but we both agree that Ms. Ivey’s Amanda Wingfield was pitch perfect as the ex-Southern Belle smothering shrew of a mother. At the interval I wanted to jump up on stage and strangle her. Isn’t that about as convincing as you can get? Her long (loooong) streams of dialog seemed like natural conversation, as though the words were being spoken for the first time. That’s hard to do.

I thought the performance of the actor playing the son, Tom, (Tennessee Williams’ doppelganger) was labored and unconvincing. It felt like a script reading to me. Mr. D. thought he was fine but that the actor playing the daughter, Laura, played her as someone who was mentally retarded. “The character is supposed to have emotional flaws. Not a learning disability,” he reasoned. I thought she played it from the heart and did a fantastic job. Same show, but different evenings. That could factor into it.

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Today marks the 2nd anniversary of this blog. It has replaced chasing rare books as my hobby of choice (although I still do that, too). Kudos, once again, to Bob, who got me started on this venture without ever realizing it.

Since the very start I have been far too concerned with uncontrollable, idiotic things like stats, traffic and comments. I’ve resolved to be more keenly aware of the quality of the posts and less concerned with whether or not anyone is reading them. What an ego!