Matthew Mindeman, left, is Jim O’Conner and Mary Suggs is Laura Wingfield in “The Glass Menagerie.”IF YOU GO¦ What: “The Glass Menagerie.”¦ When: 8 p.m. April 10-12, 2:30 p.m. April 13.¦ Where: St. Elmo Fire Hall, 4501 St. Elmo Ave.¦ Admission: $12 general admission, $10 students and seniors.¦ Phone: 423-987-5028.¦ Email: backalleyperformances@gmail.com¦ Note: Play contains some adult language.
Back Alley Productions will present a Tennessee Williams classic, “The Glass Menagerie,” in four performances this weekend.
One of Williams’ most popular plays, the 1930s-era drama centers on Tom Wingfield, a young man in a dead-end factory job who dreams of becoming a poet. His low-wage position does little more than buy a few cigarette cartons and pay rent for a cramped apartment in St. Louis, where he, his mother, Amanda, and sister, Laura, must live after they are abandoned by the family patriarch.
Restless and frustrated, Tom begins to feel the need to follow in his father’s footsteps and leave his family – but Amanda, whose Southern ways clash with Tom’s standoffish nature, asks Tom to find a suitor for Laura, his shy, crippled sister who spends more time with her collection of glass animals than with people.
Filling the roles are Jonathan Goff as Tom Wingfield, Vicki Mangieri as Amanda Wingfield, Mary Suggs as Laura Wingfield and Matthew Mindeman as Jim O’Conner.