The Glass Menagerie
Review by Ernest Goes To The Theatre/Ernest Edwards
As part of their 2025/2026 season, Theater Latte Da is presenting Tennessee Williams classic play The Glass Menagerie.
Director Justin Lucero discusses his cinematic concept for the play in the program. In the full program online, there is also a couple of fascinating pages about The Glass Menagerie and Tennessee Williams. I learned about Tennessee Williams’ sister in the program. Didn’t realized before that the character Laura from Glass Menagerie and Blanche Dubois from A Street Car Named Desire had elements based on his sister’s mental state. The evolution of The Glass Menagerie play was also a nice read in the online program.
This production has some movie elements. It is a memory play after all. Tom (Dustin Branson) states that at the very beginning. Tom is both part of the play, and the narrator of the story. The play takes place in a St. Louis apartment. The story is about the family, Tom works at a factory to help provide for his mother Amanda (Norah Long) and his sister Laura (Amy Eckberg)
I liked the movie/film elements that are brought into the play. Camera close ups, and playing around with the sounds of the voices. This all played well into Tennessee Williams script. You can’t see this with my photo, in the downstage left corner (looking right for the audience) there’s a fun set of “instruments”. There’s wine glasses, glass bowls and other items used to create the music and background for the scenes within the play The Glass Menagerie. Soundscape artist Brandon Brooks is also Jim in the second act of the play. Also they had outlines on the stage floor defining the fire escape, living room, dining room and kitchen. I liked seeing that as part of the layout.
The Glass Menagerie is a drama. The story is about a family in a cramped apartment trying to survive after their father left years ago. You have the mother who fondly remembers her good old days. The son who works himself very hard to provide for the family. The daughter who has no self confidence. The mother insists that they need to bring gentleman callers to the apartment, so Laura can find a suitor and eventually get married. Tom brings Jim to the apartment. (Spoiler Alert) They know each other from the warehouse, but Tom doesn’t know that Jim is engaged.
A reason to see The Glass Menagerie is the cast! Dustin Branson as Tom, Amy Eckberg as Laura, Norah Long as Amanda, and Brandon Brooks as Jim. I really liked Justin Lucero’s vision as the director of this play. This play really comes together with the design team. Scenic Designer Joe Thomas Johnson, Video & Projections Designer Adam J. Thompson, Sound Designer & Original Music by Katharine Horowitz. I have never seen The Glass Menagerie this way. The movie and sound design added new modern elements of storytelling into this American Classic piece of literature.
The play runs through March 1, 2026. Check out www.latteda.org for tickets.
The stage, before the play begins. Photo by Ernest Edwards.
