Tennessee Williams in his 1945 play ‘The Glass Menagerie’, written in the key of sorrow, remembers his family and his beautiful sister Rose’s tragic demise.

Williams sets his play in a St Louis slum apartment. Struggling single middle-aged mother Amanda Wingfield lives in the apartment with her grown up son, Tom, and disabled daughter Laura. The play pivots around Amanda’s dread that her disabled daughter, Laura will end up an old maid.

Amanda keeps on asking her son if there’s any man that he can introduce his sister to. In the end Tom relents and brings home a work colleague, Jim, to meet Laura. Their meeting starts off with so much promise but ends disastrously.

Williams play is served well in its current revival with Timothy M Carter’s clear direction, excellent set and lighting design, and evocative soundscape.

In the stand-out performance of the night, Katherine Shearer’s Amanda gives a strong portrait of a hard working, controlling, conservative woman.

Michael Sutherland gave a heartfelt, understated performance as the conflicted central character Tom, wanting to have an adventurous, exciting life but feeling responsible for his mother and sister’s well being.

Kristie Jane Hogan impressed as the shy and withdrawn Laura, obsessed with her miniature glass animals, and ‘built’ too fragile for this world.

Andrew O’Connell captured the character of Jim O’Connor well, a decent man who finds himself unwittingly caught up in a family’s deep private pain.

Timothy M Carter’s poignant, delicate production of ‘The Glass Menagerie’, Williams’s great memory play, opened at the Genesian Theatre, 420 Kent Street, Sydney on Saturday 16th October, 2010 and runs until Saturday evening 13th November, 2010.