Memorable Theatergoing 2016 -- "Glass Menagerie" in Paris

When I was in Paris last April, I took myself to see La ménagerie de verre (The Glass Menagerie), directed by Daniel Jeanneteau at the Théâtre National de la Colline. It was definitely a European-style staging: minimalist set, barefoot actors, some stylized movement seemingly influenced by modern dance. But because Glass Menagerie is a memory play (not a work of strict realism), much of the abstraction and minimalism worked for me. The production also made very effective use of scrims: most of the scenes happened behind a veil so when the actors emerged from behind it, it was very powerful.

Moreover, that scene between Laura and Jim is so damn well written, so delicate and romantic and heartbreaking, and the production played it completely straight, and even though I was in the very last row of the theater, I got tears in my eyes when the glass unicorn broke and Laura said "Maintenant il est comme tous les autres chevaux" ("Now he is like all the other horses").

I understood probably 95% of the dialogue; Tennessee Williams doesn't strike me as incredibly hard to translate to French, and the actors spoke fairly slowly. Even now, months later, I can hear Amanda's final words to Tom from this version: "Va à la lune, espèce de reveur... EGOISTE!" ("Go to the moon, you selfish dreamer!") The "pleurosis"/"blue roses" pun, which I thought might be the most difficult bit of the play to translate, actually lent itself to a direct translation: it became "pleurésie"/"Bleu-Rosie." And "gentleman caller" got translated as "galant," which is kind of the best.

And I love going to the theater in France and making the actors do five curtain calls and applauding so much my arms hurt. And I totally got an instant crush on the slim, tousled French dude with hipster glasses and a blazer who was running the theater bookstore. And I went to a café afterwards on Place Gambetta and ordered chocolate mousse and a laughably large carafe of red wine, because I was rusty on the metric system, and when I apologized to the waiter, he reassured me "Well, you'll sleep well tonight, non?" And I giddy-giggled, slightly tipsy from that wine, on an empty Métro car, as I checked Facebook and saw what was happening with my friends, nine hours behind me on the other side of the world. And I changed trains at République station and encountered a cloud of tear gas on the platform: protests about a new labor law were going on above, in the Place de la République. And, mercifully, my train arrived about thirty seconds later, so I just held my breath till I could escape into its cleaner air. And I spoke French the whole night and nobody tried to speak to me in English. And I learned that seeing a beautiful play that brings tears to your eyes will more than make up for minor irritations, like running into a cloud of gas that brings tears to your eyes. And it was one of the best nights I had all year.

Miller vs. Williams

There is not a lot of material in Arthur Miller's Timebends about Tennessee Williams, the other great American playwright of the era. Nonetheless, in one short paragraph, Miller seems to get at something essential about the difference between his worldview and Williams'.

In the late 1940s, Miller became interested in the corruption and brutality that resulted from the Mob control of the Brooklyn waterfront, and sometimes told Williams about what he'd discovered. He writes, "Tennessee, I thought, regarded my interest as remote from him as a writer and yet quite parallel to his lifelong sense of living among the unjust and the cruel. He sat listening to my descriptions of waterfront indignities [... and] seemed moved, although it was particular persons and words that touched him more than any general condition of men."

Miller seems to slightly disapprove of the fact that Williams was more moved by specific stories than by the "general condition" of injustice. But mightn't that be better, for a playwright? We are in the business of dramatizing the lives of "particular persons," after all, not writing journalistic exposés of corruption and exploitation.

I'm not saying it's bad to have a well-developed sense of morality--only that playwrights need to make sure that it doesn't overwhelm the stories they're trying to tell. IMO, Williams' characters are more vivid and memorable than Miller's, and this passage from Timebends suggests why. Though both playwrights often wrote about cruelty, Williams took each instance of cruelty on its own terms, as a matter for human drama; while Miller saw each instance of cruelty as just one more exhibit in the long history of Man's Inhumanity to Man...

Blow Out Your Candles, Laura

Because I often gravitate toward intellectual-type writers (I'm looking at you, Tom Stoppard) who flamboyantly display their wit, their craftsmanship, their insider knowledge of theatrical tricks, I can underestimate writers who aren't so overtly clever. Not always--I mean, I am in perpetual awe of how Chekhov creates such moving effects by such subtle means--but, for instance, I had tended to underestimate Tennessee Williams' skills as a craftsman. His plays seemed governed by lyricism, poetry, and emotion that sometimes slops into melodrama--not by any kind of formal rigor.

But Williams' works have endured for a reason, and when I saw a production of The Glass Menagerie last year, I finally realized that wow, he really knew what he was doing.

First, I have to applaud Williams' instinct that the final scene of the play needs to take place in candlelight--that the emotional spell it casts is too fragile and tender to withstand the harsh light of electricity. (Ha, and in Streetcar Named Desire there's the scene where Mitch rips down the paper lampshade and subjects Blanche to the bare glaring bulb... Tennessee are you repeating yourself?) This is a subtle, atmospheric kind of thing, and many playwrights wouldn't be aware of it. They'd say "This scene isn't working, I don't know why," and never figure out that it's because it's lit the wrong way.

Then the decision to include candlelight ripples out in multiple directions. By the end of the play, the candles become metaphoric instead of just physical, leading up to that unforgettable penultimate line, "Blow out your candles, Laura--for today the world is lit by lightning!" Candlelight as flickering and fragile and old-fashioned, dreamlike, easily snuffed out.

But in order to include the candles in the first place, there needs to be some kind of justification that the audience will accept. It would be too blatant a contrivance to say "Oops, there's been an inexplicable power outage on the night that Laura will receive her Gentleman Caller! Break out the candles!"

So, just as the scene is beginning, Tom tells Jim, casually, that he's been neglecting to pay his family's bills, in order to stash some money away for himself and eventually use it to leave home. To a large extent, this is a set-up to justify the family's electricity being cut off that night. But when Tom first says this line, it doesn't register as a set-up, because it also works so well to reveal his character. Perhaps for the first time, we understand just how deep Tom's frustration goes, and how thoughtlessly he can behave toward his mother and sister in order to achieve his own ends. He becomes less likable but more complex. And so this also sets up the feeling of guilt that hangs over the older Tom, the narrator--because now we've seen him do something that he really should feel guilty about.

So the whole thing functions on multiple levels. And when the power does go out...and the candles are lit...and everything clicks into place, you just have to admit that Tennessee Williams is a master craftsman, always a couple steps ahead of the audience, lighting the way.