Chris Daley and Sarah Mayhan Tran in Redtwist Theatre’s “The Glass Menagerie.”

Tennessee Williams’ deeply personal masterpiece, The Glass Menagerie, has, perhaps in some people’s estimation, been done to death. However, lucky for me, I’ve only read the play but never seen it performed — this includes the 1950 MGM movie.

And, quite honestly, I feel satisfyingly spoiled by Redtwist Theatre’s intimate, heartbreaking and darkly humorous production, now playing through September 2.

Redtwist’s cozy storefront space seats only about 50, yet set designer Henry Behel manages to capture both the trapped, claustrophobic nature of the Wingfield’s St. Louis flat as well as the dreamy, suspended-in-time tone Williams’ so carefully, yet bluntly, establishes in Tom’s up-front monologue. Quite brilliantly, Behel uses a good chunk of Redtwist’s limited space to provide distance between the main action and a giant mural of the family patriarch, who abandoned his family 16 years ago and left them reeling with regret and anger. His smiling, silent — nearly smirking — visage perpetually veers at the action from a removed distance — a symbol that some might find heavy handed, but I found chilling. Read the full review at The Huffington Post >