![\"Supernatural](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Supernatural-Hot-Guys.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n \nYou know, looking at those images consecutively, it’s making a lot of sense. All are engaged in a fight to the death with a fearsome enemy. Or so I tell myself as I go from one to the other and back.<\/p>\n — Have had some great New York experiences recently. <\/p>\n — Went to the “Armory Show at 100<\/a>” exhibit at the New York Historical Society (Holla, dead boyfriend<\/a>!) with Mum, Siobhan and Ben. Many of the original works from the 1913 show were there, and the whole exhibit is beautifully done. The explanatory text on the walls really helps provide context for what you are seeing, the various warring factions in American and European art, and also how well thought-out the show was. The organizers wanted to bridge a gap between surrealism and the art movements of the past. They wanted to show that this new stuff, by folks like Matisse and Duchamp, etc., had roots. It was trying to educate. Of course the shit hit the fan in 1913, with critics being outraged at some of the surrealism (Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase” being the most notorious). American artists were insecure at being shown up by the Europeans. Everyone argued about what the Armory Show meant. My mother, an artist herself, is encyclopedic in her knowledge of the Armory Show so it was so awesome to go to this exhibit with her. It was like having our own personal tour guide. A wonderful family afternoon. <\/p>\n — Saw Glass Menagerie<\/i> on Broadway, with Cherry Jones, Zachary Quinto. I went with my friend Erik, who got tickets from Zachary, an old friend. The whole show is sold out until December, tickets are expensive, hard to come by. So this opportunity just fell into my lap. Thank you, Zachary, thank you, Erik! The seats Zachary got us were incredible: first row balcony. I would say if you are going to see the production, try to sit in the balcony if you can swing it. It gives the best perspective of the set, which you really need to look down on<\/i> to get the full effect. The stage floor is covered by a thin layer of water, and I don’t know how they get the effects that they do. It really does seem like magic. Sometimes a small blue sliver of a moon rises up out of the water, or stars appear through the water, so that the entire set is floating in the sky. It’s an amazing effect, very innovative, and because this is a “memory play”, and Tom tells us that much in his opening monologue, the set seems to suggest that. And to see the actors silhouetted in the black water below them, as they sit at the kitchen table, or lean out over the fire escape \u2026 it’s to fall into the dream of the production. Here are a couple of examples of how the effect works.<\/p>\n \n \n \nCherry Jones was a bit too yell-y for my taste in the first act, especially because we know of how yell-y she’s going to get in the second. Her constant arguments with Tom are pitched high from the get-go which certainly serves as a reminder of why Tom felt the need to flee. But a little bit more modulation would have been welcome. It all starts to sound the same. The yelling, I mean. But her Amanda does hit all the right notes (something I cannot say for other actresses I have seen do the role). She understands Amanda’s humor, which is often deliberate and cunning. Amanda is not an idiot. Actresses who play her as an idiot should be ashamed of themselves. Her years as a floating debutante still live in her. She knows how to converse, she has great wit, great smarts, and her life has handed her a bum deal. But complaining is not good form, and Amanda has that knowledge in her DNA. When she is upset, it is not a complaint<\/i>, but a scream of fear at the unknown. Her life as a young woman was silly and superficial and nothing prepared her for being abandoned by her charming husband. She is a skillful woman, she could sell ice to an Eskimo, but in her worst moments she operates from panic, and her grown children feel that. Cherry Jones could have worked the Southern Belle angle harder. Southern Belles don’t YELL all the time. The inner war could have been stronger, between her desire to yell and her understanding that yelling is not ladylike. I don’t agree with Ben Brantley that she gives a performance “for the ages”. I think it’s excellent but not transcendent. Zachary Quinto is terrific as Tom. You can feel that this is a man crawling out of his skin, living in too close quarters with his heckling mother and lame sister, and he just wants to bust out, get out, escape, run, run, run. We understand his need to run. But we also understand that his running will be a tragedy, not only for the sister he left behind but for him. The dynamic he has with his sister Laura (the miraculous Celia Keenan-Bolger) is amazing and something a lot of productions miss. These are siblings. Laura has no life outside that apartment, but she has grown up with Tom, she is comfortable with him, she teases him, she loves him, she takes care of him. And he recognizes her limitations, but he loves her, and is comfortable with her. They feel like siblings. Again, so many productions miss this ESSENTIAL quality, so eager are they to race to the tragedy of the end. Yes, it’s tragic. But life in that house was real, and Laura is a real person, not a literary construct, but a real girl, and you can’t skip over<\/i> that part. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n