Lit Moon Theatre is not content to just remount one of their productions; for them theater is a living, evolving thing. When they put their considerable skills to work on a play by Shakespeare or Ibsen, or in this case Tennessee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie,” you can expect to see a staging of it like none you’ve seen before. And, if they decide to revisit a past production, you can be sure it will be quite a bit different from what came before. Director John Blondell puts a lot of thought into exploring a different interpretation and focus, finding compelling new reasons to do it again. So, in the new mounting of this mother of all memory plays, Chris Wagstaff’s “gentleman caller” is softer, more empathetic and less bombastic, and new-to-the role Anna Telfer’s Laura manifests her anguish in a more physical interpretation, awkwardly sliding around on the floor of the spare set, which this time around consists mostly of wooden folding chairs which are rearranged by the actors as the play progresses, at times heightening a sense of claustrophobia and opening up at other, happier times. There is also a subtle contemporizing of the play without betraying the spirit of the time of the original. Victoria Finlayson’s Amanda is a little less histrionic and Stan Hoffman’s Tom is more wistful, a bit less angry, and all are on the money riveting. Four performances only, tonight Through Dec. 2 at Center Stage Theatre.
