Review

It's a bit of a challenge to get excited by The Glass Menagerie, the most frequently produced of Tennessee Williams plays - probably because it's the least sexual and/or alcoholic of them.

Paragon Theatre does an exquisite job with the family drama, banishing less-than-stellar productions to the cobwebs of memory.

The most autobiographical of Williams' work is to some degree about the cobwebs of memory, depicted by his stand-in, Tom, who could be called The One Who Got Away. As he looks back, Tom sees a time when he was a virtual prisoner in a 1930s St. Louis apartment with his mother, Amanda, a panicky faded Southern belle, and his shy, limping sister, Laura.

Director Warren Sherrill, as has become his identifying style, elevates character development above any presentational gimmicks. He includes a few of those here as well, serving the playwright's emphasis on the foggy abstraction of memory. Scenes begin with flickering light and reverberating, recorded voices before the actors begin to move and take over. The effect is like entering one of those robotic dioramas for a moment, a reminder of the depiction of history. Jarrad Holbrook's sound design, with a tinkling, melancholy score, and Jen Orf's lighting are in perfect play. Brynn Starr Coplan's costumes suit both time and place, particularly the gown Amanda drags from a trunk, and David Lafont's set is a spare suggestion of home, from its empty frame to the neutral tones.

Amanda Wingfield is frequently portrayed as a monster, and Martha Harmon Pardee has been handed a few monstrous characters in her day. The actress finds the empathy in Amanda, making her more than a woman obsessed with appearances and men and memories of faded glory. Her Amanda, while possibly bipolar, is rightly terrified by the prospect for her daughter's and her own future. She's suffered the worst of disappointments and compensates in a funny frenzy over dinner and flitting and floating like a gracious girl. The prospect of a gentleman caller isn't the symbol of society and romance; he's a lottery ticket, a chance at stability.

Barbra Andrews has what may be a more difficult role as Laura, whose behavior is almost entirely internalized. Andrews first appears plain, timid and trying to disappear under her cardigan, making the moment when she lights up all the more exquisite. That light is brought to her by the gentleman caller, Jim, played by Josh Hartwell with social ease but underlying sincerity.

As Tom, the young man bristling to escape, Michael Stricker offers a serious, thoughtful young man straining against close confines with a domineering mother. He's the audience's stand-in, trying to do right but suffocating and finding the humor in his fury.

The saddest part of the play may be Laura, trapped in her time. Had there been an Internet in the 1930s, we could have found her someone to love.

The Glass Menagerie

* Grade: B+

* When and where: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Nov. 9, through Nov. 15, Crossroads Theater, 2590 Washington St.

* Cost: $17 to $19, two-for-one Thursdays

* Information: 303-300-2210