In "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams, a classic story of youthful dissatisfaction, you'd expect to see a restless young actor dig into the role of Tom Wingfield and explore his frustration. It is surprising, then, that in the current production of the play at the New National Theatre, director Irina Brook, daughter of influential English contemporary theater director Peter Brook, has chosen to cast 56-year-old Katsumi Kiba in that role.
Brook says in the program that in her approach to the play she took particular note of a staging instruction by Williams that this play is "a tale of recollection." Presumably then, her bold casting leap stems from her interpretation of that phrase.
As befits a work of memory, the set designed by Brook's regular collaborator, Noele Ginefri, is more ethereal than real, with flesh-colored curtains screening three sides of the stage and sometimes acting as screens for projected images of actors or crystal animals. On this Ikea showroom-like stage, there's little to distract the audience's attention from the events being played out. And certainly, there's no hint of the play's Midwest setting, let alone of the cramped, 1930s apartment in which Williams imagined his drama taking place.