Tinderbox Theatre Company's reimagining of Tennessee Williams' 'The Glass Menagerie' inside a faded cinema, marking the play's first professional Northern Irish staging in twenty years.
Tinderbox Theatre Company brings Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie to The MAC from 20 to 27 October, as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival. It's the play's first professional Northern Irish staging in twenty years, and the company's fourth appearance at the festival.
First staged in 1944, The Glass Menagerie is Williams' semi-autobiographical memory play, written before A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. It follows the troubled Wingfield family: Tom dreaming of escape, Laura retreating into her collection of glass animals, and Amanda clinging to memories of a slipping past. Tinderbox reimagines it through a fragmented lens of memory and cinema, setting the action inside a faded cinema where Tom's memories come to life like an old film. One review likened the result to American Beauty meeting Tennessee Williams.
Artistic director Patrick J O'Reilly directs, and he's built a reputation for reworking classics: he turned Yerma into an Irish borderlands piece and Animal Farm into a Belfast prison cell, and he picked up a UK Theatre Award in 2024 for his revival of Ionesco's Rhinoceros. The cast features Úna Kavanagh as Amanda Wingfield, Louise Parker as Laura Wingfield, Thomas Galashan as Tom Wingfield, and Jacob Baird as Jim O'Connor.
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There are nine performances in total. Evening shows are at 7:30pm on 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, and 27 October; matinees run at 11am on 21 and 22 October, and at 2:30pm on 25 October. Tickets are £24.
