Die Glasmenagerie

A play by Tennessee Williams

• Theater Basel
• Premiere: January 30, 2025

It could be a decisive evening for Laura Wingfield, who lives with her mother Amanda and her brother Tom in a modest apartment in St. Louis. For Jim is coming to visit, and with him perhaps a way out of the dreary life from which Laura tries to escape by lovingly tending to her collection of glass figurines. In the end, however, it is not only her dreams that shatter. In her clear and sensitive staging of The Glass Menagerie, Jaz Woodcock-Stewart focuses particularly on the role of women and the mechanisms of self-sacrifice and self-optimization within the fragile family structure. How do financial and social pressures affect the single mother and the other family members? Woodcock-Stewart and her ensemble invite us to take an empathetic look at the characters while simultaneously peering behind the façade.

Jury Statement

“A penchant for narrative aesthetics is considered typical of the UK. Jaz Woodcock-Stewart is one of those young British directors who skillfully tells a story without simply retelling it. She gives Tennessee Williams’ *The Glass Menagerie* at Theater Basel a very contemporary drive without disrupting the text—which is set in the late 1930s. (Modern) power plates—vibration plates from the gym—do not promote muscle building here, but are, on the contrary, ironically subverted, congenial symbols of the shattering of all structures that provide stability. The three main characters lose themselves among the bare concrete walls. A staircase leads to nowhere, a ramp into a stripped-down life without money and without contact with the outside world. The queer daughter flees into a sort of hikikomori existence. Briefly, a visitor to the family is presented with a (house) facade over the hollowed-out lives of the unhappy trio; it will do no good. A quiet, symbolically powerful, touching work!”

Alexandra Kedves for the Theatertreffen Jury

Artistic Team

• Jaz Woodcock-Stewart – Direction
• Rosie Elnile – Set and Costumes
• Josh Grigg – Sound Design
• Alex Fernandes – Lighting Design
• Inga Schonlau – Dramaturgy

Cast

• Hilke Altefrohne – Amanda Wingfield, the mother
• Jan Bluthardt – Tom Wingfield, her son
• Antoinette Ullrich – Laura Wingfield, her daughter
• Julian Anatol Schneider – Jim O’Connor, a nice young man
• Thomy Riedtmann – Extras

(In German with English surtitles)