Broadway's new 'Glass Menagerie' sparkles, haunts

• Cherry Jones%2C one of our greatest stage actresses%2C gives a performance that%27s remarkable in its depth and compassion
• Excellent cast%2C directed by John Tiffany%2C also includes Celia Keenan-Bolger and Zachary Quinto
• USA TODAY review%3A **** %28out of four stars%29

NEW YORK — Amanda Wingfield has once again been let loose on Broadway. But don't worry, she won't scare you this time.

The overbearing matriarch in Tennessee Williams' semi-autobiographical classic The Glass Menagerie can, in the wrong hands, emerge as something of a monster. But as played by Cherry Jones in the magnificent and harrowing new revival (**** out of four) that opened Thursday at the Booth Theatre, she is most haunting for her robust but fragile humanity.

Her grown children — crippled, desperately shy Laura and Tom, an aspiring poet who supports them with mind-numbing factory work while longing to escape — may have suffered at her domineering hands. But Amanda never meant to oppress them, any more than she chose to be abandoned by their father years before. She is, she admits, "bewildered by life."

Jones, one of the greatest stage actresses alive, conveys this in a performance that will amaze even her most ardent admirers in its depth and compassion. Her Amanda is warm and funny and, without question, dedicated to her offspring; watching Jones scrunch her wonderfully expressive face into a broad grin when she is happy for Tom or Laura, you'll bathe in Amanda's maternal pleasure.

When Amanda's children invariably disappoint her, that face drops, along with Jones' supple voice and body language, to convey a pure anguish that no level of histrionics could summon.

This Menagerie — an American Repertory Theater production, originally staged in Cambridge, Mass., earlier this year — is by no means Jones' triumph alone. The four-person cast is as meticulously assembled as the titular collection of tiny glass animals that is Laura's most cherished possession. Director John Tiffany guides the players with sensitivity and vigor, underscoring both the dreamy, surreal aspects of Williams' "memory play" and the brutal reality that the characters seem determined to shut out.

Celia Keenan-Bolger brings an exquisite physical and vocal delicacy to Laura. Though authentically awkward, her gestures have a certain melancholy grace — particularly between scenes, when choreographer Steven Hoggett provides gentle, telling movement that often puts her in the spotlight. We sense Laura's thirst for connection and dignity, which makes her inability to grasp either all the more wrenching.

As Tom, the family member most in touch with the outside world and also the narrator (describing a past based on the playwright's), Zachary Quinto moves deftly from recollection to confrontation, from dry asides to heated outbursts. A perfectly cast Brian J. Smith completes the company as the affable but mysterious "Gentleman Caller" whose meeting with Laura sends the play hurtling toward its climax.

For those unfamiliar with the ending, suffice it to say that the dimly lit fire escape featured in Bob Crowley's stark set design doesn't lead Laura, or her mother, to a better place. But however disturbing, this radiant Menagerie will also leave a glow in your heart.