In a stifling apartment in 1930ʼs St Louis, the Wingfield family long for escape. Tom (Mateo Oxley), a discontented factory worker, dreams of poetry and revolution; his mother, Amanda (Victoria Ball), is desperately trying to avoid a future of poverty by marrying off his sister Laura (Laura Bately). But Laura is a strange, fragile girl, inhibited by a crippling shyness. When a ʻgentleman callerʼ (Will Karani) is found for Laura, the individual hopes of each of the family members are finally lifted - only to be dashed. This is Tennessee Williamsʼ most autobiographical play, and perhaps as a result of this his observation of character is razor sharp.

Amanda, based upon his own mother, is a faded Southern Belle whose forced vivacity and attempts to recapture her youth are at once grotesque and pathetic. This is a challenging part for a young actress: Victoria Ball, however, inhabits the role wonderfully. Her lilting southern drawl doesnʼt falter once, and although she is often comically over-the-top we are never allowed to forget the vulnerability behind her shrill gaiety.

Laura Bately gives a magnetic performance as Laura. Supposedly based on Williamsʼ sister, Rose, who was given a pre-frontal lobotomy after Williams had left home, Lauraʼs silence is at the heart of the play: while Tom lyricises and Amanda babbles shrilly,her quiet presence lends their domestic bickering a tragic pathos. Although her voice is kept at a fragile whisper, somehow every word rings clear and captivating. Her growing confidence under the encouragement of Jim, her gentleman caller, sees her transformation from brittleness to warmth, a subtle and heartbreaking thing to watch.

Tom, the narrator of the play and a simulacrum of Williams himself, is howeve rsomewhat lacklustre. Only sporadically does Mateo Oxley capture his magnetism and creativity; far too often he comes across as a petulant teenager. This isnʼt entirely his fault: the directorial decision to cut almost all of the expressionist aspects of the play rob him of his position as impresario of the action. Williams makes much of The Glass Menagerie being a ʻmemory playʼ, and the script abounds with dreamlike effects - echoed soundscapes of lines, images and words projected onto a screen, snatches of music.

Although these effects are no doubt problematic to stage, they also provide an additiona ldepth to the play, and a justification for the often heavy-handed symbolism. Such unrealistic effects make Tomʼs manipulation of memory obvious. Without them, Tom is no longer the conjurer he tells us he is, and we don't think to question the frequently melodramatic representation of himself and of the other characters. He's merely a frustrated - and frustratingly angst-ridden - young man.

The expressionistic touches which are retained provide some of the most striking moments of the play. In one particularly brilliant scene, we watch Tom goad his mother by inventing a debauched double life for himself: as he jumps on a chair, painting images of opium dens and desperadoes, the lighting changes so that the room is swathed in darkness and his gesticulating hands seem to mould the shadows. The lighting is used skillfully throughout the play to emphasise the mood of the characters: it is a shame that the music - which is so essential to the atmosphere - is treated clumsily, with awkward transitions between tracks and tunes jarringly cut off mid-note. Still, these are minor quibbles.

This is captivating domestic drama, filled with really excellent performances, and thereʼs nothing like some sweltering southern gothic to warm you up on a cold winterʼs evening. But the play shines most in the moments when it picks up on some of Williamsʼ more adventurous dramatic ideas. These brief departures from realism give a glimpse of how this could be a play about how we remember things, and not just a play about a memory.