ANDY DRACHENBERG: What is The Glass Menagerie about in your eyes?
CELIA KEENAN-BOLGER: I think The Glass Menagerie is a story about a family trying to survive, and all of the different dynamics and the power structure that exists in the family. I think I read The Glass Menagerie in high school and I think I came to it at the wrong time. I read it again in college, and I remember thinking I might have missed a few things in high school. Then, when I got this audition for the ART production, I read the play again and I was like, “What was I thinking?” And I remember saying to my husband, I was like, “Babe, The Glass Menagerie really holds up. And he was like, “Yeah, it’s like one of the great American plays.” I think my journey to the play was/is part of what makes me feel so connected to it and I feel right now is exactly the time in my life when I’m supposed to be doing it. I think the production that we’re doing has a universal reach because everybody is a member of a family and everybody knows what it feels like to struggle and to hope for things outside of your existence.
AD: What is your favorite line from the script? Why does it stand out to you?
CKB: Oh easy. That’s the easiest! One of the greatest lines ever written for the American theatre is one of the first lines of Tom’s, where he says, “The long delayed, but always expected something that we live for.” And I actually feel that way about this experience. It’s like I’ve been waiting for something like this, and it didn’t happen until I was a little older. But- oh my gosh – is it worth the wait!
AD: What about the show has led to it being so embraced on Broadway?
CKB: I think our director John Tiffany assembled a group of artists that is as top notch as anything I’ve ever worked with. I think he has an amazing sense about people and he had an amazing sense about this play, and the combination of his vision and then his trust in everybody’s ability to carry out that vision – without ever really getting in the way – is something that I’ve never experienced before. In the story, there is an enormous amount of love, even though they’re constantly battling against each other.
AD: Tell me a bit about Laura – who is she in this story? What’s important about her? How is she different from everybody else in the story?
CKB: I think Laura is somebody who expectation has really done some damage on. She has a physical disability, but that’s the least of her problems. She’s really shy and has a hard time dealing with anything that isn’t known to her. Like Tom, she is a big dreamer and has enormous worlds inside her head, but feels really intimidated and challenged when facing the outside world. But I think she has a good sense of humor and she is her mother’s daughter, even though they’re very different. To me, she represents someone who wants to be better at taking care of herself, but can’t quite do it.
AD: Almost every symbol in the show revolves around Laura – the blue roses, the glass unicorn, the glass menagerie itself. What do these represent in your opinion?
CKB: During the rehearsal process, slowly but surely John Tiffany took away all of our props – we started with a full glass menagerie, and by the time we started previews there was one piece of glass left. I think that’s part of his genius. When you strip away all of the other parts of the play, those tiny things mean something different for everybody. I have my own ideas of what they mean for Laura, but I don’t think that matters. All of those metaphors in this production are stripped down to their most essential form, which allows everyone to place their own ideas onto what they mean.
AD: What sort of experiences have you had working on the show?
CKB: It was one of the greatest rehearsal processes of my whole life. John Tiffany (director) and Steven Hoggett (movement) grew up together and work with profound collaboration – to be in the room with the two of them is really special. They picked around eleven moments in the show where they felt music and movement would be a way to express something that the characters don’t say in the lines, and we did exercises to define those. In one, Steven had us sit down at the dinner table and imagine what was in front of us, how everyone at the table made us feel and what it is like to eat the food. Then we had to come up with three different gestures that weren’t literal representations of those. That exercise then became a part of the production. Another favorite of mine was assigning each of us a character in the play.I had Amanda. We had to take that character to a certain place in the house and “mend” them. Williams talked a lot about “plastic theatre” and non-literal representations and how they can help the audience get closer to the truth, and I think he had things like this in mind. I think that is something that makes this Glass Menagerie different. Plus, we have unbelievably beautiful music by Nico Muhly.
AD: Do you have a favorite moment in the story or a favorite moment on stage each night?
CKB: Can I have two?! There is a scene on the fire escape with Tom (Zachary Quinto) and Amanda (Cherry Jones). I would watch that scene almost every night in Boston. It’s the scene where he tells her the gentleman caller will come to dinner the next night, and you get a glimpse at how the love and dedication to each other manifests after all of this fraught energy between them. And, for myself, the gentleman caller scene – I don’t think I have ever been an actor in a scene where the writing is that unbelievable. It’s a scene that people have seen a lot, but there’s a reason for that. Doing the play for a few months in Boston let me discover the different ways to get what I need from the scene, and that scene takes care of me better than I’ve ever been taken care of in a scene. Its an amazing, amazing piece of writing.
AD: What are you hoping audiences experience at the show?
CKB: I hope audiences feel like this is a brand new play and feel like the story of the Wingfields is as important and timely now as it was when Williams first wrote it. I hope audiences have one of the great theatrical experiences of their lives. Right now, things that I love to see in the theatre are not things that could be turned into a movie or a television show, and I think this production really embraces the fact that it’s being done in a theater. And it tells an amazing story…
CELIA KEENAN-BOLGER(Laura) Broadway: Peter And The Starcatcher (Tony Award nomination, Drama Desk nomination, Drama League nomination), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee(Tony Award nomination, Drama Desk Award for Best Ensemble, Theatre World Award), Les Misérables (Drama Desk nomination). Off-Broadway: Peter and the Starcatcher (New York Theatre Workshop); Merrily We Roll Along, Juno (City Center Encores!); A Small Fire, Saved(Playwrights Horizons); Bachelorette, Little Fish (Second Stage). Favorite Regional: Sweeney Todd; Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration; Our Town, Intiman Theatre; The Light in the Piazza, Goodman Theatre. Television/Film: “Law & Order,” “Heartland,” “The Education Of Max Bickford,” Mariachi Gringo. Celia is a graduate of the University of Michigan.