Leonardo Lidi's 'The Glass Menagerie' Deconstructs Tennessee Williams in Verona

Leonardo Lidi's production of Tennessee Williams' 'The Glass Menagerie' played to a sold-out house at Teatro Camploy in Verona as part of the Altro Teatro season, receiving a five-minute standing ovation. The young director strips the play of its American aridity, relocating the characters into non-places and animating them as objects. Drawing on Beckett, Dada, and Futurism, Lidi presents the Wingfield family as marionettes with broken strings, trapped in a pink candy-colored house that evokes Hopper. The tragedy has already occurred outside the timeline; the comedy never resolves as clowns keep tripping. The father's absence is physically present, like in Strehler's 'Arlecchino servitor di due padroni' or Buñuel's 'The Exterminating Angel'—no one can cross the threshold of theatrical illusion. The actors—Lorenzo Bartoli, Tindaro Granata, Mariangela Granelli, and Anahi Traversi—perform with extraordinary skill. The production runs at Teatro Nazionale di Genova.