This is no play for the fainthearted. It offers a wistful commentary on the fragility of the dreams we are bound to dream and the hell that is other people dreaming them for us. Sue Rider and team have put their stamp firmly on the self absorbed world of Williams’ strongly autobiographical memory play and in doing so bring us closer to our own truths.

Successive productions have not dimmed today’s response to the work, more than half a century from the society for which it was written. Miserable poverty ( arising from the Great Depression), a looming awareness of the tragedy of war and the collapse of family values are sadly familiar still. Moreover, Williams’ departure from realist theatre into the fertile territory of symbol and suggestion allows artistic choices which are as effective as ever in engaging head and heart.

The social background of 1930s St Louis is succinctly laid out for us at the beginning of the play – young Tom Wingfield, speaking directly to the audience, explains that he is in control of the memories, that he will bring us "truth in the pleasant guise of illusion" and that we are to expect dim lights, sentimental effects and symbols. We are in the world of a poet. He introduces the characters we will meet and all should be straightforward after that. Shouldn’t it?

Well, no. Whatever truth may be, it is many faceted and the story of this small fatherless family with the mother, Amanda Wingfield, manipulating the lives of her son Tom and his crippled sister, Laura is no exception. Amanda Wingfield’s own dreams have been bitterly blighted. A withered Southern belle, she is struggling to make up for the desertion of her husband and impoverished circumstances, through the prospects of her children. As is the way of it, they are not dreaming the same dream. The play treats especially on her introduction, through Tom, of his workmate, Jim O’Connor, who is to be Laura’s own ‘gentleman caller’. Many a cruel twist follows.

The wide Court stage and the Tony Geddes set work well to express the isolated and uneasy relationships of the family. Laura’s most precious and comforting objects as she limps through life are in the front parlour, separated from the dining room table by a filmy curtain. Her Victrola and especially her collection of glass ornaments, offer concrete images of the perilous fragility of beauty there. Screening in general is used, as Williams suggested, to carry projected images and phrases to ‘accent certain values in each scene’. The truth he is interested in may be unpalatable but there is no way we are going to be distracted from it. If we miss the images, sound (designed by Joe Hayes) is there to awake our awareness, again as suggested by Williams.

As for the human actors within the memory world, their impact is even greater as the layered significance of their words or silence, movement or stillness becomes clear. At the heart of the business, Laura, played with compelling sincerity by Elsie Edgerton-Till is crippled as much emotionally as she is physically by the circumstances of her young life. It is a role calling for extraordinary subtlety as she moves towards tentative hope and back again and the challenge is met with refined skill.

Susan Curnow, playing Amanda Wingfield, finds a fresh interpretation for the frustrated but steely gentility of her role. There is little of the graceful prettiness often invested in it. Instead, she bristles with sharp and relentless authority, inviting confrontation rather than manipulated sympathy from her son. It could be reasoned that this attitude lessens the impact of Tom’s eventual departure or that it underscores the embittered disappointment of her own life.

As Tom Wingfield, Ashley Hawkes is a thoroughly believable young poet, ‘selfish dreamer’, compromised by time and place. His workmate and The Gentleman Caller is fleshed out sensitively by Cameron Douglas.

A haunting play, brought to life by a skilled and imaginative team, this is a fine production.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer