The Fountain Hills Theater opened Friday, October 14, 2016 with Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. The cast is not just perfect, but phenomenal and it is an evening well spent.

The dysfunctional Wingfield family portrayed in this drama brought back memories of Williams’ own unhappy life while living in St. Louis. It is a story about a mother deserted by her husband long ago, still living in the youth of her past, who is constantly worried about her grown son’s nightlife and job stability, as well as her terribly shy and slightly “crippled” daughter.

The mother is struggling to cling to her genteel past where she once had 17 gentlemen callers and was the belle of the ball.

No way around it, this play should break your heart. The ending I leave for you to interrupt yourself. As Tom leaves, as his father before him, he doesn’t “go to the moon,” he goes much, much further.

If you have never seen The Glass Menagerie, this is your chance to see near perfection on our small stage right here in Fountain Hills. The characters are all, in their own way, as fragile as the pieces of Laura’s glass figurines which can so easily be shattered into jagged pieces. As in the play, “When you look at a piece of delicately spun glass you think of two things: How beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken.”

At many points during the play you could literally hear a pin drop and that, my friends, is theater at its very finest. You have a chance to see this as it plays until October 30. Don't miss it.

See you at the theater.