Growing up in 'The Glass Menagerie'

When Roseanna Whitlow played the part of the daughter, Laura, in a Southeast production of "The Glass Menagerie" 32 years ago, she thought Laura's mother, Amanda, was simply "mean and crazy."

Amanda's rose-colored Southern past is populated by endless beaus and possibilities. Her future, she thinks, hangs on her son's willingness to support her and on her daughter's ability to marry well.

"I probably saw her the way an 18-year-old would see a mother-type like that," Whitlow says. But now that she's older, Amanda's emotional motivations seem more complicated, she says. "She loves those children so intensely. It's back and forth between nurturing and cruelty."

Whitlow now is Dr. Whitlow, a faculty member in the mass communication department at Southeast. She will play the part of Amanda in Southeast's upcoming production of the play.

"A Glass Menagerie" opens Friday, Dec. 5, at the Rose Theatre.

Other students in the earlier production were Bev Kester as Amanda, Rick McGougan as Tom and J. Fred Lucas as Jim, the gentleman caller. The director was Dr. Donald Schulte, recently retired from Southeast. He recalls that production and Whitlow's performance fondly.

"If she does the job with Amanda she did with Laura it will be pretty impressive," Schulte says.

The role fit Whitlow perfectly, he recalls.

"I can't remember, probably in my career, casting anybody who meshed with a part more than Roseanna did with that particular part."

Whitlow realizes how easy it is to mythologize the past just as Amanda does but thinks the Schulte-directed production was top-notch. "He is one of the finest directors in the history of Southeast," she said, "and an acting and directing coach to me as well as Kenn."

Dr. Kenn Stilson, director of the new production, was not yet a student at Southeast when Whitlow and Schulte were working together 32 years ago. "The Glass Menagerie" is one of his favorite plays.

"There is not an extra word in it," Stilson says.

Playwright Tennessee Williams also artfully combines feelings of isolation and tension with love and nurturing.

In the new production, the role of Tom, Laura's angry and artistic brother, is played by Nick Cutelli. Stephen Fister plays Jim, the gentleman caller.

Casee Hagan has the role of Laura. Hagan, forceful in September's production of "Two Rooms," is playing a shy, frail, physically disabled young woman in "The Glass Menagerie." Being a dancer has helped, she says.

"Laura doesn't say a lot, but she's always very active in the scenes, she's always paying attention," Hagan says. "As a dancer I'm always paying attention to my body."

Body language often speaks for Laura.

Whitlow, who directed , says the earlier production has not influenced the new one in any way. "We approach each script we direct -- or act in -- as a new work, never seen before (the 'illusion of the first time')."

Whitlow directed Hagan in September's production of the drama "Two Rooms." She has told her only a few stories about the 1971 "Glass Menagerie," especially the one about blowing out the candles at the end of a performance and realizing her hair was sizzling in the flame of a candle left burning.

At 18, she knew exactly how Laura felt, Whitlow said, "shy, insecure, clinging to the safety of her pretend world of glass animals."

Though she would not want to be like her, Whitlow says time has helped her understand "hateful, loving, pitiful and funny" Amanda, too.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182