Brace Yourself

Playwright Ray Dobbins presents, Brace Yourself, a fractured parody of Tennessee Williams’, The Glass Menagerie. There are many subtle, beautiful themes in Tennessee Williams, and some of them even find their way into this immoderate lampoon. The art of the play, however, is a practical joke: it emulates William’s realistic tone quite skillfully; seducing you into thinking it was adapting Menagerie scene-for-scene. That way, you can kill yourself looking for borrowed text and be sourly surprised to find none. You’ll also find that Williams never wrote a scene where Amanda gets hit with a bucket of water on her Avon rounds, or where Tom’s family makes a meal of jello on TV tray tables set with silver candelabra, or that Laura’s favorite author is Edgar Allen Polio. The biggest surprise is when that sensible, sensitive character the Gentleman Caller shows up as Johnnie Ray, the pop singer of the 1950’s.