The narrator in Tennessee Williams' autobiographical play is always "going to the movies". His memories have a hazy, filmic quality, but, in Robin Lefevre's production, they are as fixed as a series of sepia prints. Looking back in guilt at the St Louis home he escaped from in the late 1930s, Tom's monologues frame the unfolding events. His unreliable commentary usually leaves us to make up our own mind about his mother and reclusive sister, but here there is little room for ambiguity.
From the static opening scenes, his mother, Amanda, is established as an overbearing fantasist, embellishing her pampered southern belle girlhood. Francesca Annis's swooping drawl and languid gestures are so highly pitched from the start that her climactic outburst against Tom (Garrett Lombard) is undermined, coming across as just one more melodramatic flourish. Confinement and claustrophobia are heavily emphasised: Eileen Diss's cluttered red set is hemmed in on both sides by external walls and fire escapes. A recurring spotlight draws our attention to the portrait of Tom and Laura's long-absent father, whose defection keeps Tom trapped at home, "beleaguered by females".
By the time she dresses for dinner in a pink Little Bo Peep outfit, sympathy for Annis's Amanda has evaporated. But, as she tips towards caricature, the space is vacated for the shy, lame Laura. Without a trace of victimhood, Katie Kirby's quiet dignity commands attention. When "the long-awaited something" materialises in the form of the Gentleman Caller, the dynamic between them has palpable tension, hope and disappointment, in delicate balance. Marty Rea's attentiveness towards Laura softens his brash declarations, making his withdrawal all the more poignant. Laura's slow death of the heart finally gives this production its focus.
· Until April 5. Box office: 00353 1 8744045.
