Tennessee in Alaska

If language is the vehicle, than Tennessee Williams' language is a classic Cadillac - elegant, smooth, powerful and timeless.

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Williams' play "The Glass Menagerie" will open at 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15, at Perseverance Theatre.

"I think language is the vehicle for the story," said director Peter DuBois. "Each word is carefully chosen. There's not a wasted word in the play."

"To feel his words in your mouth is a sensual experience," said actor Anni Stokes. "It's poetic. He's poetic. That's why I wanted to be in one of his plays, because it's poetry of the South."

The story is mainly autobiographical, with Williams blending some of his experiences with language to freeze memories in time.

"When Tennessee Williams created his most autobiographical work, he also created his greatest masterpiece," DuBois said of the play. "It contains some of the best writing in American theater."

DuBois said he always has wanted to work on a Williams play, and he chose this one for production because of the power in the language.

"You could close your eyes and just listen to the words and still be told a beautiful story," he said, "And that's a strong testament to the vibrancy and clarity of the language."

Music, lighting, design elements and acting are used to help complement the script in DuBois' mission to recreate Williams' "slightly expressionistic" vision.

"It's staged very traditionally," said DuBois, "in the way that we don't do anything that Tennessee Williams hasn't staged in the script.

DuBois said images are used that relate to the emotional core of each of the characters, which he says amplifies the story.

"Williams presents very fragile, very real, human conditions such as ambition, love, fear, relentlessness and desire," he said. "And, he takes these very real human conditions and he places them on stage in a way that helps illuminate things that we all go through, things that we all relate to."

Stokes, Jake Waid, Ekatrina Oleksa and Dan Reaume make up the cast of the mother, son, daughter, and gentleman caller, respectively.

"When you're working with a story like this, the actors have to come to life to match the strength of the writing," said DuBois. "It's a very tight ensemble and each of them is very, very good."

Stokes and DuBois likened Williams' writing prowess to that of Shakespeare.

"It's a play that can stand next to 'Romeo and Juliet,' 'Antigone' and 'Tartuffe' and still hold its own as one of the greatest masterpieces of all time," said DuBois.

"There are no boring characters in his plays," said Stokes. "They're remarkable and ordinary. And that's how people are, ordinary and remarkable."

DuBois said the theater's aim is to make the production visually compelling, but to have the actors use the story to connect with the audience.

"So even though this story isn't about you, and isn't about me, it's a story that we can relate to because he is able to connect with these emotions that we've all felt, that he tells so truthfully," said DuBois. "The truths of our lives are big and theatrical. We experience our lives in very large ways, and Williams is saying 'Let's explore the means that we have in the theater to help amplify and theatricalize those moments.' "

"The Glass Menagerie" will show at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 6 p.m. Sundays except the final show, at 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 8. Tickets for the Thursday and Friday shows are $17 for adults and $13 for students and seniors. Saturday and Sunday shows cost $22 for adults and $18 for students and seniors. The pay-as-you-can preview is Thursday, Nov. 14, and the pay-as-you-can show is Wednesday, Nov. 27.

"It's a really great story," said DuBois. "And it's the kind of story that you're really glad you're in a theater, you're glad that the stories are being told to you by live actors, and that there's someone there next to you to share it with."

Eric Morrison can be reached at nrclerk@juneauempire.com.