Mark Umbers
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About the author: Actor Mark Umbers is presently captivating West End audiences as The Gentleman Caller in the hit revival of Tennessee Williams’
The Glass Menagerie. It’s been a dazzling road from his Yorkshire roots to the bright lights of London for the thoughtful and talented performer. He received his honours degree in classics from Oxford University in the mid-1990s, and then his critically acclaimed work at West Yorkshire Playhouse drew the attention of Trevor Nunn. Umbers began a tenure at the National in 1998 and would remain there for four years under Nunn's directorship, appearing in productions of
The Merchant of Venice,
Candide and, most notably,
My Fair Lady, which won him unanimous raves. His 2003 appearance in
The Vortex opposite Chiwetel Eijofor at the Donmar Warehouse led to offers of film work, initially the lead in
A Good Woman opposite Scarlett Johansson. Since then, he has appeared in
Colour Me Kubrick with John Malkovich and
These Foolish Things with Lauren Bacall, among others. Here, he describes how he approached his character in
The Glass Menagerie.
For an actor embarking on a play as famous as The Glass Menagerie, I was in the fortunate position of never having read it or seen it, either on stage or film. Of anything I've done before, no play has ever confounded or excited me quite as much as this. My experience of Tennessee Williams to date had been, largely, the films of Streetcar, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Sweet Bird of Youth. Inevitably, when reading one of his plays as a prospective (British) actor, your subconscious warns you to expect a role that Marlon Brando or Paul Newman would have played far better than you could ever expect to—but this one was different. Gone were the steamy, sweaty locations (and characters) of the Deep South. In their place I discovered an impossibly delicate, Midwest equivalent of a kitchen sink drama, at once horribly realistic and hauntingly elegiac.
Mark Umbers and Amanda Hale
in The Glass Menagerie
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I must confess that the character I play, Jim O'Connor (a.k.a. The Gentleman Caller) made my heart sink when I first read him. Not another cipher! I've played my fair share of those, and it can be a pretty thankless task, turning a largely "symbolic" supporting role into a human being. Added to this was the fact that, as Tom Wingfield remarks at the beginning,
The Glass Menagerie is a memory play. The dream-like quality this gives to the piece means that characters (particularly Jim) seem to say and do things for no comprehensible reason: for instance, seducing a crippled girl, only then to abandon her. If we look at Jim on a purely symbolic level in the piece, it makes perfect sense: he is that window of opportunity that people wait for; and more often than not, it is no sooner opened than slammed in their faces. Approach that kind of scenario as an actor, however, and the sense of it disappears. Why, why, why would anyone behave like that? Even if all the audience ultimately appreciates about him is what he symbolizes, an actor can't portray a symbol, eight shows a week for four months.
Therefore, I started rehearsals not liking Jim one bit. My reading of the character was that this (ex) high school hero, now a loser in a shoe factory, is for one fleeting moment reminded of his golden youth by Laura—who might indeed be the only other person left who also remembers—but then quickly comes to his senses and selfishly leaves. After a couple of days with Amanda Hale (who plays Laura) my opinion of him started to change. There was an intense kindness to the man—self-engrossed, yes, but above all intent on helping this girl, whom he feels is more psychologically crippled than physically so. As with all Williams' characters, I quickly realized it would be fatal to take him at face value, or as he appeared on the page. Reading between the lines was, for me, going to be by far the best approach. What went wrong for Jim after high school? Why did he break off his engagement? Why all these self-help classes? Does he, in fact, actually fall in love with Laura for one brief, fatal moment?
The only way Jim could be seen as a human being, to my mind, was to have him fall for Laura. The text seems to imply that his forthcoming marriage to Betty ("a home-girl") is merely a convenient one; it ticks all the boxes. During the course of the scene with Laura, these two people, both losers in different ways and for very different reasons, gradually forge a connection and an intimacy that is both deeply reciprocated and far more akin to real love than anything Jim might have experienced with Betty. Jim's abrupt departure, therefore, is about "doing the right thing," even at the expense of his future happiness, than it is about plain heartlessness. Whether or not this reads as far as the audience is concerned is another matter. Tennessee was a better writer than I am an actor, so they will probably glean whatever he wants them to. For those eight shows a week, however, it makes a lot more sense to me!
What I do know—and it is something I've never experienced before as an actor—is that, with this play, you have to absolutely relinquish control over your performance. You cannot go on stage being rigid about the way you are going to play it. Listening and responding in kind to the other characters has never felt more crucial to the success of a piece, especially one as delicate as The Glass Menagerie. No two shows are ever quite the same.