Last night, Williams's “Sweet Bird of Youth” had a one-night performance in Provincetown at Norman Mailer's house starring legendary actress Sylvia Miles as the Princess. This must be Tennessee's year. In East Hampton,Guild Hall, Tennessee Williams's “Glass Menagerie” opened for its 3 week run of a stunning production directed by Harris Yulin featuring

Amy Irving as Amanda Wingfield, a role that rivals “Gypsy”'s Mamma Rose for iconic American uber-mom. Fine-boned Irving in her lace dancing dress captures the delicacy and tough-as-nails spirit of this character as she cripples her children in her ambition for them. Irving makes us understand why this woman does what she does, nattering at Tom, spousifying him in the absence of the husband who abandoned them many years before. Grooming the painfully shy and limping Laura for her gentleman caller, the very handsome John Behlmann, becomes her life's mission. We watch Laura, played beautifully by Louisa Krause, as her prospects diminish. What makes this production so special is Ebon Moss-Bachrach's portrayal of Tom, son, brother, narrator of this memory piece-most of all a writer re-imaging his youth. This actor made me understand what was so off in the recent Broadway revival with Christian Slater miscast, slick in this role. Ebon Moss-Bachrach as stand in for the artist himself speaks William's poetry, his translucent eyes reflecting thwarted hope and misery: he wants to please mom and help sis, he is not a bad person but emotionally frail as Laura is, he lets them down, taking his only way out when he can. This is a family story, a tragedy of the decline of Southern refined values, auguring the speed and flash of the American future. The humble candles go out in their St. Louis flat, with its view of the neon Paradise Dance Hall, and as Tom reflects, the light coming is lightening by comparison. Paul Bowles's original incidental music is among this production's many joys.