The Glass Menagerie

The Berkeley Rep’s tiny Thrust Stage becomes the cramped apartment where Amanda Wingfield — a petite, imperious Rita Moreno — charms, smothers, and guilt-trips her thin-blooded children in this splendid revival of Tennessee Williams’ classic, The Glass Menagerie. Even in dowdy turbans and crochet-collared dresses, the still-slinky actress brings a sensual vitality to the iconic matriarch (we never doubt the existence of those long-ago ”gentleman callers”). Moreno dominates, but Erik Lochtefeld’s witty, overtly gay, sympathetic Tom bridges the gap between modern audiences and this 1944 gem. (888-427-8849)