Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" is a delicate memory play, meticulously resurrected by director Joyce Maltby.

Williams' first successful drama was believed to be partly autobiographical, told from the point of view of a young man looking back at the mother and sister he abandoned. With three strongly written major characters, its focus shifts throughout the evening. Mother Amanda and daughter Laura often vie with son Tom for audience attention and compassion. Maltby gives each of them due emphasis in this production, but the overall nod goes to Tom as that character frames and focuses the memory scenes.

Rob Duval rises to the material, turning in a performance that is heavy with sorrow, but not regret, emphasizing Tom's need to flee his smothering home life, even as he comprehends the dark consequences.

In a role that often overshadows the play, Eden-Lee Murray neatly crafts Amanda as overtly manipulative, but also lost in long-past personal glory and teetering on the edge of catastrophe. She has become a ridiculous character frozen in time, beautifully illustrated as she strikes a pose to welcome the Gentleman Caller in a whimsically obsolete ball gown.

Madeline Ruhl is Laura, as delicate and fragile as her collection of tiny glass animals. Although pathologically shy and reclusive, there is also stubbornness in Ruhl's performance that suggests Laura's silences defend an island of inner self that her mother's dominance cannot breach.

Elitei Tatafu Jr. plays the Gentleman Caller as a flicker of hope quickly extinguished. His portrayal rings with the hollow confidence of a former high school hero, now lost in a commonplace life.

The technical aspects of the production are carefully balanced. Janine Meyers' lighting plot throws most of the second act into wonderfully moody candlelight and shadow. Kevin Craven's sound design quietly underscores the memory with subliminal melodies. Karen Archibald's set effectively suggests a more romantic past, now fallen on hard times.