72 EW.COM FEBRUARY 24/MARCH 3, 2017
How did you get involved in
this revival?
SALLY FIELD About five years ago
I got my first New York apartment.
I was having the college life I never
had because I started [working]
so early. It had a TV on top of a
box and a mattress on the floor—
like a kid, really. I would read new
plays and did a billion readings,
and I did some workshops. I was
lucky that when I was on Broad-
way before, with [Edward Albee’s]
The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?,
Scott Rudin produced the play,
and he was incredibly supportive
and remained so about me
coming back to Broadway. A year
ago Scott asked me to lunch
and he said, “Okay, so how about
Glass Menagerie?” And I went,
“Whaaat?” He had always known
that for me, that was the one that
got away. We couldn’t transfer
the [2004] production from D.C.
to New York because it was being
done [the next year on Broadway
with Lange], and thenanother
one was done, and I had just
crossed it off. So I said [to Scott
when he asked me again], “You’re
joking.” And he said, “No. And
how about with Sam Gold?” I went,
“Whaaat?” I could barely talk.
I walked back to my apartment juststunned. And then the other part
of me was going, “Oh God! Oh
God! Oh God!” You know, be care-
ful what you wish for!
JOE MANTELLOUnlike Sally, mine
was actually not a role that I had
ever considered playing. The
deciding factor for me was to be in
a room with Sam. You know,
directorsnever get to watch other
directors work. I’ve learned so
much just from being in the audi-
ence at his productions that I
thought, “Well, I want to be in a
room with him and absorb what he
knows.” I’ve grown to love the role.Tell us about your two costars.
FIELD They’re both just divine.
Finn is so talented and energetic.
Then there’s the flat-out gift
that is Madison. Never has Laura
been the heart of the play as
much as this. Do you agree?
MANTELLO I agree. And it’s a very
different take. There’s very little
self-pity. Sam has endowed
Laura with a sense of agency that
I don’t think we’ve seen before.Madison is a wheelchair user in
real life. How does that play into
her character?
FIELDIt plays into her character.
[Laughs] It’s much more true,FOR TWO-TIME OSCAR WINNER SALLY FIELD, STARRING
in the new Broadway revival ofThe Glass Menagerie at the
Belasco Theatre is a dreamfinally come true. In 2004, she
played the impoverished Southern matriarch Amanda
Wingfield at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center, earning
raves. Now, 13 years later, the actress brings her take on
one of Tennessee Williams’ most meaty and demanding
roles to the Great White Way.AndField gets to work with
Sam Gold, the Tony-winning director of 2015’s inventive
and emotionalFun Home. “I have this massive creative
crush on him,” says theLincoln andSteel Magnolias star.
“I followed him around. I sawFun Home four times.”
Previously portrayed by Jessica Lange and CherryJones, among others (see sidebar), garrulous Amanda
spends the show desperately attempting to secure a
beau for her shy daughter, Laura, with the reluctant help
of Laura’s brother, Tom, who is remembering these
events from a vantage point in the future. In this pro-
duction, newcomer Madison Ferris brings a heightened
degree of physical impairment to Laura, and Tom is
assayed by Joe Mantello, an artist equally adept as an
actor (The Normal Heart, the original Broadway produc-
tion ofAngels in America) and director (a little musical
calledWicked, plus many more). Finn Whitrock from
American Horror Story completes the four-person cast as
Jim O’Connor, the “gentleman caller” whom Tom
invites home in the hope that he will fall for his sister.
So how are the rehearsals going? “I don’t know!” con-fesses Field, 70. “It’s so much, and so hard. I don’t know
who’s going to go crazy first, Amanda or me.” Fortu-
nately, Mantello, 54, is also on hand to talk about the
production (opening March 9)—and help reassure his
costar. “Ithink they’re going swell,” he says. “I really do!”
(PREVIOUS SPREAD) BRIGITTE LACOMBE; (THIS PAGE) FIELD AND MANTELLO: JULIETA CERVANTES