Yard theatre, London
Jay Miller’s production raises the ghosts of troubled memories with powerful intimacy in this final show before the venue gets a grand refit

Tennessee Williams’ semi-autobiographical “memory play” is sentimental by its nature. Memory takes poetic licence and is “seated predominantly in the heart”, Williams tells us in his opening. This production shows us how poetic it can be but also how nightmarish and tormenting.

Exquisitely directed by Jay Miller, the story of pained family love between narrator Tom Wingfield (Tom Varey), who aspires to be a poet, his emotionally fragile sister, Laura (Eva Morgan), who has a limp that is not visible here, and their domineering mother, Amanda (Sharon Small), is dimly lit but strikingly shorn of sentimentality.

At the Yard theatre, London, until 10 May