Lunch with Tiffany
It might seem strange that someone as cheery as John Tiffany is directing a play as fraught with despair as “The Glass Menagerie.” But for the sanguine director, the world is full of risks that don’t always come with immediate rewards — much like the early life of playwright Tennessee Williams, who struggled to find success until writing “Menagerie,” the work that mirrored his own turbulent youth, launched him to stardom. Tiffany, who last year won Tony Awards for best musical and director, knows that you can’t be rewarded unless you take risks, and that sometimes those come with a price. On a recent lunch break in the basement of a Cambridge church used for rehearsals, the affable and animated Tiffany discussed his approach to the intimate and intense classic of the American theater canon. His new vision of the play opens at the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) on Saturday. “I am one of...