The Glass Menagerie, Bolton Little Theatre, Runs until Saturday, April 13

DON'T be put off by the fact that The Glass Menagerie is set in the sad and uncertain days of the American Depression of the 1930s.

For the way in which Bolton Little Theatre's production of this modern classic by Tennessee Williams is handled is anything but depressing.

In fact the manner in which the cast of four bring their roles in the superb script of the play to life makes for a five-star performance that grabbed the attention of Saturday's first night audience.

The play was first staged in the UK in 1948, and is a semi-autobiographical homage by Williams to his own family in the years of the 20s and 30s.

The cast -- Audrey Lias, Caroline Weekes, Stuart Shaw and Adam Berlyne (deftly directed by John Cunningham) make it a memorable family at war story.

Tom Wingfield is the young writer and would-be-poet (who might be Williams himself), who reflects on a past full of hopes, dreams and harsh reality.

He lives with his older sister Laura in a small apartment in down-town St Louis, where their mother has single-handedly brought them up since her husband went over the hill. Tom is now trapped in a situation where he is the sole breadwinner for the family.

Laura is slightly disabled and chronically shy, and spends most of her time in a world of dreams, polishing her fragile collection of tiny glass ornaments -- the glass menagerie.

Their mother, Amanda, prefers to live in the Deep South dream world of her youth and can't grasp the reality of the Depression years and the desperately unhappy plight of her son and daughter.

Dreams of the son and fears of the daughter are vividly contrasted to the out-of-touch attitude of their mother, in a production that grips the imagination from start to finish.

When Jim, who works with son Tom in a warehouse, is brought home in the hope of courting Laura, it gives the play a push into another zone -- perhaps echoing the fact that even the bleakest times end and that life is very often what we make of it.

The way in which the four players slot so effectively into their roles does full justice to the words and ideas of Williams.

If poignant drama is demanded, then it really is delivered with style and substance at the Little Theatre.