“The future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret.”

This warning, declared in Tennessee Williams’ "The Glass Menagerie," has been interpreted many different ways since the 1944 premiere of Williams’ gorgeous, indelible, and fiercely loved play. Now 6th Street Playhouse is putting its own interpretation on that morosely prophetic line, famously uttered by the resentful, aging Southern Belle Amanda to her would-be-poet son Tom.

Director Craig Miller - inspired by the quote’s examination of past and future - has escalated the play from a memory into a vivid full-on alcoholic hallucination. What normally plays out on a semi-realistic living room set, now plays out inside the homeless Tom’s desperately demented brain, as he hides in the shadows, muttering, barking and raging under and around a fire escape in a dirty New Orleans alley. Trapped in an inescapable loop of his own regret - as predicted by his mother - Tom now spins memories in the air, talking to no one, watching as the characters of his past materialize in the alley as he replays scenes of his life, using trash cans and wooden pallets in place of the his mother’s faded furniture.

In particular, Tom replays the night he finally abandoned his mother and mentally frail sister Laura, following a “dinner party” in which a gentleman caller almost pulls Laura from the dreamy fantasy world she hides in.

Fueled by sorrow, Tom is now trapped in a world of his own.

It’s a bold idea, born of Miller’s obvious love of the play, and whether it works or not will depend on how theatergoers feel about this kind of theatrical reinvention.

I've always believed that theater is elastic. Plays can be twisted, pulled, bent and stretched, but then the script snaps them back into place after the run is over, the play returning to its original form, ready for other artists to tackle again. In the case of 6th Street’s version, the concept works surprisingly well, bolstered by clever sound design that gives us noisy street traffic in the background, disappearing when Tom enters his memories, and returning with a jarring rush whenever he’s pulled back to the present.

The cast is deeply committed but wildly uneven, causing some scenes to never achieve the depth they deserve, others leaping up raw, fully alive and unforgettable.

Still, the show’s built-in power is unstoppable, fueled by Tennessee Williams gorgeous writing. And Miller’s gutsy vision - whether you decide it serves the story or distracts from it - definitely makes for an evening of challenging, thought provoking, and frequently entertaining theater.

"The Glass Menagerie" runs Thursday–Sunday through Sept. 28 in The Studio at 6th Street Playhouse. 6thstreetplayhouse.com