Somehow, some way, Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s production of “The Glass Menagerie” punches through. Being prepared for the emotional impact does nothing to stop it from hitting where it hurts. In large part, this is because Allie Pratt masterfully portrays Laura, the tender heart of the play, with a pained gait and a sparkling intelligence evident in her lucid appraisal of her own state. Tom smokes, Amanda yells, but Laura takes it all in and thinks of others before herself. Pratt gives the play a raw self-consciousness in a character who feels too deeply to manage the situation she inherits. She can neither please her mother nor navigate an escape from her influence.

Will Block brilliantly plays her conflicted younger brother Tom with an honest rage as he rails against the bars of his reality. The sympathy Block elicits for Tom’s situation makes the character’s actions that much more devastating. If he were unlikable, it wouldn’t be a dynamic play. The audience must feel for Tom in order for tension to build. And tension does build in this production. The burden he internalizes begins to force its way out of his discontented frame like steam streaming from a jumping and whistling pressure cooker. Stifled by his controlling mother and the dim economic prospects of his hometown, Tom escapes through dishonesty and a betrayal as dissolute as the smoke he blows from their balcony. Block leads us through this journey with fidelity to the feeling of being stuck and incapable of acceptance.

Their suffering and narcissistic matriarch, Amanda, is skillfully portrayed by Marion Adler. Beset by anxiety and ill equipped to solve her problems, Amanda is truly a tragic figure and Adler does an admirable job of illustrating her frustrating futility. She is a strong character, although her strength doesn’t serve her family well. Her intentions, however, are good, and it is this contrast that Adler nails so firmly. Amanda has no capacity to adapt to the outcome of her bad decisions in marriage, coupled with the economic depression of their time, and yet, she is unflappable in her will power. Abandoned by her husband, she refuses to give up. This stoicism makes her sympathetic despite her flawed approach to parenting.

If this incomplete and fractured atomic family were not painful enough, Williams raises the stakes with the character Jim, a high school hero who has fallen from grace due to no real fault of his own. He simply hasn’t realized the potential that made him popular at school. Charles Pasternak, who also directed the play, gives depth to this character with equal doses of dashing charm and unarming optimism. Jim has more charisma than discretion and Pasternak plays his aw-shucks innocence believably without falling into a caricature. He is a character who doesn’t go against the stream, even when it would be wiser and kinder to resist. Still, he is self-aware enough to call himself a stumble John when his affability causes unintentional damage.

This production of The Glass Menagerie does justice to Tennessee Williams’ beautiful writing, elevating the lyricism of his lines and creating a charming period feel through the costume and set design. There is a simplicity to the drama. It is a four-piece band and each part is played with tone and clarity. Together this cast has masterfully managed the unthinkable, to deliver painful emotion that is raw and tragic in a way that is potent and palatable. There is a sweetness to the sadness, a soulfulness to the lack of resolution. Traditionally in tragedy, most of the characters die. In this lovely play, it is our hopes for a family’s future that perish, and this loss is somehow even more poignant.

Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s production of “The Glass Menagerie” runs through Sept. 28 at Audrey Stanley Grove, 501 Upper Park Road, Santa Cruz.