THE GLASS MENAGERIE

A Streetcar Named Desire is Williams' finest play. The Glass Menagerie was his first big success. It opened in Chicago in 1944 and moved to Broadway the next year where it won the Drama Critic's Circle Award.

This is a good play to end the semester for several reasons:

• It reinforces the major premise of theater as an art form -- truth vs. illusion.

  Both Amanda and Laura live in a world of illusion and denial. In the midst of a crushing economic depression (the play takes place in St. Louis in the 1930's) Amanda constantly reverts back to the days of her youth when jonquils were in bloom and she entertained countless numbers of "gentleman callers." Her shy and sensitive daughter Laura feels herself only when lost in her collection of brightly colored figurines -- her glass menagerie.

  The son Tom sees the world more clearly, but he dreams as well -- of adventure and romance on foreign shores and tropical islands. Naturally, all three are forced to confront the truth by the end of the play.

• While the play is mostly "realistic," its frame (outer shell) is not.

  In the first scene Tom address the audience directly (which would never happen in a strictly realistic production) as a narrator commenting on the action we are about to see. Pay close attention to the opening monologue. Tom tells us that this play "will give you truth in the pleasant guise of illusion." He also calls the play a memory play: "Being a memory play it is dimly lit...sentimental...not realistic." We experience the inner play -- the story of Tom's family and the gentleman caller -- as it is filtered through Tom's consciousness. Thus the illusion of reality --- re-created as Tom's family --- is how Tom remembers his family, not how it actually might have been. At the end of the play Tom returns on stage as narrator to bring closure to his memories and to his guilt.

• Finally, the play is beautiful, sad and poetic. A bittersweet story of love. The Gentleman caller arrives on a Xmas-Eve-like night, promising hope, the possibility of love, and economic salvation. And for one glorious moment the dream is true, but the Unicorn's horn is broken, the promise of Xmas fades, and the work of the real world must begin again.

  • Enjoy the show!

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