Show and tell post II

      Play is called The Glass Menagerie written by Tennessee Williams.  It was written in the summer to 1944 with the original title of The Gentlemen Caller.   It was only after Eddie Dawling Decided to produce the play that the title was changed to The Glass Menagerie.  It premiered in Chicago on December 26, 1944 and later opened in New York on March 31, 1945 (page 1032).  It won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1945. The play can be found in the book called, “Tennessee Williams Play 1937-1955.

     There are four main characters in this play. They are Amanda Wingfield (the mother), Laura Wingfield (the daughter), Tom Wingfield (the son), and Jim O’Conner (the gentlemen caller).  Tom also acts as the narrator and addresses the audience. The play opens with Tom’s narration explaining that this is a memory play.  He also explains that there is a “fifth” character which is a picture of the father that is prominently displayed in the room.   Amanda enters and they argue quite often throughout the play.  Laura is very shy and involved with the world of her glass menagerie of animals.   Tom is always trying to find a way of leaving and he finally does at the end.  Amanda wants to see if she can find a husband for Laura.  She also lives in the past when she had many gentlemen callers.  Laura had been crippled from having pleurisy when she was a child. She and Tom knew Jim when they were in high school.  Tom invites Jim to dinner in the hopes that a relationship will grow with Laura.  Laura show Jim her Menagerie and one of the animals get broken when they are dancing.  Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to the rest, Jim is already engaged. At the end, Amanda comforts Laura and Tom leaves for the Merchant Marines.

     One dramaturgical choice is having Tom break the “fourth wall” with his narration.  Tennessee Williams may have made this choice to include the audience in on the “dream” or a “memory.” He had very specific stage directions including having a scrim in the front of the stage where you could barely see the set behind.  He also wrote that the scrim is raised just after Tom’s opening narration to represent the dream or memory being revealed.  It is all part of an illusion. Even Tom says in the script, “I give you the truth in the pleasant disguise of an illusion.” (Page 400)    He narrates again at the beginning of scene III when he describes Mother’s plans and imagination on how she can find a gentlemen caller for Laura.  At the beginning of scene VI, he talks about Jim and how he is going to bring him home for dinner.  All of these incidents of the narration give us the back-story of what has not happened on stage.  Finally at the end, he narrates what has happened after the story on stage is over. The stage direction says that the final interior scene should be viewed as through a sound-proof glass as Tom says his final speech.

     Another dramaturgical choice would be one of Hornsby’s terms of duration.  The time that Amanda and Tom spend arguing and discussing different situations takes up most of the stage time whereas the time that Laura has on stage with Jim is only one or two scenes.  Even though the play is called “The Glass Menagerie” which you would think is about Laura and her glass, Amanda and Tom on the other hand  have most of the lines in the play.

Source:

Williams, Tennessee. Tennessee Williams: Plays 1937-1955. New York: Literay Classic of the

            United States, 2000. Print. Compiled  and with notes by Mel Gussow and Kenneth

            Holdrich