Creative Team

Director — Lester Malizia
Sets and Lighting — Liz McCraven
Costumes — Brian O'Keffe

Written by Tennessee Williams
Study Guide written by Gary Cadwallader

The Source

The source for the play The Glass Menagerie is one of Thomas Lanier (Tennessee) Williams own early short stories, "Portrait of a Girl in Glass," which was a semi-autobiographical tale of his own upbringing in Saint Louis, Missouri. The girl in the title was his own sister Rose. After the moderate Theater Guild success of one of Williams' first plays The Battle of Angels, starring Miriam Hopkins, the playwright got a writing contract at MGM Studios and moved to Hollywood to write screenplays. While at MGM he expanded his short story into the screenplay, "The Gentleman Caller," which was roundly rejected. He decided the story would play much better on the stage and rewrote his screenplay into the stage adaptation now retitled, The Glass Menagerie.

History of the Play

The Glass Menagerie premiered at Chicago's Civic Theater on December 26, 1944, starring one of Broadway's biggest stars, Laurette Taylor, as Amanda. The critics loved it, but the audiences didn't come at first. The press continued to write favorably about the play, and the show began to enjoy enormous success. It transferred to New York's Playhouse Theater, opening March 31, 1945. It was directed by Eddie Dowling, who also played Tom. The Glass Menagerie won the New York Critic's Circle award for best play of the year, and went on to run for 563 performances, approximately a year and a half.

The Glass Menagerie has gone on to become one of the most successful American plays of the 20th century, being performed worldwide on stage (Helen Hayes originating Amanda in London), television (Katherine Hepburn as Amanda), and film (Joanne Woodward as Amanda, John Malkovich as Tom, Karen Allen as Laura).

Cast of Characters

Amanda Wingfield (The mother) - a woman of great but confused vitality clinging frantically to another time and place.

Laura Wingfield (Her daughter) - a girl afraid to leave the family's apartment, and a collector of fragile glass animals.

Tom Wingfield (Her son) - the narrator of the play. A poet with a job in a warehouse.

Jim O'Connor (A gentleman caller) - a nice, ordinary young man.

Synopsis

All action takes place in the Wingfield's apartment. St. Louis, Missouri.

Scene 1: — Tom, on the fire escape, directly addresses the audience. He mentions he is the narrator of the play and the other characters are his mother (Amanda), sister (Laura), and a gentleman caller (Jim). He walks into the action of the play by joining his mother and sister at the dinner table. After they eat, Amanda recalls that she once had 17 gentleman callers visit her simultaneously in one afternoon.

Scene 2: — Laura is alone playing with her collection of glass animals when Amanda arrives home to inform her daughter she stopped by Rubicam's Business College to check on Laura's progress but was told that there was no student named Laura Wingfield.

Laura tells her mother she was too scared to go to class anymore and has been spending her days at the park, museum, zoo, or the Jewel Box, a greenhouse where tropical flowers are raised.

Amanda gives up hope that Laura will succeed in a career and sets her sights on finding Laura a man to marry. She asks Laura if she ever liked a boy. Laura pulls out her high school yearbook and shows her mother pictures of Jim, who sang the lead in the operetta The Pirates of Penzance. When they had class together in high school, he had asked her, following a lengthy absence, where she had been. She told him she had been out sick with pleurosis, and he thought she said "blue roses." From then on he called her "blue roses."

Scene 3: — Amanda and Tom argue when it is discovered Amanda has returned Tom's library book by D.H. Lawrence without asking him. The argument ends with Tom storming out to the movies and calling Amanda a "babbling old witch."

Scene 4: — It is late at night and Tom is fumbling with his housekey. It slips and falls through the crack in the fire escape and Laura, still awake, lets him in. She helps him to bed.

Several hours later, Amanda, not speaking to Tom, asks Laura to get her brother up and go to the store for butter. Laura slips on the fire escape on her way out, but is not injured. Amanda breaks her silence to Tom, and he apologizes.

Amanda asks Tom to find a nice young man at the Continental Shoemakers where he works who could come to dinner and be introduced to Laura. Tom, not wishing to be part of Amanda's scheme, replies he knows no one at work, but eventually relents and says he'll ask someone.

Scene 5: — Tom and Amanda sit on the fire escape and make a wish on the moon. Tom tells Amanda that he has asked someone from work to come to dinner and that he will be coming tomorrow. Amanda springs into action making preparations. After inquiring about his character, she plans a menu for dinner, and plans to redecorate the apartment. She calls Laura out of the kitchen to make a wish on the moon.

Scene 6: — It is the next evening, and preparations have been made for receiving the gentleman caller. Amanda is making final adjustments on Laura's new dress, when Laura learns that the caller's name is Jim O'Connor. Laura is horrified to think it may be the same boy she had a crush on in high school. The doorbell rings and Laura is sent against her will to open the door for Tom and Jim. It is, in fact, the same Jim O'Connor and Laura, terrified, retreats into the kitchen.

Tom and Jim go out onto the fire escape where Jim tells Tom he should join him in taking a course in public speaking. Tom tells Jim that he would rather seek adventure and has joined the Union of Merchant Seamen.

Amanda calls the men inside for dinner. Amanda calls to Laura to join them at the table, but she fearfully stays in the kitchen. Only after Laura is informed they will not sit to eat until she appears does she enter. Laura immediately faints with fear. She is carried to the sofa and the others sit down to eat.

Scene 7: — Amanda, Tom and Jim have remained at the dinner table, while Laura has remained on the sofa. The lights flicker and go out, and it is revealed that Tom has not paid the electric bill. Amanda asks Jim to keep Laura company while she and Tom clean up. Jim moves to the living room with a candelabrum and a glass of wine for Laura.

Jim asks permission to sit on the floor and asks Laura to join him. Laura does, and reminds Jim that she once heard him sing. Jim now realizes that Laura is the girl he had called "blue roses," in high school. Jim and Laura reminisce about their years in high school and Laura admits she had tried to get his autograph after he played the lead in the operetta but he had been surrounded by too many adoring fans. Jim autographs Laura's saved program.

Laura inquires about Jim's girlfriend, Emily Meisenbach, whom she read in the newspaper was to be married to Jim. Jim admits they are no longer together.

Laura shows Jim her glass collection, including her favorite piece, the unicorn. Jim asks Laura to dance and she hesitatingly accepts. The couple dance through the living room and stumble into the table containing Laura's glass collection. The little unicorn figurine breaks, losing its single horn. Jim apologizes, but Laura insists it is all right; the unicorn will no longer be lonely and will now be just like all the other horses.

Jim admits to Laura that he has a girlfriend, Betty, who must be picked up at the train station shortly. Laura, dejected, gives Jim the now hornless unicorn as a "souvenir." Amanda enters from the kitchen with lemonade, and Jim admits he can no longer stay as he must pick up his fiancee. Amanda, surprised and disappointed, wishes Jim well.

Jim bids farewell and Amanda summons Tom, informing him that the gentleman caller is engaged. Tom did not know Jim was engaged.

Tom flees to the movies after he and Amanda argue. Tom, once again the narrator, steps out of the story and admits he did not go to the movies that night, but left forever and never returned.

Glossary of Words

Archetype - a perfect example of a type or group. The original pattern or model. "Like some archetype of the universal unconscious, the image of the gentleman caller haunted our small apartment..." Tom. Scene 3.

Ash pits - large mounds of ash left over from coal furnaces. "You could see them kissing behind ash pits and telephone poles." Tom. Scene 5.

Blanc mange - a sweet, molded jellylike dessert made with starch or gelatin, and milk. "I'll bring in the blanc mange." Laura. Scene 1.

Cakewalk - a dance with a strutting step based on a promenade. "Won the cakewalk twice at Sunset Hill..." Amanda. Scene 6.

Celotex - trademark for a composition board made of sugar-cane residue, used for insulation. "You think I want to spend fifty-five years down there in that - celotex interior!" Tom. Scene 3.

Cotillion - a formal ball where debutantes are presented. "This is the dress in which I led the cotillion." Amanda. Scene 6.

D.A.R. - Daughters of the American Revolution. Patriotic group of descendants of revolutionary soldiers. "Didn't you go to the D.A.R. meeting, Mother." Laura. Scene 2

Etruscan sculpture - from Etruria. Ancient country occupying what is now Tuscany in Italy. Known for their sculpture. "...bodies as powerful as Etruscan sculpture." Tom. Scene 3.

Clark Gable - (1901-1960) Motion picture actor best known as Rhett Butler in "Gone With the Wind." "Everyone's dish, not only Gable's!" Tom. Scene 6.

Greta Garbo - (1905-1995) Swedish born motion picture actress. Considered one of the best film actors ever. "There was a Garbo picture and a Mickey Mouse and a travelogue and a newsreel and a preview of coming attractions." Tom. Scene 4.

Jonquils - a species of narcissus having a relatively small yellow flower. "That was the Spring I had the craze for jonquils." Amanda. Scene 6.

D.H. Lawrence - (1885-1930). English novelist and poet best known at that time for "Sons and Lovers." "That hideous book by that insane Mr. Lawrence." Amanda. Scene 3.

Malaria - an infectious disease transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected mosquito. It is characterized by fever and severe chills. "I had malaria fever all that Spring." Amanda. Scene 6.

Matriculating - a person so enrolled, as in a college or university. "I reverse it to that quaint period, the thirties, when the huge middle class of America was matriculating in a school for the blind." Tom. Scene 1.

Mazda lamp - first lighted lamp invented by Thomas Edison. "...before Mr. Edison made the Mazda lamp!" Amanda. Scene 7.

Metropolitan star - reference to New York's Metropolitan Opera. Considered one of the best opera companies in the world. "Temperament like a Metropolitan star!" Amanda. Scene 1.

Merchant Marine - personnel on government ships of the United States used for commerce. "I saw that letter you got from the Merchant Marine." Amanda. Scene 4.

Paragon - a model or pattern of perfection or excellence. "Why don't you bring this paragon to supper?" Amanda. Scene 6.

The Pirates of Penzance - 19th century comic operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan. "Here he is in The Pirates of Penzance." Laura. Scene 2.

Pleurosis - inflammation of the lungs, characterized by difficult, painful breathing. "I said pleurosis - he thought I said Blue Roses?" Laura. Scene 2.

Purina - hot breakfast meal made from grains; oat, wheat, millet. "Eat a bowl of Purina!" Amanda. Scene 4.

Quinine - a bitter extract from cinchona bark used as tonic to treat malaria. "I took quinine but kept on going, going!" Amanda. Scene 6.

Spartan - characteristic of the Spartans in ancient Greece; warlike, brave, hardy, severe, frugal, and highly disciplined. "Tom - life's not easy, it calls for- Spartan endurance!" Amanda. Scene 4.

Themes in the Play: Illusion

The most important word in The Glass Menagerie is "illusion." In its most general sense, an illusion is simply a deception - usually a harmless one. In more specific terms, it is a misinterpretation of the facts - an opinion based on what we think is true or should be, rather than on what actually is true or will be. An illusion is pretense, not reality; it plays with the actual, and often mocks it.

We all have illusions about ourselves and our lives; we thrive on them. When we are, in fact, disillusioned, we are profoundly unhappy. We would be in sorry shape if we could not believe that people really did admire us for saying and doing the things we do and that we really were going to be happy and successful. Such illusions as these keep us going. We lose a few of them in the face of hard facts, which is good for us, but we cheerfully create others to sustain us. The characters in The Glass Menagerie are no different from the rest of us in having illusions, and what Tennessee Williams says about their illusions is at the heart of his play.

Williams uses Tom Wingfield to tell us directly that the play is an illusion. The Glass Menagerie is "memory," Tom says, and by means of the "tricks" of stagecraft, he will "turn back time" to recreate a short sequence of episodes in the life of his family. Tom explains that his purpose is not simply to produce an illusion that appears true, a photographic representation of his family's life in the 1930's, but, instead to reveal "truth" in the "disguise of illusion." Tom wants us to see a truth about life within the illusion he creates: moreover, he wants us to see that the truth in The Glass Menagerie is contained in the specific deceptions the characters themselves embrace and on which they depend so strongly.

To avoid the unpleasant truth of her family's present and probable future condition, Tom's mother, Amanda, cherishes several illusions. She believes that she still has the charm she once had as a young girl in Blue Mountain, and she treasures the memory of having "received seventeen gentlemen callers" on Sunday afternoon, any one of whom she could have married. She believes that her children are "bound to succeed" since they are "just full of natural endowments."

Laura, shy and withdrawn as she is, also has illusions. She believes that, when she was in high school and wore a brace on her leg, everyone used to watch her when she was late for chorus practice and had to go "clumping" to her seat in the back row of the auditorium. When Laura talks to Jim about her favorite glass animal, a unicorn, she is really talking about herself. She develops her illusion by saying that the unicorn loves the light, may feel lonesome being different from the other animals, but does not complain about it and gets along nicely with the horses that do not have horns.

Although she has illusions, Laura, nevertheless, seems to have accepted what she is and what life has meted out to her. She does not try to gloss over or deny the way things are, as Amanda does.

Jim O'Connor temporarily becomes an illusion of Laura's salvation in Amanda's mind, Jim also has illusions. He has created them in order to believe in a happy and successful future. Jim has faced the fact that he has not achieved the success everyone in high school expected of him, but he believes that he can still capture it. Jim's buoyant self-confidence, naive sincerity, and boyish insensitivity to many of things going on around him help him to create his illusions. (Jan Austell, "What's in a Play?")

About the Playwright

THE GLASS MENAGERIE is a strongly autobiographical play referring to Tennessee Williams early years growing up in St. Louis, Missouri. Though the middle-class apartment the Williams family lived in was not as shabby as the one in the play, the characters are fairly accurate descriptions of their real counterparts. The names of his real family members connect with the plays' characters: Tennessee is Tom, Edwina is Amanda, and Rose is Laura. His father Cornelius is simply a painting on the wall.

How did Thomas Lanier Williams III become Tennessee Williams the playwright? What in his apprentice years predicts the masterworks which became classics of the American stage? While we cannot explain his genius, we can trace elements in his nature, nurture, and circumstance which fostered its expression. Even as a small child Tom showed a gift for drama, entertaining the grown-ups in the family with stories which grew increasingly exciting as he told them. He would also act out the cartoons from the newspaper. Reared in the rectory of his grandfather, the Reverend Walter Dakin, he felt both the prestige and burden of being called "the preacher's boy." His parents were virtually separated, his traveling-salesman father appearing only often enough to upset the tranquil household and frighten his children. His mother, Edwina, had the beauty and social inclinations of a Southern belle and, if not the wealth, the status that the Episcopalian ministry held in the small cotton center of Clarksdale, Mississippi. She often performed as a singer and, since Tom's grandmother was a music teacher, music early became a component of his life. Tom and his sister Rose, only sixteen months apart, were as inseparable as twins and were called " The Couple." They were so attuned that when one was ill, the other developed symptoms. Where Tom was sensitive and quietly observant, Rose was vivacious in a way he adored. She sufficed as his only companion. Growing up in this female-dominated environment doubtless gave Tom the empathy shown in the woman characters created by the playwright Tennessee.

The Southern idyll was shattered with a forced move to St. Louis, when his father got a managerial job with the International Shoe Company, the largest [manufacturer] in the world, and sent for his family. At seven, Tom was transported overnight from his agrarian Eden to an immense, smoky city. Here Edwina felt herself a nobody and, with a sort of reverse snobbery, impressed on her children that in St. Louis only money and status mattered. Thus Tom first got the sense of being an outsider, which would become a pervasive theme in his writing. To his father Cornelius Williams, St. Louis was the city of opportunity, in 1918 fifth largest in the United States, with a fine school system, universities, libraries, a famed symphony orchestra, a splendid art museum. [Cornelius] made a good salary, but as the frustrated Edwina held back affection, he held back money. Their life together became a battle of opposites. Edwina, aggressively prudish, became a scold as Cornelius, lusty and ebullient, took his disappointment out in drink and occasional "light ladies." Edwina used Tom as a confidant; [Cornelius] retaliated by calling his delicate son "Miss Nancy." Caught in-between, Tom felt trapped. It was perhaps on his escape to the nearby Forest Park Zoo that he found his metaphor of home-as-menagerie.

Lost in the huge city, Tom was miserable through grade school. Rose was growing away from him as she approached puberty. Unable to attract her father's affection, she had lost confidence, was becoming quietly strange. Perhaps to compensate for Tom's loneliness, his mother bought him a second-hand typewriter at twelve whereupon, he recalled, he never stopped typing.

The Great Depression hit St. Louis in 1932, and Cornelius Williams felt he was doing well to get his son work in the shoe factory. Though Tom considered it a disaster, the job proved a leavening influence. It forced him out of the pretentious gentility of a home where his mother's social ambitions focused on becoming Regent of the DAR and into a nine-to-five blue-collar world.

Instead, he learned what it was like to be a wage-earner at sixty-five dollars a month, in a tedious job - dusting hundreds of shoes, or typing columns of figure all day to be fed into the mimeograph machine. The factory was, in fact, a thorn-in-flesh which pricked him to work even more furiously at writing. He set a schedule of one story a week, writing on Saturday, polishing on Sunday, working into the night, stoked by coffee and cigarettes. (Allean Heal, "Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams")

The Depression: Effects on the American Family

In the face of the suffering caused by the Great Depression, the family stood as a source of strength for most Americans. Although some people feared that hard times would undermine moral values, those fears were largely unfounded. In general, Americans believed in traditional values and emphasized the importance of family unity. At a time when money was tight, many families entertained themselves by staying at home playing board games, such Monopoly (invented in 1933), and listening to the radio.

Nevertheless, the economic difficulties of the Great Depression put severe pressure on family life. Making ends meet was a daily struggle and, in some cases, families broke apart under the strain.

Women worked hard to help their families survive in the face of adversity during the Great Depression. Many women canned food and sewed clothes. They also carefully managed household budgets. Jeane Westin, author of Making Do: How Women Survived the '30's, recalled, "Those days you did everything to save a penny... My next door neighbor and I used to shop together. You could get two pounds of hamburger for a quarter, so we'd buy two pounds and split it - then one week she'd pay the extra penny and the next week I'd pay."

Many women also worked outside the home, though they usually received less money than men did. As the Depression wore on, however, working women became targets of enormous resentment. Some people believed that women, especially married women, had no right to work when men were unemployed. In the early 1930's, some cities refused to hire married women as schoolteachers.

Many Americans assumed that women had an easier time than men during the Depression because few were seen begging or standing in bread lines. As a matter of fact, many women were starving to death in cold attics and rooming houses. As one writer pointed out, women were often too ashamed to reveal their hardship.

For many people, the stigma of poverty and of having to scrimp and save never disappeared completely. For some, achieving financial security became the primary focus in life. As one woman recalled, "Ever since I was twelve years old there was one major goal in my life...one thing...and that was to never be poor again." ("The Americans" compiled by Gerald Danzer, Jorge Klor de Alva, Louis Wilson, and Nancy Woloch)

Investigations

In the play, Laura had a collection of glass animals. Clip from The News-Journal ads and articles which show that people are still involved in "collecting." Write a story about your "collection".

The play took place during "the great depression." Many areas of the world are currently experiencing economic recession or depressions. Clip articles from The News-Journal describing conditions in those places. What effect do those global changes have on your life? Think about how your life would change if no one in your family had a job for 5 or more years.

Many of the actors who played roles in this play became Hollywood legends. Check the alphabetical listing of movies at the back of the TV Journal in Sunday's News-Journal for movies on TV which feature any of the following: Joanne Woodward, Katherine Hepburn, John Malkovich, Helen Hayes, Karen Allen. Watch one or more as a casting director would and think about what qualities would have made them perfect for the parts they played in THE GLASS MENAGERIE.

Read some of the movies reviews in The News-Journal then write one of your own after you see THE GLASS MENAGERIE.

THE GLASS MENAGERIE is a play about illusion and it is often said that American contemporary culture is based on chasing such illusions as: eternal youth, unlimited wealth, freedom without responsibility, conspicuous consumption without consequences. Find newspaper ads, articles or cartoons which promote or criticize these or other similar fantasies of society.

In the play, Amanda seems to live in the past. Clip articles and ads from The News-Journal which indicate that contemporary society values its past. Write a paragraph describing a situations when such appreciation has gone too far and the past become more important than the present or future.

Laura's life was deeply influenced by here physical disability. Keep a collection of clipping of newspaper stories about people who made positive use of physical disability or injury. Write a fan letter to one or more telling how their story affected you.

It is said that in THE GLASS MENAGERIE, Tennessee Williams reflected his own family life. Find a news article about a family which you think could be developed into a play or movie. Tell a friend about your idea. If you have time write a play about it.

The play's author, Tennessee Williams, showed a gift for drama when he was young and often entertained his family and friends by acting out cartoons from the newspaper. Try you hand at some or if you are too shy, just make a video of yourself.

Look through The News-Journal's Master Calendar and make a list of ways young people can get involved in the theater. Consider attending productions by local and touring companies as well as school and community productions. Consider auditioning for a part or working as a volunteer.

Especially for Students...

In live theatre, unlike movies and television, the actors can hear (and often see) you as easily as you can hear and see them. If you comment out loud at a live show, or read or eat, you disturb not only other members of the audience but also the people on stage, thus diminishing the performance and, ultimately, your enjoyment of it.

This doesn't mean you have to remain silent. Actors want you to respond with laughter and applause; but such responses should always be genuine and appropriate to the moment. Such inconsiderate behavior as shouting, catcalling or sustained whispering, even during blackouts, can ruin the concentration of actors and audience members alike. And throwing paper or objects of any kind towards the stage is not only rude, it's also extremely dangerous to the performers.

In the event of any student misbehavior, the relevant school will be contacted and its principal informed.

We want you to enjoy your visit to Seaside Music Theater, and we rely on you to exercise your common sense and mature judgment. Thank you for being a valuable part of our audience this season.