On Saturday, October 9, 2016 I had the opportunity to witness Kansas State University’s rendition of The Glass Menagerie. First of all, I would like to congratulate the cast and crew on a job well done. When doing a classic such as Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie, there is an immense amount of pressure on everyone involved. However, I feel this cast served it justice, and it really gave the feel of a “memory.” The Glass Menagerie as I’ve said is a classic, and if anyone is familiar with Tennessee Williams you know that this play mirrors many aspects of his life. For audience members that were unaware, and this was their first incounter with the piece Shannon put together a great slideshow. I feel the slideshow was a phenominal idea, it provided us with the back story, and how that coorilates with Williams actual life, and also gave us a brief history as to cultural refrences (the flowers) and what was going on in the world at the time. So my hats off to Shannon, that was a very wise move.
While reading Glass, something I really took away from it the
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I could only imagine how difficult it is to act in such a complex and well known piece. Luckily I had the privilege to have some of the cast in other classes and learn what they thought and felt about the production as a whole. As the performance showed, they had a pleasant educational and performing experience. Which is what educational theatre is all about! While you don’t want someone to walk away saying that “it was a cute show”, in educational theatre what really matters is what the student actors gained from the process. Have no fear, this production was far from a “cute show.” Dramas are hard to pull off; you either do a tremendous job or flunk in my opinion. Thanks to good directing an incredible team you all did phenomenal. Definitely surpassed my expectations of the
In The Glass Menagerie, the main characters are Laura, Amanda, Tom, Jim, and Father. Each character can be found with symbols that best represent them. Laura 's two symbols are Blue Roses and her glass menagerie, Unicorn. Amanda 's yellow dress and bathrobe can express her love she has of the past event. Tom 's symbols are the movies and merchant marine. Jim's symbolize itself as a gentlemen caller for Laura. The Father 's portrait portrays his abandonment of the Wingfield family.
In attempting to create a modern-day movie adaptation of The Glass Menagerie from the original play, a parallel element would still be conveyed to the audience- inner and intra personal struggles of the past continue to be those of the present. If produced in the present day, the new version would have seemingly subtle changes such as new speaking styles, characters, and sets that will allow it to become modernized. Some original parts of the play such as “dated” dialogue, character traits, and settings will be discarded, but the original vision of Tennessee Williams will remain intact by keeping elements essential to recounting the Wingfield Family struggles.
The Glass Menagerie was set in a St. Louis apartment after the Great Depression. The Wingfields had old records and a typewriter to show connections between the play and the time period. The way of life influenced playwrights to write about real life subjects. Tennessee Williams was trying to communicate to everybody that everybody is unique in their own way, that’s what makes them beautiful on the inside. It is what is on the inside that counts.
The Glass Menagerie is a play about the memories of a young man named Tom Wingfield. Tom dreams of escaping his complicated and completely dependent family. Tennessee Williams uses symbolism to emphasize Tom’s yearning to leave. The first symbol of this the fire escape which serves as a bridge to reality from the illusive wo...
The unlikely pair of “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams and “A Doll House” by Henrik Ibsen do share multiple similarities in their domestic situations and in the things they chose to do. . When comparing these two plays you also have to keep in mind about how that both the plays were done in different time periods. Therefore things are going to be different when it comes to the roles of the women. With the “The Glass Menagerie” and “A Doll House” all the characters have flaws, lived in different time period, felt like they were trapped in ways, and reacted to things differently.
The Glass Menagerie is an eposidic play written by Tennesse Williams reflecting the economic status and desperation of the American people in the 30s.He portrays three different characters going through these hardships of the real world,and choosing different ways to escape it.Amanada,the mother,escapes to the memories of the youth;Tom watches the movies to provide him with the adventure he lacks in his life;and laura runs to her glass menagerie.
really a place for someone like him and his mind rebelled. Lastly you can see
Tennessee Williams’ play, “The Glass Menagerie”, depicts the life of an odd yet intriguing character: Laura. Because she is affected by a slight disability in her leg, she lacks the confidence as well as the desire to socialize with people outside her family. Refusing to be constrained to reality, she often escapes to her own world, which consists of her records and collection of glass animals. This glass menagerie holds a great deal of significance throughout the play (as the title implies) and is representative of several different aspects of Laura’s personality. Because the glass menagerie symbolizes more than one feature, its imagery can be considered both consistent and fluctuating.
Generally when some one writes a play they try to elude some deeper meaning or insight in it. Meaning about one's self or about life as a whole. Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" is no exception the insight Williams portrays is about himself. Being that this play establishes itself as a memory play Williams is giving the audience a look at his own life, but being that the play is memory some things are exaggerated and these exaggerations describe the extremity of how Williams felt during these moments (Kirszner and Mandell 1807). The play centers itself on three characters. These three characters are: Amanda Wingfield, the mother and a women of a great confusing nature; Laura Wingfield, one who is slightly crippled and lets that make her extremely self conscious; and Tom Wingfield, one who feels trapped and is looking for a way out (Kirszner and Mandell 1805-06). Williams' characters are all lost in a dreamy state of illusion or escape wishing for something that they don't have. As the play goes from start to finish, as the events take place and the play progresses each of the characters undergoes a process, a change, or better yet a transition. At the beginning of each characters role they are all in a state of mind which causes them to slightly confuse what is real with what is not, by failing to realize or refusing to see what is illusioned truth and what is whole truth. By the end of the play each character moves out of this state of dreamy not quite factual reality, and is better able to see and face facts as to the way things are, however not all the characters have completely emerged from illusion, but all have moved from the world of dreams to truth by a whole or lesser degree.
The “Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams shows a family facing economic and social hardships due to the father abandoning them. The father’s absence forces the rest of the family to fill roles that they wouldn’t be obliged to face if the father remained. The mother, Amanda, is a strong single mother who pushes her kids to be economically self-sustaining individuals. Amanda tries to impose her desires for her kids in a very direct and controlling manner which causes them to dislike her initiatives. The son, Tom, is the breadwinner for the family, however is dissatisfied with his situation due to his increased responsibilities. The daughter, Laura, is handicapped and dropped out of business school. Each member of the family is limited by their ability to grow out of their negative habits, however, it is likely that these habits or characteristics came from the family situation and the roles that each member was forced to fill.
In Williams, Tennessee’s play The Glass Menagerie, Amanda’s image of the southern lady is a very impressive. Facing the cruel reality, she depends on ever memories of the past as a powerful spiritual to look forward to the future, although her glory and beautiful time had become the past, she was the victim of the social change and the Great Depression, but she was a faithful of wife and a great mother’s image cannot be denied.
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is a touching play about the lost dreams of a southern family and their struggle to escape reality. The play is a memory play and therefore very poetic in mood, setting, and dialogue. Tom Wingfield serves as the narrator as well as a character in the play. Tom lives with his Southern belle mother, Amanda, and his painfully shy sister, Laura. The action of the play revolves around Amanda's search to find Laura a "gentleman caller. The Glass Menagerie's plot closely mirrors actual events in the author's life. Because Williams related so well to the characters and situations, he was able to beautifully portray the play's theme through his creative use of symbolism.
Dysfunctional. Codependent. Enmeshed. Low self-esteem. Emotional problems of the modern twenty-first century or problems of the past? In his play, The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams portrays a southern family in the 1940's trying to deal with life's pressures, and their own fears after they are deserted by their husband and father. Although today, we have access to hundreds of psychoanalysis books and therapists, the family problems of the distant past continue to be the family problems of the present.
In Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, each character attempts to escape the real world by creating their own “reality”. Laura hides from the world by magnifying her illness. Tom convinces himself that his needs supersede the needs of his family. Amanda focuses almost exclusively on the past - when she saw herself as a desirable southern belle. Even Jim focus his hopes on recapturing his good old high school days. Each character transposes their difficult situations into shadows of the truth.
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. Masterpieces of the Drama. Ed. Alexander W. Allison, Arthus J. Carr, Arthur M. Eastman. 5th ed. NY: Macmillan, 1986. 779- 814.