The Glass Menagerie by Theresa Rauh

The Glass Menagerie by Theresa Rauh

 

Have you ever seen a movie and wished you were the character in it, or dreamed a dream and wished it would continue and be real? Can you imagine that the sound or an image form the past suddenly looms larger than the present for somebody? This is what happens to the family in the play, The Glass Menagerie the entire time. They live in their memories, dreams and expectations for the future.

The Glass Menagerie is a play by Tennessee Williams, which premiered in 1944. It is a four-character play. The oldest character in the play is Amanda Wingfield, a women who was abandoned by her husband many years ago and now trying to raise her children under harsh financial conditions. She is in love with the memories from her youth, and also wishes her children to have the same comforts as she does. She desperately hopes to find a suitor for her daughter Laura, who never leaves the house because of shyness and complexes concerning other people, as soon as possible. Tom Wingfield is Amanda’s son, who works at the warehouse to support his family. He is frustrated by his job though and goes out every night to the “movies”, which also contains going to bars and smoking in my opinion. “Going to the movies” is just an expression for him for leaving the house at night, to escape from reality for a little while.

Laura Wingfield is Amanda’s daughter and Tom’s younger sister. She is mental disabled in a way, and is therefore really shy. She can barely talk to other people, but her family and has isolated her from the outside world. She has created a world of her own, symbolized by her collection of glass figures. The fourth character in the play is Jim O’Connor, a guy, who went to high school with Jim and Laura. He was Laura’s one and only high school love. Jim is pretty self-confident, although his fame and success in high school didn’t keep continuing, however, by the time of the play's action he is working as a shipping clerk at the same shoe warehouse as Tom, which is why he comes to dinner one night to the Wingfield’s house. But even as he comes to dinner Laura is unable to join the table because of her shyness. After having dinner with Tom and Amanda, Jim joins Laura in the living room and starts having a conversation with her, in which he also advises her to think more for herself. This piece of advice is very enlightening to her in my opinion, as it comes from her high school love. In the end they are having a slow dance and Jim kisses the shy girl. However Jim leaves, as we find out that he is engaged to marry. In the end Tom also leaves his smother and his sister, Laura blows of the candles and the play ends.

As the play was performed on an open stage, you could see what was going on “behind the stage”, which I personally don’t like that much. But overall I really enjoyed the performance. And the more I think about it, I really understand the message, which they wanted to get across. The family is trapped in a menagerie of memories and unreality, every single member of them tries to get out of this differently and while doing this they still try to hold together and love each other the way they are. This part is what was very inspiring for me. This message was brought across pretty well by the actors, as they performed really emotionally and were really committed to their characters.