The Glass Menagerie
by Trinity University
Oct. 03 - Oct. 11, 2014
"The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic. In memory everything seems to happen to music." With these words, the music from the neighboring dance hall plays and Tom Wingfield begins to reanimate the St Louis tenement he left behind long ago. His cripplingly shy sister Laura and overbearing ex-debutante mother Amanda haunt this classic that launched Tennessee Williams into the spotlight. Above them, the portrait of the father who deserted them marks an absence that wounded them all deeply and left a hole Tom could never fill.
As Williams notes, memory "omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart." The Glass Menagerieexplores both the contours of the American family and the odd, selective texture of remembering. The stage itself - from the minimal scenery and props to the haunting music, dim lights, and faded, ghost-like costumes - takes the form of those left behind as the mind recreates them.
Charged with longing, humor, and the bittersweet joys and sorrow of memory, The Glass Menagerie feels as fresh and poignant now as it did when it transformed the American stage 60 years ago.
The Glass Menagerie
by Tennessee Williams
Trinity University
