ASF Study Materials for by Tennessee Williams Director David Ellerstein Study Materials written by: Susan Willis Set Design Peter Hicks ASF Dramaturg Costume Design Brenda Van der Wiel [email protected] Lighting Design Phil Monat Contact ASF: 1.800.841.4273 Sound Design Will Burns www.asf.net 1 by Tennessee Williams Welcome to The Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams became Broadway's darling in 1945 with the premiere production of The Glass Menagerie, now " … as I thought about it an American classic. The play's effective Characters the glass animals came to expressionistic technique and skillful, represent the fragile, delicate The Mother, Amanda poetic language, its strong, memorable Wingfield characters, and nostalgic mood made ties that must be broken, that The Son, Tom Williams the playwright to watch. you inevitably break, when you The Daughter, Laura If true, a story does not need to be try to fulfill yourself." The Gentleman Caller, Jim "real" or realistic, as Williams knew. Truth —Tennessee Williams, 1945 O'Connor was always Williams's goal. In this work (in the script, Williams does not the playwright experiments with technical list the characters by name, effects Brecht would have recognized only by relationship) and thereby engages memory as both a distorting and clarifying lens on the action. The Glass Menagerie at ASF Even more than seventy years later, Part 1: Preparation for a Tennessee Williams's The Glass The Glass Menagerie still has the haunting Gentleman Caller Menagerie holds a special place in the effect of a modern fairy tale, one in which Part 2: The Gentleman Calls hearts of ASF and its theatregoers. It was Prince Charming is no longer quite a prince, the first play performed in the Octagon and though he may kiss the fair maiden, he theatre in December, 1985, when the Setting: An alley in St. Louis cannot marry her, so her "some day" may Alabama Shakespeare Festival opened its Time: "Now"—that is, 1945, never come. The other male quester does beautiful new facility in Montgomery after the time of the premiere offer one "golden egg" in the form of the moving from Anniston, Alabama, ASF's production, and the late tarnished prince, but then leaves home, as original home since 1972. 1930s in Tom's memory fairy tale questers usually do, but this time never to return except in memory. And the A play about moving and memory was witch? She's the mother (often seen as the apt for ASF at the time. Since then two of challenging, denying force in fairy tales, the actors in that production, Joan Ulmer the one who forces (Amanda) and Robert Browning (Tom), the maturational both long-time company members, have steps) and on a passed away, so it now becomes a play survival quest of her even more rich with our memories as well own, having been as Williams's, and we are happy to have it abandoned by her back on stage in the Octagon this season. Prince Charming sixteen years earlier. A limbo or thorn About These Study Materials field of fire escapes The materials contain information about: surrounds them, and • the author escape ultimately • literary elements (structure, takes many forms. characterization, imagery), The narrator puts • theatrical style and elements Just before the lights go out in his memory in the • historical context Part 2 of the 1945 Broadway context of challenging economic and • activities for discussion or prompts premiere production; l to r, historical times, when those millions living (in violet boxes) Eddie Dowling, Laurette Taylor, in or evicted from apartments in alleys in Adapt them to your class's level and Anthony Ross, Julie Haydon; urban America had lived on the edge and needs. set by Jo Mielziner. were about to be fed into the war machine. Every part of the play makes its glass more fragile and more lovely. 2 by Tennessee Williams About Tennessee Williams The South indelibly marked the His plays often pit what critics call "lost sensibility of Tennessee Williams. souls"—a dreamer, an artist, an idealist, "Tennessee" is his adoped, not his given a fallen, sensitive soul—against the hard name, and he told many versions of its edges of the world. At times violent or origin over the years (including that it was sexually charged, the plays use powerful the home of his father's family), yet we imagery and evocative characters facing know that his heart was formed more to a harsh world as they seek happiness, the south, in Mississippi and New Orleans. redemption, a clearer path to the future or For his first seven years, Thomas a less wrenching transition from the past. Lanier Williams grew up in his grandfather's Amid changing times Williams tracked the Episcopal parsonages, mostly in Clarksdale, inner changes and the needs, drives, hopes, Mississippi, while his father —a traveling and fears that make the human heart the shoe salesman—visited some weekends. pulsing core of his art. At age five a complication from severe diphtheria cost young Tom his mobility A Tennessee Williams Timeline for more than a year, changing the • 1911: Thomas Lanier Williams born in rambunctious child into a less active, more Columbus, Mississippi reflective boy. Then his father was promoted • 1918: Williams's father promoted to a sales Tennessee Williams to a management position with International manager for International Shoe Company; Shoe Company, and the family moved to family moves to St. Louis St. Louis, living together for the first time • 1929-31: attends University of Missouri and discovering the hazards of his father's • 1931-34: shipping clerk for International drinking and rages. Shoe Company A play should be “a • 1937: sister Rose institutionalized for snare for the truth of Williams remained close to his sister schizophrenia Rose as they negotiated the big city, the • 1938: graduates from University of Iowa human experience.” taunts at their Southern accents, the more • 1939: first plays gain notice and an award; materialistic values, and years of living in gets a New York agent —Tennessee Williams flats. As a child, Williams's father had been • 1939-44: Williams travels the U.S., working sent to a military school and fought in the odd jobs and writing. While briefly an Spanish-American War, so when his son MGM screenwriter in 1943, writes a short failed ROTC in college, he pulled him out story (and rejected screenplay) that then became the play The Glass Menagerie of school and sent him to work. The young • 1940: first professional production, Battle of writer kept composing around his duties Angels, closes in Boston in the shoe company's shipping room • 1945: The Glass Menagerie opens on until a health crisis freed him for eventual Broadway for an 18-month run, winning graduation from the University of Iowa. NY Drama Critics Circle Best Play award. Williams's writing—poems, stories, Williams gave his mother half the rights to and plays—never slackened amid his the play for life, making her wealthy • 1947: A Streetcar Named Desire wins subsequent travels, and he gained early Pulitzer Prize and other awards notice and support in New York, though he • 1948: Summer and Smoke eventually spent more time in New Orleans • 1951: The Rose Tattoo and later at his home in Key West. • 1953: Camino Real • 1955: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof wins Pulitzer Prize • 1959: Sweet Bird of Youth • 1961: The Night of the Iguana • 1963-1981: many more plays and stories • 1983: Williams dies in his NYC hotel room 3 by Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie: "Autobiographical/Autofictional" Williams's Own Family Life The Action in the Play • Williams's given name is Thomas • The narrator's/son's name is Tom • His alcoholic and verbally abusive • Father gone for last 16 years, "a father lived with Edwina in St. Louis telephone man who fell in love with long after the children were grown. long distance." Tom is now the man of He had first worked for the telephone the house, the only man in the house. company in Mississippi, but switched to sales of men's clothing and then shoes, which became his career • Setting of Tom's leaving warehouse job and family is c. 1937-38 • Williams worked at shoe warehouse from 1931-34, then attended Washington University in St. Louis and • Laura and Tom are the only children transferred to Iowa 1937-38 Edwina Dakin Williams with Rose and young Tom in • Tom's younger brother Dakin was born • Amanda lives in what the stage Mississippi just after the move to St. Louis directions call a "tenement" off an alley and works in a department • Williams's mother said even the first store, plus she sells ladies' magazine "Every word is apartment she rented for the family renewals by phone autobiographical was in an upscale neighborhood, and no word is though it seemed dark compared autobiographical. You to her parents' home in Mississippi. • In her youth Laura had pleurosis Her husband made a good salary [pleurisy is an inflammation of the can't do creative work but stinted on the family budget; she membrane that surrounds and and adhere to facts." never worked outside the home protects the lungs (the pleura). A —Tennessee Williams sharp, knifelike pain when breathing in 1977 interview • Williams's sister Rose had increasing in or coughing is the primary symptom psychological difficultes from late of pleurisy] and wore a leg brace; she adolescence and was diagnosed as now has a limp and is very shy Activity schizophrenic. In 1943, as Williams In The Glass Menagerie, wrote the play, she had one of the first Williams is selective with his frontal lobotomies in the U.S.