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

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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. • Laura has no "gentlemen callers" own memories and creates For a time in childhood Tom was unable a domestic scene that never to walk, an after-effect of diphtheria actually existed as written. Why • Tom verbally battles with Amanda and he made the changes he did are matters for critical speculation • Rose had several beaux, including one goes to the movies; leaves to become and open for class discussion: extended relationship with a young a merchant sailor • what is the effect of excluding executive at International Shoe, who the father? Why focus dropped her after her father had a on just Tom, mother, and career-stalling barroom fight sister? • what is the effect of changing • Williams's father verbally abused him, the "class" of the apartment calling his writing useless and him and family? a "sissy" for not pursuing sports; • what is the effect of placing father also stymied his love interests. the action in 1937-8? Williams went to movies and plays; • what is the effect of changing Laura's challenge? never a sailor; many odd jobs (chicken farm, usher) during travels 1938-44 4

by Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie and Memory

"The play is memory." How Memory Works That narrational statement alone Memory is a major topic in high modern accounts for the play's approach to setting, literature, starting with Proust's lighting, music, and the framing structure 7-volume A la recherche du temps of narration. Unlike realistic plays that work perdu [The Remembrance of Things start to finish with suspense about what Past], in which smell and taste will occur next, the primary action of this trigger deep memories, as science play is over when we begin—we can only subsequently proved they can. Memory and/or semi-autobiographical “I guess Menagerie discover what it was and perhaps learn why it matters or why it lingers. topics also play a large role in the grew out of the The primary memory is Tom's, now a writings of James Joyce, Virginia intense emotions I merchant sailor far from St. Louis. He seems Woolf, William Faulkner, and other felt seeing my sister’s rarely to look back but can be jarred by modernists who pursue the issue of mind begin to go.” seeing bits of glass that give him a sense how we know what we know. of Laura he cannot expunge or evade. Scientists continue to study memory After many troubled years, Whoever he is now, this is part of who he and how it works. Recent theories Tennessee Williams's beloved has been and how he got here. posit memory as a transfer from the older sister Rose (above) was brain's hippocampus to the cortex, or But many memories flash through the diagnosed as schizophrenic in as storing either detailed (episodic) or play—the tale of Amanda's distant Sundays 1937 and institutionalized. In factual (semantic) information. Newer 1943, around the time he first in Blue Mountain with 17 gentlemen callers; work suggests memory involves wrote about her glass menagerie, Laura's memory of the one boy she liked collecting information stored across her parents agreed that Rose be in high school; Jim's memory of being the brain. given a frontal lobotomy in a failed "somebody" at that high school and his Another theory follows the neuron path effort to help her. Instead she need to have someone else recall it, too. was left institutionalized (which activated by memory, discovering that Thus the role of the past via memory is a Williams paid for) the rest of her each time the memory is activated validation, a strategy, an escape, and a life—"it was as if she had gone on "a similar, but not identical set of haunting refrain—that mental music that a journey, but remained in sight." neurons" is engaged. Thus parts of Williams describes as "the lightest, most the memory can deepen and part Activities delicate music in the world and perhaps slip away; indeed, part can distort • "In memory everything the saddest.… express[ing] the surface to shape a fictional past with the seems to happen to music," vivacity of life with the underlying strain of credibility of an actual past. Thus, the narrator says. What is immutable and inexpressible sorrow," at perhaps remembering itself can affect the effect of that statement least for the narrator's memory. and of the music in the the nature of the memory. Do all memories have a sad or sorrowful play? (See http://www.human-memory.net) • To what extent is music part undercurrent or just the ones here? of your life and memory? Do Williams's stage directions suggest you shape your memories that in this play, memory is "nonrealistic" to music or underscore and "takes a lot of poetic license. It omits your life with play lists? some details; others are exaggerated … Which of your memories most strongly link to music? for memory is seated predominantly in Why? Choose an example the heart." Scientists might demur on that and analyze how the two point, but for Tom this memory tugs always interrelate. at the heart. • Consider what your most powerful memories are and whether they were suddenly Tennessee Williams's first home— triggered or are moments his grandfather's parsonage you frequently revisit. Do in Columbus, Mississippi your memories change? 5

by Tennessee Williams Expressionism: Putting Memory on Stage

Memories have the power of reality, Two main aspects of dramatic but their reality is a personal version of expressionism can be seen in The Glass "Expressionism and all the past, and the mind has proved it can Menagerie— other unconventional edit, morph, and otherwise "Photoshop" • the story is often told through the techniques in drama the past long before computers existed or protagonist's point of view, and have only one valid gained that ability. If memory is subjective • the plot is usually episodic. aim, and that is a closer and since memory is the subject and The early work of Brecht embraced these approach to truth." means of Tennessee Williams's The Glass techniques in the 1920s on his way to Menagerie, it is no surprise that he should his theory of Epic theatre as he used —Author's Production use a theatrical technique emphasizing songs, captions, and narration to separate Notes to The Glass subjectivity—expressionism. Menagerie episodes of action—and William's originial The term expressionism comes from draft does the same with its projected the art world; it countered late 19th-century images and "legends" [text] to begin or impressionism— the way things appear in appear within scenes. a certain light in a specific moment, such as Monet's paintings of the bridge over Examples of Expressionistic Elements the water lily pond in Giverny. By contrast, in the first published text of the play expressionism: (1945) (these do not appear in the • wanted the artist's emotion evident in later, revised text) the portrayal scene 1: • as well as his own vision of this • opens with two scrims in place, one "reality." across the front of the apartment, Theatre in Germany before and after World showing the outside, but when backlit War I embraced this technique, letting us see the inside. This scrim Expressionism in post-World • anthropomorphizing objects and is raised once the apartment action War I Germany—expressing a • seeking spiritual depths rather than starts. There are also scrim curtains state of mind: "The dream-like surfaces. into the dining room. This use of and twisted corridor is a visual It led to both spiritual quest and political scrim suggests we are entering Tom's representation of insanity." The protest in an effort to transform society. memories of the apartment. Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) • image projected on living room wall of Amanda as a girl on porch greeting callers Activities • legend [text] projected on wall later in • Research what scrim scene: "OU SONT LES NEIGES?", Williams wanted is and how it works an image of blue part of the famous French phrase, "ou on stage by showing roses projected sont les neiges d'antan," where are two different images for expressionist the snows of yesteryear? depending on which effect scene 2: side is lit. Find online • opens with legend: "LAURA, HAVEN'T examples. YOU EVER LIKED SOME BOY?" • Consider why Williams "Truth, life, or reality is an organic • image projected at start [before we would want this scrim thing which the poetic imagination know its significance]: blue roses effect for the top of the can represent or suggest … only • legend: "THE CRUST OF HUMILITY" play. In how many ways through transformation … into • image projected: Jim as high school is the outside/inside idea other forms than those which were hero with silver cup effective? • image projected: blue roses again merely present in appearance." • Find examples of German Thus specifics gain significance by expressionism. —T. Williams being projected on the wall (near the father's picture) as if in the mind's eye. 6

The Glass Menagerie: Structure by Tennessee Williams The play in its original 1945 version has Starting to Consider Structure seven scenes and is divided into two parts: Williams foregrounds the role and "Preparation for the Gentleman Caller" importance of the gentleman caller in his and "The Gentleman Calls." The first part description of each part of the play and encompasses the first five scenes and the by making that idea the focus of the first second part the last two. Scene 4 at first scene through Amanda's memories and her included both Tom's inebriated return from dialogue with Laura. We realize why she the movies and his having to awaken an wants a gentleman caller when her plan hour later and talk with Amanda. for Laura's business career fails in scene The first part of the scene that gets 2; now she has only one hope for Laura's split in the 1948 version, here scene 4, is future—she must marry. also the scene Williams added in Broadway The mother/son conflict flares in rehearsals at the request of co-producer scene 3 and drives through the rest of and actor Eddie Dowling, who played Tom/ the act. They fight about his life style, the narrator and wanted to show him inebriated. small issues such as posture suggesting Williams wrote the short scene for him, a there are much larger ones underneath. scene filled with imagery, linking whiskey, Amanda knows Tom wants to leave, but magic, and transformation with coffins and first he has to help secure Laura. He tries escape--and contrasting Tom's constant to accommodate her need. St. Louis fire escapes, 1925 need to get out with his current need to get The Southern entertainment for the in at the scene's opening, when at the door urban family dinner goes awry because the he drops his key down the fire escape: "one caller is Laura's high school crush—and crack—and it falls through"—an image true "It's insane for he's now engaged. The action ends without for several aspects of the play. detail of Amanda and Laura's aftermath; we human beings to work The action is also divided into three only know Tom's future: leaving, traveling, their whole lives away temporal pieces by its indefinite time line: remembering his sister's face as he knew at dull, stupid, routine, • Scenes 1 and 2 are a Sunday in mid- it then. anesthetizing jobs to late February and the next day, for just a little more Monday. Initial Questions about Structure than the necessities • Scenes 3, 4, and 5 are in early spring, • Is there one plot line in the play, or are of life. There should apparently several weeks later. They there two—Tom's and/or Amanda's? be time—and money— span one night into early the next • How many plans and preparations drive for development. For morning. the play? living." • Scene 6 is some weeks later, a • Compare Amanda's tensions about her —Williams (1945) Thursday closer to summer. Scenes 7 children leaving or not leaving. and 8 are the next night, a Friday, the • How does Tom assess his leaving? night of the Gentleman Caller. How do we?

More Basic Questions about Structure • How do the characters develop or • Identify the action and arc of each change in the course of each scene? scene, especially noting the crucial What do they reveal (or conceal) action. about themselves? What do we learn? • Compare the opening of each scene • What imagery appears in each scene with its closing—what has developed and how is it used? or changed? Do those moments help • What is the arc of action in Part 1? tell the story? What is each character's arc in Part • How do entrances and exits affect the 1? What is the arc of Part 2? Do any development of each scene? of the character arcs change? 7

by Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie: Character

The Absent Character Deciding who the protagonist of the • The narrator—One of the ones who • Before Tom becomes play is depends on how we describe the "escaped," another man who got an absence, his father action. Whose action is it? The narrator's, away—all the men in Amanda's and already is—he is only a if we take the play as a whole. Within the Laura's lives have left them, the picture on the wall. Why memory, however, the driving force is husband/father, Tom, and Jim. For is that picture there? Amanda, stymied though she is, with Tom the narrator, this past is gone but not The unnamed father had as just one of her children/problems and forgotten; Laura lingers. Why does he charm, a smile, a job, a Laura at the moment the more urgent one. share this memory with us? family, and a way out. He The narrator is outside and beyond was also an alcoholic. • Amanda—The first voice we hear in the memory action and provides What effect might memory and the last. She spurs many larger historical and socio-economic alcohol have had on his of the play's actions, intentionally or contexts of the time. Do we feel these behavior? What effect unintentionally. pressures in the action of the play? has it had on his wife Williams describes her as "a little and family? Do its effects woman of great but confused vitality • Tom—"To escape from a trap," dissipate or disappear if clinging frantically to another time and Williams notes, Tom "has to act the drinker leaves? place"; she has "failed to establish without pity." Is Tom the only character contact with reality." Has she? If so, who is trapped? If not, does (or can) why? What is important to Amanda? everyone choose escape? Trap, How do her past and her past identity coffin, fire escape, warehouse parcels, compare to her present and her chew, sit up straight, comb your hair— current identity, her current goals and life, Amanda, and society hem him responsibilities? Why, for instance, is in. What effect do the objective and Activity: Topics to Consider she in the D.A.R.? subjective forces have on him and • What happens at home if "She has endurance and a kind of why? How do we assess someone Tom stays? What happens heroism," the author says—in what acting "without pity," especially toward at home if Tom leaves? way? How does Williams present her family? What would pity involve? What "survives" in each as heroic and do we share that view? Before he actually leaves, he stages a case? series of mini-leavings to the movies, • Amanda pressures Does our view of Amanda change and everyone. Why? Is she just in how many ways during the action? so he comes home but doesn't stay a "witch," or is she also How do her job, her nagging, her home. He says he seeks adventure; is pressured? How does she planning, her reference to the photo that the whole or major reason? see the family's realities? on the wall, her "illusions," and her "I'm like my father," Tom tells Jim as To what extent is she truths work to define her? Trace the he reveals his escape plan. To what right or wrong? What are development scene by scene. extent? Charm? Leaving? Image of her options, her "tools" to a smiling face? Drinking? (Is Tom a address the needs? What Laura—Older than Tom but seems "drinker" in the play?) are Tom's? Does Laura Tom does offer his mother the one thing have "tools" or want them? younger. Compared to her brother, • Everyone in the Wingfield Laura never "leaves," but in fact has she most wants at the moment, a family is an escapist in "left" in another way, retreated into a gentleman caller for Laura, and then is some way: Tom writes limbo of old victrola records and glass blamed for the one he brings. How is and goes to the movies; animals within the apartment. Her what one reveals and what one keeps Laura polishes her glass parents had distinctive and outgoing unexpressed from another a part of and listens to old records; "charm" when young, but her shyness many dynamics in the play? Who Amanda seems to try and self-consciousness (two different is told which truth, when, and why to maintain links with dynamics?) keep her from engaging (including us)? the values of her youth. Compare these escapes others. Her responses are often and the consequences of negative, "I can't," "I was/will be sick." Jim—"a nice, ordinary, young man" who acting on them. has a more glorious past than present. How does he approach the future? 8

by Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie's Imagery

Critics often call Tennessee Williams complications, but as she assures Laura, The "gentleman "poetic," and The Glass Menagerie is sure to work out in the end. Or not … caller … is the most a perfect study as to why. Almost every as Tom's narration has already led us to phrase shimmers with evocative potential, suspect. Is Williams a Bessie Mae Harper? realistic character from Amanda insisting that Laura "open the The first and major imagery is the title's: in the play.… But door" to Amanda's selling "fiction." glass and menagerie. Glass is usually having a poet's Using these examples as starting transparent and often fragile or breakable. weakness for points, notice that most of Amanda's actions Here it is indeed as fragile as the memories symbols, I am using and ideas are focused on finding Laura an that evoke it. Actual glass breaks twice in this character as a opening to a productive and self-sustaining the play; more than literal glass is vulnerable future—if not business (secretarial), then and gets shattered in the action. Contrasting symbol—as the long- marriage, the two accepted routes for this idea is menagerie, a collection of wild delayed but always young women at that time. In Amanda's or strange animals, often on display—an expected something view, being a "home girl," as Tom calls it, excellent description of not only Laura's that we live for." would be pitiable. Gregarious, flirtatious collection but the three family members in Amanda in her girlhood could not be further the play, each a unique "species," despite —Narrator's first speech from her shy, self-conscious daughter now, overlapping links of blood, gender, job yet in ways Amanda does not see Laura is status, and yearnings, all displayed on stage open to love, open to Jim, just as he proves via memory and production. Amanda denies open to her—if circumstances allowed. their "animality" in her rejection of D. H. The "little bit of luck" they needed didn't Lawrence's fiction (as actually happened to happen; the "little silver slipper" rising over Williams when he was 15), but her maternal the delicatessan wasn't enough moon to impulses are as protective as any lioness's. sustain their wish. And the outside world is in a primal state. Tom may be the "writer" in the play, but Amanda is the one most dedicated to Activity: More Images to Consider fiction. Her two telephone calls soliciting • compare the role of movies/lure of renewals to The Homemaker's Companion adventure for Tom to the romance (apparently a publication of romantic fiction in the magazine Amanda sells escapism) tout the attractions of Bessie • Laura's being "crippled" (her term), a Mae Harper's new serial about a girl with a "slight defect" (Amanda's term) to the spinal injury who needs an operation from unicorn. Is each character some kind her physician/fiancé who drinks. Physical of unicorn, or just Laura? challenges, alcoholism, and marriage • how glass animals get broken (twice) all parallel details in this play, and her • compare Tom's warehouse job, that description becomes metatheatrical in numbing mercantile life, with his the later call as she describes Harper's joining the merchant marines technique: • compare electricity and candlelight as "Well, how do you think it turns out? ways of "seeing"; what does "put out Oh, no. Bessie Mae Harper never lets your candles" mean? you down. Of, of course, we have to • the fire escape (about which the initial have complications. You have to have stage directions add: "for all of these complications—oh, you can't have a huge buildings are always burning story without them—but Bessie Mae with the slow and implacable fires of Harper always leaves you with such human desperation") juxtaposed by an uplift …" the Paradise Club across the alley, Amanda could be talking about the play/ another escape that is no real escape memory she doesn't know she's in, full of • overlap of alcohol with magician/escape 9

by Tennessee Williams Working with the Play's Literary Elements

The Two Toms: Narrator and Genre and Focus Character • Is The Glass Menagerie a tragedy? a • The character Tom is a struggling writer drama (play treating serious issues)? trapped in a menial, mindless job. The Can it be considered a comedy [he narrator Tom later tells us the story of got away! a trickster comedy]? Take a his earlier self—do we think he is just position and argue your point. "telling" us or that he "wrote" the play? Is he now a writer? Does our sense Issues to consider: If it is a tragedy, and make a difference to the way we see tragedy is the loss of something of the character and the action? great importance with the protagonist one partly responsible for that loss • The narrator is socially and politically who must recognize that fact, is Tom aware. What effect do his comments the protagonist? Is Amanda? Are have on our sense of the play's there two stories—one in the past and Rose Williams action? How does the larger context one in the present, two dramas or work with the family's crises? Is the tragedies? Are there two protagonists? family impacted by the larger forces? Whose play is it? Dreams and Deceptions • If the narrator calls himself • The narrator implies that he is a If the play's comic elements are a magician, Amanda magician; in the remembered action emphasized, the characters' reality/ calls Tom a "dreamer" Tom relates his meeting with Malvolio depth could be diminished and and full of "illusion"; she the magician. Compare/contrast the they could be seen more as stock also accuses Laura of narrator's word-weaving and the characters, more two-dimensional. "deception." What is the remembered action with Malvolio's Is that how Williams portrays them? relationship between magic tricks—what is the narrator's/ What role do the comic moments magic, dream, illusion, writer's magic? Williams writes have on the play? and deception in the play? • Do we see the seeds of the later Tom/ Laura and Jim the narrator in the earlier Tom? Do • How seriously challenged does Laura's we get the sense that his leaving has shyness and remaining sense of fulfilled him? Who is he "now"? Does limp, if any, make her? Are these the narrator privilege his younger self challenges easily overcome with some in remembering the action or does his confidence salve, as Jim suggests, memory seem fairly documentary or or are their effects deeper? How can objective? we tell in the text? on stage? Is Laura made of "glass"? Will she or does she • What is the maturation process and "shatter" here? Why or why not? how are family bonds maintained as one's independent identity gets • Is Jim's response to Laura genuine, established? What is the potential and the potential that she could love and what are the problems? Must there be be loved, or is he just a guy getting a "break"? a free meal and kissing a pretty girl and it means nothing to him? Will • From the text, how old do you think he toss that broken unicorn into the Tom is during the remembered action? nearest trash can? What does their Just out of high school? Older? How conversation mean to Laura? to Jim? would the play's tensions be affected by Tom's not being a late adolescent? • Do Amanda's expectations/pressure about gentlemen callers affect Laura and/or Jim? If so, how?

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by Tennessee Williams Questions Working with Details of Literary Elements/ 2

Exploring Textual Moments Pursuing More Details of Imagery • Amanda late in the play tells Tom, "but • Consider the relevance of each it's not good for you." Does this claim image in the scene Williams added unify her many "naggings"—chewing, for Broadway (scene 4): the noise posture, not drinking coffee too hot, maker, the inebriation, the dropped the cowlick—on a minor scale when key, the magician [compare narrator's her worries may be larger? What is opening], and each trick described: the "good"? transformations of booze, the magic scarf that changes a fishbowl into • The "glass" image focuses primarily on canaries flying away, and the coffin the figurines, but there are two more escape. How does each relate to the "glass" mentions in the play: action and characters in the play? 1) the narrator's description of the Paradise Club where the lights are • One of Amanda's improvements to the turned out "except for a large glass parlor is a "rose-silk shade" for the sphere that … would turn about and lamp. Is the color rose significant? filter the dusk with delicate rainbow What might it imply and link to in her colors," views and efforts? 2) as Amanda hems Laura's new dress, she tells her, "Now look at yourself in • Jim carries candy and offers Laura gum that glass," i.e. the mirror. and a Life Saver. Connotations? How do these two moments enlighten The fascinating and or deepen the glass imagery in the • Jim quotes from his high school role mysterious Greta Garbo, film play? How do they relate to the in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates star of the 1930s, whom Tom saw narration (memory/mirror?) and to of Penzance: "Better far to live and in his many trips to the movies Amanda's views and efforts? die / Under the brave black flag I fly." He now advocates the pursuit of • Twice in the play Amanda says, "Don't knowledge, money, and power. Does use that word," once to Laura about his earlier role comment on his current crippled, once to Tom who says goals? Are Tom's goals and attitude people find Laura peculiar. What is the to life the same as Jim's? Is there effect at the end when Amanda herself "piracy" in the play? calls Laura "crippled"? • Using Williams's comment about the gentleman caller—"I am using this character as a symbol—as the long-delayed but always expected something that we live for"—what does each character "expect," what does each "live for"?

• What is the long-delayed but always expected something you live for?

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by Tennessee Williams The Play's Locale: Meet Me in St. Louis

Following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, which doubled the land mass of the United States, St. Louis, Missouri, became • the gateway to America's West, making it a significant geographic hub in the 19th century of both north/south traffic on the Mississippi River (ask Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer about that) and the east/west exploration and migration trails that began St. Louis, Missouri as early as the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which set out from just north of St. Louis, the territory's capital. In 1910 St. Louis was the fourth largest city in the U.S. and in 1920, when the Moreover, coming to a city of 770,000 Williams family were newcomers there, from a Mississippi Delta town of 7,000 would the sixth largest. Since then its rank and have been a culture shock for the children. population have declined, especially after The Williamses may also have been World War II. affected by St. Louis's severe pollution— Many German, Italian, and Irish Williams always referred to it as "the City immigrants settled in St. Louis, with of St. Pollution." By 1910 smoke pollution roughly divided Protestant and Catholic had already killed some of Forest Park's neighborhoods. Because the city was a trees, and evergreens would not grow in brewing center due to Anheuser-Busch the city during the 1920s. In the 1939-40 and others, Prohibition (1919-33) had a winter (just after the play's action) there were 177 hours of thick smoke pollution; Note on Williams and St. Louis significant impact, but other industries— Perhaps because of his meat processing, steelmaking, clothing and after natural gas became available and a youth in St. Louis, Williams never shoe manufacture, and tobacco processing city ordinance mandated use of cleaner- wanted to return. He asked to —continued. It was, however, harder hit burning coal, there were only 17 hours of be cremated and buried at sea, than some other cities by the Depression, such pollution the next winter. but his brother Dakin ignored his with higher unemployment rates and a As Laura discovers, though, St. Louis wishes and buried him beside his longer return to 1929 levels. had abundant parks, and Forest Park— mother in St. Louis. 1,371 acres of meadow, streams, and woods—had opened in 1876 and hosted the 1904 World's Fair (called the Louisiana Purchase Exposition) and 1904 Summer Olympics. By the 1930s when the play is set, it offered the public the St. Louis Zoo, Sites of the St. Louis Art Museum, the Missouri Laura's History Museum, the Muny Opera (an walks. Left: outdoor venue for musical theatre), sports a postcard grounds and lakes, plus the Jewel Box, the of the Jewel horticultural center originally built to display Box; above plants that could survive the city's pollution. right, the The renowned St. Louis Zoo (a real first Bird menagerie) began with the purchase of House at the St. Louis the Smithsonian's walk-through Bird House Zoo from the 1904 World's Fair; by the 1930s it offered Laura not only penguins but Bear Pits, a Primate House, a Reptile House, an Antelope House, and many more animals.

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Narrator's Historical Context by Tennessee Williams As specific as the play's inner action • By 1937 the national income had is to the experience of one family, the recovered over 75% of its loss, but narrator's commentary insists that the the economy did not recover its vigor action be seen in context of larger national or full employment until World War II Activity: Topics to Discuss and international pressures and coming heightened production. • In the historical context, are events impacting entire populations—the there political or economic Depression's economy, labor unrest in Labor Unrest primal forces ("animals") American cities, and the looming war in • Unemployment was already high involved? Are there Europe. before the stock market crash. The vulnerable "glass" creatures in the society? Which unofficial policy of government and groups get the "impact"? The Depression judicial backing for corporate strike Does the historical context • In 1929 the stock market crashed; breaking—including hiring of spies of the narrator's discussion fortunes were lost and businesses to break up union organizing into the work with the play's title and compromised; spike in unemployment early 1930s—changed during the its implications? • By 1932, national income fell 52% Depression. Strikes became more • Jobs and household income • Unemployment soared from 1/2 million frequent, and the founding of the are major stresses in the Committee on Industrial Organization play. How do the ongoing in October, 1929, to 12 million in 1932 (the CIO) under John L. Lewis's effects of the Depression • Exports dropped 70% figure in the action? Are • There was already vast wealth leadership gained better wages, "happy days here again" for inequality, government corruption, hours, and working conditions for auto the Wingfields? corporate control of labor (including workers, miners, and steel workers. • Tennessee Williams's low wages), and immigration fear • Nonetheless, during the mid-1930s stint in the warehouse surging in the country before the labor unrest rose across the country convinced him that too Depression, but as banks failed with walk-outs and sit-down strikes many Americans worked and jobs disappeared, the situation immobilizing production, while soul-killing jobs for barely industry-hired private detectives and more than subsistence became dire. goons still surveilled organizers and wages that did not offer • F. D. Roosevelt, elected in 1932, them a chance to "live," just instituted an array of programs, many brought violence to the strikes. exist. Research the issues federally funded, attempting to ease behind the labor unrest the crisis. The programs that began to The Coming War in Europe / of the 1930s and assess succeed and have lasted include: bombardments worker demands versus the ­—FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance • The Spanish Civil War (1936-39) is now corporate profit. Corporation) that insures bank considered the warm-up to World War deposits up to a stipulated sum II, with Franco's fascist forces relying —Wagner Labor Act that called for on their Italian and especially German collective bargaining in labor disputes allies' air power to wreak havoc on —Minimum wages and maximum work government forces. week laws, at that time 44 hours a Hitler had long been gaining power week. (Some Southern textile workers in southern Germany and in 1933 had been paid $10 for a 60-hour work became Chancellor and then dictator week.) over the German state. He began —The Social Security Act assisting instituting pro-Aryan, anti-Jewish widows, orphans, and retirees (as policies, purged political opponents, had been done in Europe since 1878) and got the army to swear allegiance — Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to him rather than, as formerly, to authorized the production and sale the "people and fatherland." Hitler's of electricity to advance the central military build-up solved Germany's economic woes, and his policies Dorothea's Lange's famous South, promoting industry and making energy cheaper raised employment and assuaged 1936 image of a hungry migrant many workers while he plotted his family amid a failed crop; the —farming policies to help agriculture woman is 32 with 7 children military domination of Europe.

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Historical Context / c. 1937-38 by Tennessee Williams The exact date of the play's action has Chamberlain and Appeasing Hitler been changed from the autobiographical While the U.S. was growing more dates of Williams's life, but most of the play's isolationist, Chamberlain's primary references offer a range of 1937-38. Note, policy as new too, that in 1938-39, Williams first became English prime "Tennessee" Williams, his artistic identity. minister was to keep Activity: Topic to Discuss peace rather than • Picasso's Guernica is a Bookending the Date pursue any conflict masterpiece that protests The date must be before the European that might cause the violence of war. In it onset of World War II, September 1, war with Hitler in we can see the carnage 1939, since the narrator mentions the Germany, which and destruction, and we upcoming changes that conflict will would also involve can "see" the screams of make in people's lives, and the date Mussolini in Italy, the people and animals. must be after the attack on Guernica Germans' ally, both Neville Chamberlain Are there also unheard on April 26, 1937, also mentioned. with expansionist military strategies. screams that we "see" Other 1937 dates referenced include Hitler planned to annex both Austria and or sense in The Glass Neville Chamberlain, prime minister of Czechoslovakia. In February, 1938, Menagerie? (If so, England; he took office in May, 1937. he pressured Austria to accept union, whose? When? Why?) On the local scene in St. Louis, Laura Anschluss. The Anschluss itself came Are any screams voiced? says she walked in Forest Park and a month later with no action, only a often went into the Jewel Box, a note of protest, from England. lovely, large horticultural center which Hitler next demanded annexations opened in November of 1936. in Czechoslovakia, and after Of course, Jim O'Connor also says Chamberlain tried discussions (one he went to the Century of Progress at Berchtesgaden, Hitler's summer world's fair in Chicago "the summer retreat, mentioned in play), he and before last"; that fair ran 1933-34, so the French eventually went to Munich the exact date varies—as variable in September, 1938, a meeting which as memory. granted Germany the annexations for a promise of peace. History views Europe: Guernica in Spain these actions harshly: The northern Spanish/Basque town With the advantages of hindsight, of Guernica, a communications the ... policy seems stupid as well center behind the lines in the as cowardly and dishonorable. Above, the 1937 bomb Spanish civil war, was bombed to Each time they gave in ..., the allied damage in Guernica; below, near oblivion on April 26, 1937. powers weakened the opposition to Picasso's 1937 mural Guernica, [Hitler] in Germany and at the same a protest against such brutality. The civilians of the town were targeted on a market day by both time lost an ally. German and Italian air forces in what Activity: Topic for Discussion historians saw as a • What is the price of peace? On an German Blitzkrieg individual or family level—and very aerial strategy to different terms—is the idea of sudden breed terror. The blitzkrieg or negotiating peace rather death count, then than pursuing strife also relevant to reported as 1,700, the action of The Glass Menagerie? Is is now believed to appeasement an issue? Are the larger have been ±300, world events mentioned cognate to but the civilian deaths were seen the personal actions in any way? Why as an atrocity, now compared to are they mentioned? Dresdan and Hiroshima.

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by Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie: Working with the Text / Quotations

ACTIVITY: Explore the narrative, Tom (in memory scenes): thematic, and/or characterological • You think I want to spend fifty-five years "truth" of one or more of the following of my life down there in that celotex statements. Which seems most interior! With fluorescent tubes? … But important for each character? Which I go! for $65 a month I give up all that I is the most revealing of character? dream of doing and being ever!"

Narrator: • "You know it don't take much • "I have tricks in my pocket—I have intelligence to get yourself into a things up my sleeve—but I am the nailed-up coffin, Laura. But who in hell opposite of the stage magician. ever got himself out of one without He gives you illusion that has the removing one nail?" appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion." • "I'll rise—but I won't shine."

• "Across the alley was the Paradise • "How come you made such a tragic Dance Hall.… Sometimes they'd turn [mistake]?" out all the lights except for a large glass sphere that hung from the • "Laura is very different from other girls ceiling. It would turn slowly about and … She lives in a world of her own A young Tennessee Williams filter the dusk with delicate rainbow and those things make her seem a colors.… This was the compensation little peculiar to people outside the for lives that passed like mine, without house.… Laura lives in a world of little change or adventure." glass animals." Tennessee Williams working on Battle of Angels in 1938, • "I was valuable to Jim as someone who • "I'm waking up …. I'm tired of the the play that preceded Glass could remember his former glory." movies and I'm about to move." Menagerie • "I didn't go to the moon. I went much Laura: farther. For time is the longest • "Mother's afraid that I'm going to be an distance between two places…" old maid.

• "O, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you • "I'm—crippled!" behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a • "Glass is something you have to take cigarette, I cross the street, I run into a good care of." movie or a bar.…—anything that can blow your candles out!—for nowadays " "Now he's just like all the other horses." the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura…" • "Glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you are."

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by Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie: Working with Quotations / 2

ACTIVITY: Explore the narrative, • "Such a little silver slipper of a moon. thematic, and/or characterological Have you made a wish on it? … Now, "truth" of one or more of the following darling, wish! … [For] happiness! And statements. Which seems most just a little bit of good fortune!" important for each character? Which is the most revealing of character? • "…the future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don't plan Amanda: for it." • "Eat leisurely. A well-cooked meal has many delicate flavors that have to be • "All pretty girls are a trap and men held in the mouth for appreciation, not expect them to be traps." just gulped down. Oh, chew, chew— chew!" [first speech in memory • "I wasn't prepared for what the future section of play—advice for how to brought me." approach the play?] Jim: • "What are we going to do? What is • "You're going to be out of a job if you going to become of us? What is the don't wake up.… You'll regret it when future?" [us is also implicitly you as they turn off the lights." she addresses Laura] "Of course, some girls do marry." • "Candle-light is my favorite kind of light." • "You're not crippled, you've just got a slight defect.… you've just got to • "[The Hall of Science at the Century cultivate something else to take its of Progress exposition] gives you an place." idea of what the future will be like in America. Oh, it's more wonderful than • "That's the only thing your father had the present time is!" Julie Haydon and Laurette plenty of—charm!" Taylor as Laura and • "Being disappointed is one thing and Amanda wishing on the • [about magazine story] "Of course he being discouraged is something else." moon in the premiere has a weakness. He has the most Broadway production, 1945 terrible weakness in the entire world. • "Unicorns, aren't they extinct in the He just drinks too much." modern world?"

• "I think you're doing things that you're • "Well, I'm not made out of glass." ashamed of, and that's why you act like this."

• "Rise and shine!"

• "There's so many things in my heart that I cannot describe to you!"

• "More and more you remind me of your father! … I know what you're dreaming of. Very well, then. Then do it! But not till there's someone to take your place."

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by Tennessee Williams Some Critics on Tennessee Williams's Work

• from Richard F. Leavitt, The World of Tennessee Williams (1978)—looking Williams on Williams • "It's human valor that at the full scope of Williams's plays, moves me. The one not just Glass Menagerie dominant theme in most of my writings, the most "The Glass Menagerie contained magnificent thing in all everything that would become the human nature, is valor— trademark of a Williams play." and endurance." "Tennessee Williams is a dramatist of (from a 1945 interview with lost souls." Jean Evans) "His theme is the plight of the individual trapped by his environment, the Tennessee Williams • "What writers influenced loneliness and lack of communication between human beings unable to me as a young man? between Amanda and Edwina and reconcile the flesh with the spirit. It is Chekhov! having resented the accusation of his special genius to temper extremes As a dramatist? Chekhov! abandoning a family from which, of physical violence … with gentle, As a story writer? on the contrary, he felt he had loving glimpses of humanity and a Chekhov! been psychologically excluded and passionate concern for dispossessed D. H. Lawrence, too, for ultimately physically exiled.…" people living on the border line of his spirit, of course, "…the behavioral patterns of a real despair." for his understanding life family faced with alcoholism are "His lyricism gracefully accentuates of sexuality, of life in traceable in the fiction [play].… In the atmosphere of decay which general." dysfunctional families, … emotions permeates his work.… Other critics are repressed and twisted; they are have noted that he has never created • "Some titles come from either not shared or manipulated a character who has recovered dialogue as I write a play, in a judgmental, blaming fashion. from the wounds and desolation of or from the setting itself. Dysfunctional families share certain childhood." Some comes from poetry common traits such as attitudes of I've read. When I need a rigidity, reverence for past traditions title I'll usually reread the • from Gilbert Debusscher, "TW's to the detriment of the present, poetry of Hart Crane." Dramatic Charade: Secrets and Lies insistence on roles and rituals.… in The Glass Menagerie," TW Annual these are coping techniques.… • "Literature has taken Review (2000) A network of lies binds the family a back seat to the together. Making excuses, avoiding television, don't you "I suggest that The Glass Menagerie be truth, and creating fantasies become a think? … We don't have termed 'autofictional,' i.e. the result of way of life …. " a culture anymore that a conflation of real life and fantasy, the "The cinema is opposed to the favors the creations of poetic (re)arrangement of fact within warehouse, and the two environments writers … serious artists. fiction, the imaginative fictionalization define the polarities of the outside On Broadway, what of autobiography." world for Tom. The warehouse is they want are cheap "Mrs. Edwina Williams, the playwright's a place of regulation and isolation, comedies and musicals mother, pointed out the many the epitome of the material world and revivals. It's nearly differences between the Williamses of reality; the cinema is the place impossible to get serious and the Wingfields … and Cornelius of imagination and freedom work even produced…." Williams, the father, is recorded as where darkness favors temporary (last three quotes from having failed to discern any similarity togetherness." a 1981 interview with Dotson Rader)

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by Tennessee Williams Activities Working with the Play's Theatrical Elements

Experiencing the Action Expressionism in the Octagon at ASF • Below is a bare-bones description of • Tennessee Williams calls for the plot action of each scene. What is expressionistic, not realistic, design the difference between reading such a elements for the production. He summary and experiencing the play in describes sparse but typical furniture the theatre? Do the moments change, and see-through scrim walls on a deepen, particularize, become proscenium (picture frame) stage moving, funny, or heartbreaking? that let the audience "see into" the What difference do actors, set, apartment from the outside; then the lighting, sound, costuming make? outer scrim rises and the audience is Pick one or two moments and discuss inside—as if the mind remembers it. in detail the difference between plot The Octagon theatre is not proscenium, outline and the experience of the play however; it is a three-quarter thrust— on stage. there is audience on three sides of the stage. Moreover, there is no fly Scene 1: The narrator's memory of his mother space for a scrim. So this production and sister; his mother's memory of her 17 gentlemen callers in Moon Lake. Laura says will have to accomplish the memory she will have no gentlemen callers. effect in other ways. Watch closely to see how these effects work—does Scene 2: Amanda confronts Laura with her lighting take a stronger role? does Laurette Taylor in Amanda's absence from business college (Plan A for the music have a haunting "Glass "gentleman caller" dress in her future). When asked about boys, Laura Menagerie" theme Williams calls for at the 1945 Broadway premiere remembers one she liked in high school. key moments? production of the play. Amanda remembers her absent husband. Consider the implications of Characterization Amanda's having and wearing Scene 3: Amanda, now in Plan B, getting Laura a husband, fights with Tom about his life, his • As you watch them, do the characters one of her dresses from youth seem equally balanced or are they for this dinner. What might Jim writing, his escape to the movies; he calls all filtered and "remembered" through think when he walks in for a her a witch and accidentally breaks some regular family dinner? glass animals on exit. Tom's frustrated self of some years earlier? Or from the view of a distant Scene 4: Tom returns inebriated from movies; Tom (more understanding or just Laura lets him in, begs him to apologize. absent?)? Does the character of Amanda appear to be a "witch" all the Scene 5: Before work, Tom apologizes; Amanda time? Do we ever get to sympathize says he must find someone for Laura before he joins Merchant Marines. with and understand her? Is Tom the only one we sympathize with because Scene 6: Narrator aware of larger context; Tom it's his memory? has invited Jim to dinner; Amanda starts to How can Tom "remember" the scene plan; Tom realilty-checks her about Laura. between Amanda and Laura about They all wish on moon. not attending business school (he's not home), or the scene in the living Scene 7: Narrator about Jim's past and present. room between Laura and Jim when he Living room re-decorated; Laura and Amanda was in the kitchen washing dishes? Is dressed in finery. When Laura realizes visitor is Jim from high school, she gets sick and this what the stage directions call the can't sit at table. "poetic license" of memory?

Scene 8: Jim talks with Laura, remembers her, advises her, dances with her, breaking the glass unicorn, kisses her, mentions fiancée, leaves. Tom also leaves—for good.

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by Tennessee Williams Worksheet for The Glass Menagerie

1. In the play the narrator lets us look at the long ago and far away of his family past from a perspective of his here and now. How important is the presence of the past, the memory element of the play? What effect do the narrator and the "now," the time gap, have?

2. Williams focuses us on a fractured family—a mother and two young adult children old enough to be independent, with an absent father. What are the goals, dreams, and pressures of the family members we meet and how do they work together or conflict? How do "independence" and "family" work here? What are the family responsibilities and obligations for a parent? for an adult child?

3. What issues or questions does the play raise about relationships and life? Which issues arise from the memory action? Do other issues arise from the narration? Tennessee Williams and his mother, Edwina Dakin Williams, years after the play was written

4. Tennessee Williams gained acclaim for his imagery. Which details of setting, character, and dialogue/language take on the power of imagery—something that taps into the larger issues and significance of the work—in your experience of the play?

5. What aspect or moment of the production struck you are memorable or significant and why? Which moment of the play caught your attention and why?

6. Where does Tennessee Williams leave us at the end of the play? Does it fall into one of the standard categories of comedy or tragedy? Why? by Tennessee Williams 2017-2018 SchoolFest Sponsors

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