Play Guide [1.2MB PDF] - Arizona Theatre Company

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INTRO CAST The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams INTRODUCTION TO THE PLAY In the 1930s in a small tenement apartment in St. Louis, the Wingfi eld family awaits your visit. The mother, Amanda, lives in an illusion of recapturing her faded Southern Belle glory. Her daughter Laura lives in a fantasy world of delicate glass fi gurines and her son Tom dreams poetically of a world beyond the back stoop. When Tom brings home a Gentleman Caller to meet his sister, The Glass Menagerie weaves these lives into a heart-stopping dance of hopes pursued and dreams betrayed. Considered by many to be Tennessee Williams’ greatest play, The Glass Menagerie is an achingly beautiful story of longing and love that has touched generations of theatergoers with its sparkling, delicate radiance. THE CHARACTERS Costume Design for Amanda by designer Emily Pepper The Glass Menagerie Costume Design for Tom by designer Emily Pepper Tom: An artistic and poetic young man confi ned to a day job he hates, Tom struggles to deal with his overbearing mother and his painfully shy sister. Tom feels torn between his obligations to himself and the life that he wants to lead and his obligations to his family. Amanda: A faded Southern Belle who regrets her past decisions. Amanda believes that her son Tom must be dutiful to her wishes and that her daughter Laura must marry in order to provide for their future. Arizona Theatre Company Play Guide 4
SYNOPSIS Laura A socially awkward and exceptionally shy young woman who is emotionally and physically fragile. The Gentleman Caller: Also known as Jim, the gentleman caller loves to relive his past glories and look toward a future in which he plans for his life to improve signifi cantly. SYNOPSIS Tom, a writer who has left his mother and sister in order to pursue freedom and adventure, narrates a memory of his abandoned family. The memory is of St. Louis in 1937. Tom, his mother Amanda and his sister Laura, are trying to make ends meet in a small tenement apartment. Tom’s father, a telephone repairman who “fell in love with long distance,” has long since abandoned them leaving nothing behind but his picture. Tom supports the family by working in a shoe warehouse. Since his responsibilities curtail his desire to be a writer, Tom The Glass Menagerie “If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.” – Tennessee Williams Scenic design model by designer Darcy Scanlin escapes the mundane reality of life at the warehouse through literature, movies and dreams of joining the Merchant Marine. His sister Laura lives in a world of her own and spends all her time polishing her little glass animals and listening to old records. Amanda can’t understand Tom’s resentment or Laura’s lack of interest in her own future. After Amanda discovers that Laura has dropped out of Business College without telling her, she decides that she must fi nd a husband for her daughter. When asked if she ever liked a boy Laura tells her mother she only ever liked one boy in high school, the popular boy who sang the lead in the school operetta and called her by the nickname “Blue Roses.” Amanda badgers Tom to bring home a nice man from the warehouse for Laura, bribing him by telling him he can be free of his responsibility to them as soon as there’s someone else to take care of his sister. Tom invites Jim O’Connor, his only friend at the warehouse, home for dinner. Amanda goes all out with preparations, buying a new lamp and a new dress for Laura. Laura has an acute attack of shyness and becomes ill when she discovers that the man coming for dinner is the same boy she liked in high school. In the middle of dinner the lights go out because Tom used the money meant for the electricity bill to join the Union of Merchant Seamen. Not to be deterred, Amanda lights candles and pulls Tom into the kitchen leaving Jim and Laura alone. Jim and Laura reminisce about his heroic high school days and Laura shows him her Arizona Theatre Company Play Guide 5
Page 1 and 2: Play Guide The Glass Menagerie Ariz
Page 3: WHO WE ARE Arizona Theatre Company
Page 7 and 8: WILLIAMS were still people in New O
Page 9 and 10: MEMORY MEMORY PLAYS The Glass Menag
Page 11 and 12: TIME DEPRESSION We’ll cut out bod
Page 13 and 14: WOMEN A 1936 poll in Fortune magazi
Page 15 and 16: DEFENSE IN DEFENSE OF THE MATRIARCH
Page 17 and 18: HISTORY Costume Design for the Gent
Page 19 and 20: HISTORY TERMS The Bombing of Guerni
Page 21 and 22: TERMS Milk Fund: “Milk funds” w
Page 23 and 24: MOVIES DEPRESSION SHOPPING LIST—1
Page 25 and 26: SYMBOLISM Tom describes the gentlem
Page 27 and 28: DISCUSSION 5. What is the signifi c
Page 29 and 30: 3. Discuss the symbol of the glass
Page 31 and 32: - Speaking characters are shown by
Page 33 and 34: 2) Have each student return to his
Page 35 and 36: Debriefi ng Questions 1. Do you fee
Page 37 and 38: The Glass Menagerie 6) Depending on
Page 39: Sample Monologue 2 (The girl in thi

Play Guide [1.2MB PDF] - Arizona Theatre Company

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