Play Guide [1.2MB PDF] - Arizona Theatre Company

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