The Glass Menagerie

Posted by admin on Mar 23, 2006 in Community | 0 comments

I have a kid-sister who was born when I was nineteen and a university student. As a young adolescent she had a spinal curvature that was so extreme she became a hunchback and was compressing one of her lungs. I watched her suffer through corrective surgery and have a Harrison Rod placed in her spine. It left her, ever after, in a delicate condition.

The playwright Tennessee Williams and his sister experienced similar episodes. Williams had childhood diphtheria and later a heart condition which left him feeling vulnerable for the balance of his life. His sister Rose never recovered from a juvenile mental condition. The physical conditions all these people experienced affected how they lived their lives. They were not as aggressive as those with hearty constitutions who meet life head-on. Sometimes, as Laura’s mother, Amanda, says in the play, The Glass Menagerie, these members of society need “courage for living.”

There is something of this theme of the necessary courage for living that has attracted Drama, English, Business, Education, and Biblical Studies students to join faculty and staff who are undertaking production of the World War II-era American classic, The Glass Menagerie by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Tennessee Williams.

The play, which has entertained audiences for sixty-two years with both its comedy and its drama, has a lot to recommend it to a university audience. Three of the four characters are young people, out of high school and moving into the larger world. Two are taking college courses to improve their prospects in the job market. Two of them are concerned about marriage and a romantic scene plays a big role in the middle of the play.

Furthermore, two of the characters are also moving through life, trying to find their own identities and establish their independence while dealing with a parent who is both a dynamic personality and major influence in their lives. All this is set against the background of a father who abandoned the family 16 years before. Some part of this agenda would cover about every student on campus. It is universal and not unique to the years 1939 and 1944, when the play takes place.

The drama is set during The Great Depression, just before the start of World War II. Tom Wingfield (played by Senior Josh Doerksen), from the vantage point of 1944, is remembering his life five years earlier, when he was deciding whether or not to abandon his family in order to assert his own independence. His mother, Amanda Wingfield (played by Sophomore Kimberly Cameron), is concerned that her son, who has a dead-end job at a shoe warehouse, will leave before making some provision for his dependent sister, Laura (Freshman “Kat” Gauthier). The hope that they all come to live for is the arrival of a “gentleman caller” (played by Sophomore Matt Nauta) who, it is wished, will fall in love with Laura.

The play was chosen because the Drama department is doing a season of American drama and has taught the American Drama course this year. It wanted to include a classic piece in the season that the whole campus would find engaging and would expose them to one of the greatest works of American dramatic literature. The Glass Menagerie, with its quest for courage, its remorse over questionable life-choices, and its yearning for freedom-in-youth seemed the perfect choice.

The play runs in Freedom Hall, Wednesday through Saturday from March 15 through March 25, playing at 8:00 pm each evening, with 2:00 pm matinees on Saturdays. Tickets can be purchased at the door, or in advance at the University Bookstore.