The Glass Menagerie (Heinemann Plays)

The Glass Menagerie is a masterful play detailing the struggles of a broken family in poverty during the 1930s. Depressingly realistic and disturbingly contemporary, I was shocked with how much character growth and storytelling could be put into such a short script.

Amanda is the mother of two children, Tom and Laura. Abandoned by her husband, she is left to keep her family afloat by selling magazine subscriptions as she cares for her disabled daughter. Tom works at a factory, but dreams of bigger things, leading to resentment towards his family since he feels as if he is trapped taking care of them. Laura, gripped with social anxiety, has not yet told her family that she's dropped out of school, making the family's financial future even more questionable. Amanda's only hope is to find Laura a proper suitor who could possibly promise to provide for her, like she herself had when she was young. Though tensions between them are high, Amanda enlists Tom to try to find someone from work who might be a good suitor for Laura, which he does so obediently. However the suitor's visit does not go as planned, for better or for worse.

I know there's a word for when you read a work that feels derivative, but in actuality it was the original work that so many other derived their story from. This felt very much like that. In many ways you feel as if it is a run of the mill contemporary story about a struggling family, but when you realize that it was one of the first to integrate gritty, autobiographical reality onto the stage at a time where many plays were different in theme, you understand why this launched Tennessee Williams into fame.

I understand why this is a classic, it is so rich with themes and motifs. Amanda stuck in the past, Tom idealizing the future, Laura lost in the present. Escapism where Amanda can't escape her memories, Tom escapes to the movies and alcohol, and Laura escapes to her glass menagerie. The fragility of dreams, with Tom feeling as if adventure is just out of reach, Amanda not living the life she thought she would have, and Laura's hopes for her own future being shattered. There's just so much to reflect on, I feel lost trying to think of all of the themes this very short play covered.

It is sad, it is a bit predictable, but it was such an interesting read. I haven't read a play in a long time and I forget how much I've missed it, there's so much interesting story detail you get when you read music, lighting, and blocking in a play, it is so different from traditional storytelling in a book. If you're interested in reading a classic, I'd definitely pick this up, it is quite accessible and very short and gives you lots to think about.