The Glass Menagerie [Paperback]

Tennessee Williams (Author), Robert Bray (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: New Directions Books | Publication Date: June 17, 1999

No play in the modern theatre has so captured the imagination and heart of the American public as Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie.

Menagerie was Williams's first popular success and launched the brilliant, if somewhat controversial, career of our pre-eminent lyric playwright. Since its premiere in Chicago in 1944, with the legendary Laurette Taylor in the role of Amanda, the play has been the bravura piece for great actresses from Jessica Tandy to Joanne Woodward, and is studied and performed in classrooms and theatres around the world. The Glass Menagerie (in the reading text the author preferred) is now available only in its New Directions Paperbook edition. A new introduction by prominent Williams scholar Robert Bray, editor of The Tennessee Williams Annual Review, reappraises the play more than half a century after it won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award: "More than fifty years after telling his story of a family whose lives form a triangle of quiet desperation, Williams's mellifluous voice still resonates deeply and universally." This edition of The Glass Menagerie also includes Williams's essay on the impact of sudden fame on a struggling writer, "The Catastrophe of Success," as well as a short section of Williams's own "Production Notes." The cover features the classic line drawing by Alvin Lustig, originally done for the 1949 New Directions edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The revolutionary newness of The Glass Menagerie . . . was in its poetic lift, but an underlying hard dramatic structure was what earned the play its right to sing poetically.” (Arthur Miller )

“With the advent of The Glass Menagerie . . . Tennessee Williams emerged as a poet-playwright and a unique new force in theatre throughout the world.” (Lyle Leverich in Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams )

About the Author

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) is the acclaimed author of many books of letters, short stories, poems, essays, and a large collection of plays, including The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, The Night of the Iguana, and The Rose Tattoo.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: New Directions; 5th printing edition (June 17, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811214044
• ISBN-13: 978-0811214049
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (144 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,906 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #40 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Drama > United States

More About the Author

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), one of the 20th century's most superb writers, was also one of its most successful and prolific. His classic works include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, Summer and Smoke, Camino Real, Sweet Bird of Youth, Night of the Iguana, Orpheus Descending, and The Rose Tattoo.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tennesse Williams's memory play about his lost family, May 20, 2002

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Glass Menagerie (Paperback)

Amanda Wingfield, the matriarch of "The Glass Menagerie," always tells her daughter, Laura, that she should look nice and pretty for gentleman callers, even though Laura has never had any callers at their St. Louis apartment. Laura, who limps because of a slight physical deformity, would rather spend her time playing with the animals in her glass menagerie and listening to old phonograph records instead of learning shorthand and typing so she can be employable. When she learns Laura has only been pretending to go to secretarial school, Amanda decides Laura must have a real gentleman caller and insists her son Tom, who works at a shoe factory, find one immediately. After a few days, Tom tells Amanda he has invited a young man named Jim O'Connor home for dinner and at long last Laura will have her first gentleman caller.

The night of the dinner Amanda does every thing she can to make sure Laura looks more attractive. However, when Laura realizes that the Jim O'Connor who is visiting is possibly the same Jim on whom she had a crush in high school, she does not want to go through with the dinner. Although she has to be excused from the dinner because she has made herself physically ill, Laura is able to impress Jim with her quiet charm when the two of them keep company in the living room and she finally loses some of her shyness. When Jim gives Laura her first kiss, it looks as if Amanda's plans for Laura's happiness might actually come true. But no one has ever accused Tennessee Williams of being a romantic.

"The Glass Menagerie" was the first big success in the long and storied career of playwright Tennessee Williams. Written in 1944, the drama consists of reworked material from one of Williams' short stories, "Portrait of a Girl in Glass," and his screenplay, "The Gentleman Caller." In many ways it is an atypical drama from Williams, with the character of Tom (a role I will confess to playing on stage) serving as a narrator who breaks the "fourth wall" and addresses the audience, which evinces Williams' affinity for Eugene O'Neill (e.g., "The Emperor Jones") at this point in his career. Tom tells the audience that this play offers truth dressed up as illusion, and in his stage directions (which are usually not taken full advantage of in the various performances I have seen because what was cutting edge in 1944 is overly quaint today) he uses not only monologues but also music and projections to enhance the memories on display. Williams also explicitly tells his audience that the gentleman call is the symbol of "the expects something that we live for."

This "memory play" tells of a family trapped in destructive patterns. After being abandoned by her husband, Amanda Wingfield, a woman of the Great Depression, has become trapped between worlds of illusion and reality. She says she wants what is best for her children, but seems incapable of acknowledging what that would be or actually providing it for them. Tom, tired of only watching adventure at the movies, is determined to break away from his dominating mother, but stays only for the sake of his sister. Laura may not be the glamorous belle of the ball her mothers wants, but she has her own inner charm and when confronted with Jim, a visitor from the normal world, there is the chance that she will finally claim her life as her own. This is a poignant drama on the importance of love and it represents a memory of not only family but also of loss.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Symbolism, August 23, 1999

By 

CRC (Shreveport, LA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Glass Menagerie (New Classics Series) (Paperback)

The three main characters, mother Amanda, daughter Laura, and son Tom interact interestingly. Amanda, a woman of the South, truly wants the best for her children. Laura, the shy and crippled child, shys away from her mother's "high" expectations and retreates to the comfort of her Glass Menagerie. Tom finds and escape from the atmosphere his mother places over the house in the movies, but would like to find real adventure some day. Will the gentlemen caller that Tom brings be Laura's (and Amanda's) answer to happiness?

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Picture on the Wall, May 19, 2002

By 

Faulknernut "Faulknernut" (atlanta, georgia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Glass Menagerie (Paperback)

Sometimes, the most important and influential characters are those that never come forth and make an appearance. This is the case in Williams' The Glass Menagerie. The absent father serves as an explanation and a foreshadow for why his wife, Amanda; his daughter, Laura; and his son, Tom behave as they do.

The story has somewhat a dry line; however, it is not so much the plot but the characterization that makes this story memorable, introducing odd and unique characters that can be, unusually enough, identified with. Many who venture into this work see the characters by their surfaces only-a loony, demanding mother; a shy daughter; and an uncaring brother. However, this play requires a deeper look, a search for an explanation that reveals that the mother is not nuts, only lonely and worried her son will abandon her, just as her worthless husband has. She has fears, such as worrying that her Laura will become alone and unsupported, just as she is. Laura can also be examined, discovering she is not only shy, but is a victim of low-self-esteem, for her disability causes her to believe she is unable to be like others, never able to partake in the activities other girls enjoy, such as dancing; thus, she lives a life in solitude, for that is where she feels unexposed. Tom, too, with a closer look, can be viewed as a man tiresome of being treated as a boy, stuck in a world he is unhappy with, desiring escape to follow his dreams.

A close characterization reveals the turmoil inflicted by the father, exposing characters with problems, worries, fears, and desires. This is a play about real life, a dysfunctional family who wants only the happiness that they cannot achieve. This, by far, is Williams' greatest work yet.