“The Glass Menagerie” is a memory play written by Tennessee Williams. The play introduced the word “liminal”, which describes something being in between two different states. The play, set in St. Louis Missouri in the year 1937 during The Great Depression, tells the story of the Wingfield family: Amanda, who struggles to find her place in the world, her crippled son Teddy, who is unable to cope with reality, and Laura Wingfield, who remains trapped in her own world. The main theme of The Glass Menagerie is escaping. The play deals with themes including loneliness, family relationships, disappointment, failure, reunion, and hope.
The Essential Theatre, an independent theatre company based out of New York City is known for its profound ability to connect the audience to the actors. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams was no exception. The play follows a collection of characters living in St. Louis during The Great Depression who are each attempting to escape something haunting them inside their own minds. The set provided multiple different settings that all tied into one another, giving off the illusion of more than one location.
The use of these small sets made it possible to seamlessly change locations on stage without any interruption to the flow of the story telling, which allowed everything on stage to be seen equally and displayed important details about the scene. The detail on all levels went beyond what I expected; from how real the pot looked, to the different decorative details throughout The Wingfield Residence. The actors were so devoted to their roles that you could tell they didn’t want to be anywhere else but on stage.
The Glass Menagerie has many themes, The most relevant being “Escape” because every one of the characters at some point is trying to escape something or someone throughout the show. The reasoning for this large amount of Escape within The Glass Menagerie is because The Great Depression was occurring during the time this play takes place- St. Louis, Missouri 1939- The people living back then would have likely had a very hard time making ends meet and providing for themselves and their families- So it’s only natural that they would try to escape from reality in order to cope with their everyday lives.
The play took place during The Great Depression because The Glass Menagerie is a story about The Wingfield family- The head of the household Mr. Wingfield is an insurance salesman whose business has been suffering greatly due to The Great Depression occurring at that time, not only this but he is also in debt and it doesn’t seem like his situation will get any better anytime soon since he tried to commit suicide because of it.
The Glass Menagerie is a story of a family attempting to escape from their reality. The Wingfields, specifically the protagonist Laura, attempt to find happiness in a world that offers them no comfort. The characters’ search for an escape from reality shows itself in various forms throughout the play.
The first example of searching for an escape comes from Laura’s character during Act I Scene ii when she finds refuge in her glass menagerie. The collection of curiosities give Laura a sense of purpose and help her escape from her mother’s overbearing nature and the fact that none of her peers seem to notice or care about her at all. For instance, Laura finds strength in The Little Colonel Card Set: ” The little colonel…held his arms out to Laura; the cards fell all over the table, and Laura shivered. The little colonel had always been her favorite.
The others had only been strangers… The world of horses would always be there.” (Williams 12). The horses in The Little Colonel Card Set are a sign that Laura is different from everyone else, that she is different because she loves horses just as much if not more than they care about boys. As Laura’s love for The Little Colonel Card Set shows, it allows her to escape into a world where she is free to be herself. The issue with this idea of escape comes when Laura reaches adulthood. When she gets older, reality sets in again forcing her back to square one for an escape plan since it no longer worked in high school.
The only other idea for escape in The Glass Menagerie comes from Laura’s brother, Tom. In Act I Scene ii, Tom tells his mother that he is going to get a job and move out of the house. The motivation behind this decision comes from the fact that his mother is too domineering and oppressive causing him to find an escape through leaving home. He tells Jim: ” The minute I’m old enough…When my birthday comes around next week…I’m going to pack up and leave.” (Williams 10-11). The issue with Tom’s plan for an escape is that he never actually follows through with it even though he says multiple times throughout The Glass Menagerie how bad things are at home.
The main example of this comes from The Poker Night scene where Tom returns home to play poker with Jim, Mr. Wingfield and his coworkers. The motivation behind the decision could be that he does not want to hurt his mother or that he believes she will eventually change into someone better than what she currently is which would allow him to come back home. The fact that Tom never actually leaves shows how The Glass Menagerie has a theme of escape because it focuses so much on these characters looking for one but failing to find it in the end.
The play opens with Laura and Tom arguing about the fire escape outside their apartment. The dialogue between Tom and Laura is tense, but it also shows that this argument has been happening for a long time without anything being done about it. The solution to this issue seems simple enough: either fix the latch so that the gate will close properly or remove the fence altogether. The tension in this scene foreshadows all of the conflict in “The Glass Menagerie”. The incessant bickering between Laura and Amanda doesn’t just hint at problems within their family; it amplifies them tenfold when Mr. Wingfield disappears… indefinitely.
Tom’s attitude toward his work as an office boy represents his feelings toward his surroundings as well as toward his future. He describes the place as a “big plant,” which suggests imprisonment. The final straw before Tom gives up finally arrives when he makes a simple mistake and gets blamed for it by the office manager. The conflict between Laura and Amanda echoes in this scene because Tom is acting out against something that has been going on for years without anything being done about it: their present situation.
Finally, after Mr Wingfield tells Tom that he may never see him again, due to financial difficulties back home, he leaves silently and does not come back. The escape from the family unit is complete; all ties have been severed unless you count Jim O’Connor- someone who works with Tom and also happens to be dating his sister!
