3rd draft

Jack Purdy

Ib Lit and Performance

The Glass Menagerie is a play written by Tennessee williams in 1944.  It’s about a single mother with two children who are struggling to make a living.  The play is portrayed as memories from one of the main characters Tom about his life before when he was living with his mother Amanda and sister Laura.  Tom is an everyday factory worker in that time who just wanted to have a little adventure in his life but felt like he never could because his mother was always bringing him down.  His mother was always bringing him down because she needed him to support her and Laura. His obsession with adventure and the constant nagging of his mother is eventually what causes him to leave them.  

I chose to reenact a combination the scenes (act i scene iii), where Tom and Amanda are arguing and Laura is talking about her glass menagerie and how special it is.  I chose these scenes because it really shows the relationships each character has with each other and it shows the importance of the glass menagerie to Laura. Both of these are extremely important to the story.  This is because they are all the main characters in the story and their relationships with each other play a big part in the story. In this scene Laura only plays a role in the beginning of the scene and the end of the scene.  She shows the importance of the glass to her at the beginning, which sets up her reaction when the glass breaks. For the middle portion of this scene it shows the relationship Tom and Amanda have with each other. They have a very poor relationship in which they fight a lot and it eventually drives Tom to leave.  Then the relationship between Tom and Laura is very kind and they care for each other. Which is shown each time Tom and Laura interact with each other.

The main themes presented in these scenes are the ideas of failure accepting reality and no escape.  The idea of failure accepting reality plays an essential role in shaping what all of the characters will be.  In Laura's case she is very socially awkward, so she has a very difficult time accepting reality.  Her reality is that she will just stay home and play with her glass menagerie.  When in reality she was supposed to be going to college and learning how to use the typewriter.  Then both Tom and Amanda have an even harder time with accepting what reality is than Laura did.  With Amanda it seems like she is just stuck in what is assumed to be her “glory days” or when her life was at its high point in terms of happiness.  She is always telling stories of how great everything use to be.  It would seem like she just doesn't want to accept the fact that those days are over.  For Tom it is really bad. He just doesn't want to accept the idea of him working in the factory and both living with and supporting Amanda and Laura for the rest of his life.  He wants to get away and have adventure in his life. Which is where the idea of no escape comes into play. This theme is only really present within Tom. He feels as if he is trapped and forced to be somebody he is not which is why he smokes a lot and goes to the movies so much.  It is because these are just temporary escapes from reality that he uses to keep himself going everyday. For him he feels that there is no true escape unless he was to leave Amanda and Laura and start his own life without them. Then it is also slightly shown in both Amanda and Laura.  For Amanda it is when she is telling her stories of her “glory days” that allows her to escape reality. Then for Laura its her glass menagerie that allows her to escape and to be happy. In both cases these are just temporary escapes from the reality that they live in for them there is no true escape.  

The use of symbols and literary devices play key roles in understanding the story.  The main symbol used in this scene is Laura’s glass menagerie. The glass menagerie is used to represent Laura's happiness.  The glass menagerie is used in this scene at the beginning and at the ends of my scene.  In the beginning it is being used to help show how happy laura is at that moment when she is talking to Tom about how special her glass is to her.  Then towards the end of the scene it is used to help show how sad she is during the scene while Tom and Amanda are fighting because Tom winds up breaking the glass which made Laura become extremely sad.  There are multiple literary devices present in these scenes. The most obvious literary devices used are flashbacks and foreshadowing. Flashback is used for the entire scene because almost the entire story is a flashback that Tom is having.  These scenes are also a part of the flashback that he is having. The other literary device used is foreshadowing. Foreshadowing was used in a couple of ways.  The first was with the glass menagerie the importance that it shows at the beginning sets it up for something to happen to it later in the scene.  Then it is also used with the idea of Tom leaving. For instance when tom said (quote about the picture) sets up for at the end of the story him leaving the family just like how his father did.  Foreshadowing was shown by both Tom and Laura.

In the performance of this scene that my group chose I played Laura, Ivan played Amanda, and Jamaal Played Tom.  I used both Uta Hagens nine questions and the stanaslaviski method in order to help me prepare for my scene. Both of these methods helped me to re create Lauras quiet character.  Uta Hagenes nine questions helped me to prepare in one way that I noticed. This was they helped me to remain in character because they helped me to remember that I am playing a girl that is quiet and shy.  Then the stanaslaviski method helped me because it allowed me to become less nervous with how I would do. My main issue when performing is that I get nervous about what people will think of my performance and if they will laugh and make fun of it.  This method helped me to forget about all of that and to not care what other people think of my performance.

Playing Laura is a difficult role for one main reason.  This is that she is extremly socialy awkward and it was difficult for me to create the way she acts.  I had a hard time with playing laura because I had to act like a female which I found diffifcult.