Play Review

Last week, I had to read The Glass Menagerie. It is a powerful play that is considered a classic. It is about the dysfunctional Winfield family. It is a story of people trapped in frustrated lives that aren't going any where. The mother of the family Amanda is a woman who is abandoned by her husband and left with two children to raise. She is a woman who lives in the past as the past was a time of beautiful clothes and fun times whereas the present is one of hardship and little hope. The children Tom and Laura have their own battles to fight. Laura is crippled by unknown circumstances as a child and has to wear a leg brace. The leg brace so embarrasses Laura that it causes her to withdraw from people and ultimately from high school. Tom finishes high school and goes to work at a shoe warehouse in order to help support the family. Tom is a dreamer and poet who is frustrated with his life. He is going no where and knows it. He wants adventure but has no chance of finding it as long as he's stuck supporting his mother and sister. Amanda wants a better future for her children and is determined they will get what she considers a better future even if she has to nag and push them to get it. Amanda however fails to see how her children really are or what they want. The result is the children fight back. Laura by now is so painfully shy that she can't take the typing classes her mother pays for without getting sick. She ends up lying to her mother about going to them. Amanda ultimately finds out and comes up with a new scheme to give Laura a future but again fails to take into account how Laura truly is. Amanda tries to get Tom to give up the movies he loves so he can use the money to go to night school. She fails to see that the movies are the only escape for Tom. Things ultimately come to a head when Amanda gets Tom to introduce Laura to a friend at work. Laura remembers the friend from her school days and finds him charming. The friend flirts with Laura and for a few moments Laura leaves her self-made world for the real world till the friends brings her shatteringly down by revealing he is in love with another girl. Laura will retreat to the world of her glass animals presumably never to return. Amanda rails on Tom for not knowing of the man's love for another girl and it is the last straw for Tom. Shortly after, he is fired and abandons his mother and sister to join the merchant marine. However, Tom doesn't escape his sister for he feels guilt the rest of his life for abandoning her. We meet the older and wiser Tom at the beginning of the play when dressed as a sailor, he opens the play setting the stage for all the action that follows.

The play is extremely powerful and heartbreakingly sad. One feels for Tom who ultimately for his own sake must abandon his family if he is to avoid the same dilusionary worlds his mother and sister are trapped in. One must also feel some sadness for Laura. She is actually a very nice girl but, she has become so withdrawn that she has no chance of any future happiness. In regards to Amanda, I found I have mixed feelings about her. I admire her for wanting what is best for her children but hate her for constant nagging on her children. She wants what she perceives as best for her children and fails to take into account how what they feel or how they truly are. At the end of the play, Amanda seeks to console the devastated Laura and yet her consolement will undoubtedly ensure Laura continues to live in her make believe world. The play is a great tragedy.

While the play isn't at all cheerful or fun, it is still a great play and deserves its place among the classics. It is a gripping tale of a dysfunctional family. I would strongly recommend if you like plays, that you go see it or read the play. It really is masterpiece of modern theater.