The Glass Menagerie

When Tennessee Williams wrote in his production notes that The Glass Menagerie “can be presented with unusual freedom of convention,” I’m sure he had no idea what “unconventional techniques” (as he put it) would be needed for a covid-19 staging. Neither did I when it was suggested for production last November. Fortunately, my student collaborators on this production have responded with impressive creativity and commitment. They have worked very hard and have played key creative roles, not only as actors, but designing lights, slides, sound, and props, along with dramaturgy and choreography, and now including video camera direction as well.

Our playwright advises us that “truth, life, or reality is an organic thing which the poetic imagination can represent or suggest, in essence, only through transformation, through changing into other forms than those which were merely present in appearance.” In this play, it is as seen through the eyes of memory by our poet, Tom. In our production, that came to include actors who, by their very casting, raised questions about the choices, words, and actions of the characters, along with those of the world they inhabit and the circumstances we find ourselves in today.

Tom “Tennessee” Williams, in his character’s narration of this “memory”, reminds us both of the dichotomies and the relationships between reality and illusion. The character Tom informs us that, “being a memory play… it is not realistic.” The playwright, Tennessee, notes that even while “a play employs “unconventional techniques, it is not, or certainly shouldn’t be, trying to escape its responsibility of dealing with reality, or interpreting experience.” For this, he advocated “a new, plastic theatre which must take the place of the exhausted theatre of realistic conventions if the theatre is to resume vitality as a part of our culture.” What would he say about it if he were alive today?