A Salisbury Playhouse &

Shared Experience production

by Tennessee Williams

EDUCATION PACK
Compiled by Aisling Zambon with Hanna Osmolska
Article Page

Shared Experience 2

Salisbury Playhouse 2

The Pack 2

Interview with Polly Teale – Director 3

Background to Tennessee Williams 5

Inside the Author’s Mind – Polly Teale 9

Historical Background to The Glass Menagerie 10

A Unified Production – Themes of the play in visual form 12

Interview with Naomi Dawson – Designer 13

Expressionism at Shared Experience 15

Interview with Patrick Kennedy 16

Interview with Emma Lowndes 18

Writing a Review 21

Bibliography 22

1
At the heart of our work is the Power and Excitement of the Salisbury Playhouse is one of Britain’s leading producing theatres,
performer’s physical presence and the unique collaboration with a national reputation for home-grown work of the highest quality
between actor and audience – a Shared Experience. We that attracts audiences from across the South West and beyond.
are committed to creating theatre that goes beyond our Our programme is wide-ranging – a deliberately eclectic but well-
everyday lives, giving form to the hidden world of emotion and balanced mix of intelligent and entertaining work, which receives
imagination. We see the rehearsal process as a genuinely open regular critical and audience acclaim for the choice and standard
forum for asking questions and taking risks that redefine the of work and the excellence of the acting.
possibilities of performance.
The building comprises the 517-seat Main House, 149-seat
Salberg Studio, purpose-built Rehearsal Room and Tesco
Community & Education Space. There is also an on-site scenery
workshop, wardrobe and props store.

Participation is central to the Playhouse’s work. Our extensive

Participation programme sees more than 14,000 people of all ages
engaging with nearly 400 events each year. This includes the Stage
’65 Youth Theatre, which has 275 members. In 2009, Salisbury
Playhouse became the first appointed Arts Award Welcome Centre
in the South West.

Many events are linked to our productions – both pre-show

workshops, such as Theatre Days and Setting the Scene, and
post-show discussions. There is also a wide range of other
opportunities to make theatre and to extend your knowledge of
how theatre is made at the Playhouse, through schools workshops,
backstage tours, work placements and Plays in a Day.
Patrick Kennedy

To get involved and for further information, visit our website,

www.salisburyplayhouse.com, or contact Louise Dancy,
Participation Co-ordinator, either on 01722 320117
or via email: participation2@salisburyplayhouse.com

This education pack is intended as an introduction and

follow up to seeing our production of The Glass Menagerie.

We’ve included background material on the play and

Tennessee Williams, Shared Experience’s approach and
information on our creative process and production,
also interviews with the cast and creative team.

We hope that it is used as a resource to give insight to

some of the ideas and approaches central to Shared
Experience and this production. There are questions
and exercises throughout to stimulate and provoke
both discussion and practical work of your own.

Aisling Zambon

2
How does The Glass Menagerie lend itself to
Shared Experience’s expressionistic style of working?

Because The Glass Menagerie is so autobiographical we are

placing Tennessee, the writer, at the heart of his own creation.
We are imagining we are inside Tennessee Williams’ head
and we are seeing everything through his eyes. For example,
I don’t think Amanda is an accurate portrait of his mother,
but I think she expresses his experience of her, which
is overwhelming and suffocating.

I’m interested in the possibility of seeing Amanda and Laura

as embodying aspects of Tennessee himself. Amanda can be
seen as the extrovert, charismatic, gregarious side of Tennessee
and Laura is the introvert, reclusive, frightened side. I think that’s
a very expressionistic interpretation of the play, because you’re
seeing it as a type of psychodrama, where everything relates
to Tom, to Tennessee and his psyche.

What draws you to focus on the writer’s process

in your production?

Well I think some of the long narrator speeches in the play

are tricky, they can feel a bit old fashioned and clunky, so by Polly Teale
making it about the writers’ process and his journey towards
thispainful piece of his history, it feels to me to be more alive,
more psychologically interesting. One of the things Tennessee
Williams was at great pains to explain is that he didn’t want
it to be done in a naturalistic way and I think this allows
us to move into that territory. Themes in the Play
How will you treat Tennessee Williams’ stage directions • Conflict between the Depression

and his descriptions of screen projection? and the American Dream

I love the stage directions! I think they’re almost like a poem, • The Writer’s Process
so I may get the character of Tennessee to speak some of the • Aspirations & Disappointment
stage directions. We’ve also decided to use movie projection.
We’re told that Tom is constantly at the movies, Laura goes • Family Responsibility
to the movies while bunking off college and Amanda’s inner • Entrapment & Escapism
life is heavily influenced by the movies. So the idea of using
projected imagery is in order to conjure up and make visible
their inner lives which are influenced and affected by the movies.
In terms of expressionism it’s a way of getting inside their heads
and experiencing their reality.

3
 In terms of the world of the play, how will you convey
the conflict between the economic depression and the
progression of the ‘American Dream’? Exercise
By using advertising billboards in the set design there is
immediately a counterpoint between aspirational life and the reality
Devising
of a rather grim apartment where they are all cooped up together.
In 4 small groups, each choose one of the characters
This conflict will also be conveyed through the use of the film
from the play and devise 2 short scenes; one presenting
footage in the production, which will show the idealised images that
that character in their ideal and fantasy life, what they
Amanda’s carrying of a glamorous Southern plantation existence
truly desire, and the other their worst case scenario;
– very lavish in contrast to the reality of their everyday lives.
what that character truly fears.
It’s also obviously very much there in the play. Jim embodies that
Consider the following:
belief of the ‘American Dream’; aspiring to be like the man who
invented chewing gum and went on to become a multi-millionaire. • What is Tom’s true ambition and what is stopping him
Although there’s something very appealing about Jim and his from living the life he wants?
optimism, there’s also something rather poignant, tragic even,
• When was Amanda happiest? Why does she push her
about his faith in the future. The depression shut down opportunity
children to succeed?
and limited people’s options, which is a big part of the story.
• How does Laura feel about Jim? Why does she lie to her
mother about attending the business course at college?
What effect do you want the play to have on the audience?
• What are Jim’s aspirations? How has Jim changed since
I hope the audience will empathise with everybody in it.
High School?
It’s one of those great plays where hopefully there’s a part
of you in each of the characters and so your sympathies will
be pulled around. Although the play expresses the frustration
and anger we can feel towards our family it also contains great
love and tenderness.

Questions
“The Glass Menagerie The Writer
can be presented with • Tennessee Williams’ play is very autobiographical;

unusual freedom from what do you think he wanted to achieve, through

writing about aspects of his own life and family?
convention... Expressionism
The Production
and all other unconventional • What were your expectations of the play before you
techniques have only one saw it and how did you feel at the end of the play?

valid aim, and that is a • What image from the production has stayed in your
mind and why?
closer approach to truth.” • What line from the play has stayed in your mind
(Stage Directions, Scene One, The Glass Menagerie) and why?

4
 Background to
Tennessee Williams
“I don’t think I would have been the poet I am without
that anguished familial situation.” Tennessee Williams, 26 March 1911 - 25 February 1983 th th

Fittingly for the grandson of a minister, Tennessee Williams was

born on Palm Sunday, 1911, and christened Thomas Lanier Williams.
His father Cornelius Williams worked for a telephone company and
then later an international shoe company in St Louis. Despite his
considerable charms he turned out to be a heavy drinker, gambler
and womaniser who was often absent. Due to this, his mother,
Edwina, took her three young children to live with their grandparents,
Reverend Walter and Rosetta Dakin. Tennessee, his older sister Rose
and younger brother Dakin, lived a comfortable life in the southern
states and although not rich, the family enjoyed the privileges of
Reverend Dakin’s status. Many years later, Dakin Williams described
this period as having “more than money, we had the status of being
the minister’s family.” Williams derived inspiration from his upbringing
and his family for much of his writing. The character of Amanda
in The Glass Menagerie is based on his mother who, like Amanda,
had a genteel southern upbringing.

Several illnesses as a child made Tennessee frail and delayed him

starting school. Instead of playing sports with other young boys,
Tennessee became very close to his sister Rose and they would
spend lots of time together making up stories. Around this time
Rose began to skip school to stay at home because of her
nervous temperament. Rose was to be the inspiration for Laura
in The Glass Menagerie. Tennessee Williams

Tennessee’s mother, Edwina, noticed his unusual concentration

and imagination from an early age and encouraged him to write
stories. She noted that: “other children would pick a flower,
then carelessly throw it away, but Tom would stand peering into
the heart of the flower as though trying to discover the secret
“Memory takes a lot of poetic
of its life”. license. It omits some
In 1918 when Tennessee was 7 he moved, with his mother and
siblings, to live with his father in a tenement in the industrial city
details; others are
of St Louis. Over the next few years the family moved several times
and by the time Tennessee was 15 he had lived in 16 different
exaggerated for memory
homes as his mother sought to improve their living conditions. is seated predominantly
This certainly contributed to his pattern of geographical instability
in later life when a gypsylike temperament characterised even in the heart”
his most successful years.
(Stage Directions, Scene One, The Glass Menagerie)

5
Despite the constant upheavals, or perhaps because of them,
Tennessee continued to write and his poems and short stories
won him prizes and recognition throughout High School.

After High School, Tennessee enrolled at the University of Missouri,

but poor grades in sport and a lack of funds meant his father
withdrew him a few years later. Tennessee moved back home
to attend secretarial college and work with his father at the shoe
company. His sister Rose was becoming more reclusive and
Edwina, anxious for her to marry, arranged for a series of callers.
One of the callers was called Jim O’Connor and although not much
is known about the visit it is thought to have provided inspiration
for The Glass Menagerie. Rose was later admitted to a sanatorium
where she became increasingly unstable. While Tennessee was
writing The Glass Menagerie, Rose was given a lobotomy.

Tennessee returned to university, and in 1938 at the age of 27,

received a degree from the University of Iowa. While there he studied
hard and had a number of plays produced by the drama society
including Spring Storm. The works of Chekhov, Ibsen and Strindberg
were an inspiration and helped develop his style of writing. In 1939
he changed his name from Tom to Tennessee when his first short Edwina Estelle Dakin, Cornelius Coffin Williams
story was published. about the time of her marriage

The struggle for recognition as a writer took many years. In 1943,

Tennessee Williams began to work for MGM as a screenwriter.
He wrote an outline for a film called The Gentleman Caller, which
would later become The Glass Menagerie. It was turned down
by the studio who felt that since Gone with the Wind there were
too many films about the south.

The Glass Menagerie opened as a play in Chicago in December

1944. It wasn’t immediately popular at the box office, but was
championed by the critics and subsequently received the New
York Drama Critics Circle Award and the Sidney Howard Memorial
Award. Tennessee gave half the royalties from the play to his
mother so that she never lacked material support and was finally
able to at last liberate herself from Cornelius Williams.

When speaking about his personal life, Tennessee Williams said

that “sexuality is a basic part of my nature, I never considered my
homosexuality as anything to be disguised. Neither did I consider
it a matter to be over-emphasized”. Despite this, Williams often
referred to the loneliness he felt after sexual encounters. He often
described himself as haunted by “the blue devils”, a phrase
that recurs again and again in his diaries, referring to his anxiety
attacks and deep feelings of insecurity.

Rose Isabel Williams

6
In 1947, Tennessee Williams met and fell in love with Frank Merlo,
a second generation Sicilian American who had served in the U.S.
Navy during WWII. This was his only long-term relationship. Merlo
proved to be a calming influence on Tennessee, and it was during
this period that the playwright produced some of his greatest work.
In 1961, Merlo died of lung cancer and Williams fell into a deep
depression that would persist for nearly a decade.

Tennessee Williams wrote some of the landmark plays of the

twentieth century, receiving huge acclaim and recognition,
including Pulitzer Prizes in 1948 and 1955. Among his most
recognised plays are The Glass Menagerie (1944), A Streetcar
Named Desire (1947), Camino Real (1953), Cat On A Hot Tin
Roof (1955), Baby Doll (1957) and Orpheus Descending (1957).
In addition to this he wrote many short stories, poems and two
novels. Through the 1970s and 1980s, Williams continued to write
for the theatre, though he was unable to repeat the success of most
of his early years and struggled with alcoholism and depression.
He continued to travel widely throughout his life, living in New York,
Los Angeles, New Orleans, Key West and Sicily.

“My loneliness Edwina Williams reading to Rose and Tom

makes me grow
Exercise
like a vine Family Images

about people Each actor, playing one of the characters in the play, takes
turns to create a still image of their family in the story.

who are kind They should physically put the characters into the position
they want them in, as if sculpting a statue. This should be
done silently. The image should express their character’s

to me.” subjective experience of the family. So, for Amanda,

she may see herself as the saviour in the picture, whilst
for Tom, she may be a tyrant. The more personal the
Tennessee Williams, Notebooks sculpture, the better.

The actor should then place themselves in character into

the picture to complete it.

The group should discuss each image, saying what they

see. Then the group must try to create an image of the
‘ideal Wingfield family’.

Is it possible to reach a consensus of what this is?

7
 “Oh, God have pity
on my poor little
sister! – this I mean
If nothing else –
pity her and forgive
us all.”
Tennessee Williams, Notebooks

Emma Lowndes

Exercise
Monologue

In small groups, read through Amanda’s speech below. And then try performing the speech using these 2 different objectives:

1. Amanda wants to prove to Tom that she is of value and importance (emphasise the status and wealth of her suitors)

2. Amanda wants to inspire Laura to become a Southern Belle in her own image (try to involve and excite Laura with the story)

The Glass Menagerie, Scene 1

Amanda:

“…My callers were all gentlemen – all! Among my callers were There were the Cutrere brothers, Wesley and Bates. Bates was
some of the most prominent young planters of the Mississippi one of my bright particular beaux!
Delta – planters and sons of planters!
He got in a quarrel with that wild Wainwright boy. They shot it
(Tom motions for music and a spot of light on Amanda. Her out on the floor of Moon Lake Casino. Bates was shot through
eyes lift, her face glows, her voice becomes rich and elegiac.) the stomach. Died in the ambulance on his way to Memphis.
His widow was also well provided for, came into eight or ten
There was young champ Laughlin who later became
thousand acres, that’s all. She married him on the rebound –
vice-president of the Delta Planters Bank.
never loved her – carried my picture on him the night he died!
Hadley Stevenson who was drowned in Moon Lake and left his
And there was that boy that every girl in the Delta had set
widow one hundred and fifty thousand in Government bonds.
her cap for! That brilliant, brilliant young Fitzhugh boy from
Greene County!”

Question: Did the change in objectives bring out different aspects of the speech?

8
by Polly Teale

The Glass Menagerie is the most autobiographical of all Williams’

plays. Tom, the central character, is given Tennessee’s real name.
Not only does much of the story come directly from Williams’ own
life and experience but he places the writer at the heart of his own
creation. The writer tells us the story. In The Glass Menagerie we are
taken inside the author’s mind as he conjures up characters and
places; as he returns to his past in order to face the guilt he feels
about abandoning his family for another life.

Re-reading the play, I became fascinated by the process in which

the writer inhabits his characters, hearing their voices, sensing
their energy and inner life, their physical and emotional presence.
This becomes all the more fascinating when the characters are
members of the writer’s own family, when they are so closely
connected to the writer and the writer’s evolution that they exist
both as characters and as a part of the writer’s self. Tennessee
grew up suffused in his mother’s idealised romantic stories of her
youth in the Deep South. There was a part of him that adored and
embodied that old world charm and vivacity. Tennessee was every Emma Lowndes and Kyle Soller
bit the socialite, the charismatic entertainer and seducer. But there
was also a part of him that identified with Rose, his sister and model
for Laura. Perhaps it was this affinity that made them so close and on the screen. Both Tom’s and Amanda’s inner worlds are strongly
sharpened his guilt at abandoning her to an unhappy fate. Rose influenced by the movies. When Tom explains why he has to leave
became increasingly unstable in the years after Tennessee left St. Louis it is because he wants to experience the life he’s seen in
home, and never recovered her sanity after a disastrous lobotomy. the movies. Amanda’s life is only bearable because she escapes into
But even before this catastrophe Rose was a fragile young woman. fantastical memories of her charmed youth. The stories play out like
And Tennessee knew Rose’s fear and insecurity only too well. The scenes from old films, as if she were the star in her own movie.
recluse, the drinker, the man who wanted to hide away; the fragile
So in order to conjure more vividly the characters’ experience we
spirit who withdrew into his writing, too afraid to face the world.
have created our own cinema – the celluloid movie stars projected
So Amanda and Laura can be seen as parts of Tennessee himself. huge behind our flesh and blood characters, just as they exist in
They are the very stuff of which he is made. They are the past he their minds.
cannot leave behind because it is himself. The writing of the play
Williams wrote in the introduction to The Glass Menagerie that
is perhaps an attempt to exorcise his past. To make it visible,
productions of the play should be “Expressionistic” and free from
to see it and face it instead of carrying it within.
the constraints of naturalism. “The scene is memory. Memory takes
A word about our use of projected movie footage. The thirties a lot of poetic licence. It omits some details and exaggerates others
is often referred to as the “Golden Age of Cinema”. While other according to the emotional value of the articles it touches”. In the
industries floundered during the Depression, the movies thrived. pages of notes with which he prefixes the play he urges us to find
For a relatively small price anyone could escape into another world: a language that goes beyond the surface of life and expresses a
a world of adventure and glamour, of excitement and romance. deeper truth: “A more penetrating and vivid expression of things as
The collective conciousness was changed forever as America went they are”.
into “the dark room” to see its fantasies and fears made real

9
Historical Background
to The Glass Menagerie
When Tennessee Williams was Tom Wingfield’s age in The Glass
Menagerie, the United States of America was going through a period
of great change and contradiction. The Wall Street Crash plunged
the country into a depression and large numbers of people lived
in poverty, yet individual entrepreneurs were still able to become
millionaires if they had an enterprising idea. Most industries
floundered yet the Cinema flourished. Mass unemployment meant
that more people were out of work yet women were heading out
into the workplace in greater numbers than ever before. This article
looks at several cultural references made during the play and aims
to set them into an historical context.

Great Depression
The Great Depression began with the dramatic crash of the stock
market on Black Thursday, 24 October, 1929 when 16 million
shares of stock were quickly sold by panicking investors who had
lost faith in the American economy. Businesses closed their doors,
factories shut down, banks failed and many people lost their jobs
and their savings. At the height of the Depression in 1933, nearly Emma Lowndes
25% of the nation’s total work force, 12,830,000 people, were
unemployed. Bread lines were a common sight in most cities.
Hundreds of thousands roamed the country in search of food, Technological Advances
work and shelter.
Jim O’Connor: “Think of the fortune made by the guy that invented
Wages for workers who were lucky enough to have kept their jobs the first piece of chewing gum. Amazing, huh? The Wrigley Building
fell almost 43% between 1929 and 1933. It was the worst economic is one of the sights of Chicago, I saw it the summer before last when
disaster in American history. Farm prices fell so drastically that I went up to the Century of Progress. Did you take in the Century
many farmers lost their homes and land. Within three months, of Progress?”
President Roosevelt enacted a number of laws to help the economy
The Century of Progress International Exposition was the name of
recover. New jobs were created by building roads, bridges, airports,
the World Fair held in America in 1934 to celebrate technological
parks and public buildings. Despite all the President’s efforts the
innovation. Exhibits included cutting edge cars, limousines, trains
Depression hung on until 1941, when America’s involvement
and a ‘Homes of Tomorrow’ section. The exposition celebrated
in the Second World War resulted in the drafting of young men into
advancement and encouraged America to continue to be at the
military service, and the creation of millions more jobs in defence
forefront of the developed world. Although the country was in the
and war industries.
midst of a depression, entrepreneurs looking to become the next
Wrigley or Rockefeller were still able to become millionaires if they
could find the right product. The electric razor, nylon, photocopiers,
magnetic recording, Polaroids and sticky tape were all invented
in the 1930s and went on to have mass appeal and success.

10
Working Women

Traditional roles within the family changed in the 1930s. During the
First World War and in the 1920s women had begun to go out and
work in greater numbers and this trend continued in the 1930s.
Many men found themselves out of work due to the Depression
and it was often easier to find opportunities for female employment.
This was partly due to the nature of the work undertaken and also
because women could be paid less. By the 1940s, over one third
of white American women were working in the clerical sector. Many
women found their status enhanced by this newfound employment
and this gave them a stronger voice and more financial power
in domestic decisions.

As unemployment rose during the 1930s there was increasing

resentment at women going out to work and taking jobs away
from the ‘male breadwinner’. This was particularly true for married
women as it was felt they could be supported by their husband.
There was more tolerance for single women or young women.
It is interesting to note that Laura, as a young, single woman, gets
sent to secretarial college where she can learn skills which will
help her find employment in an office, whereas Amanda, who is a
married woman with a husband who has a necessity to work and
support her family, has to engage in a far more discreet form
of employment.
Patrick Kennedy, Polly Teale & Imogen Stubbs
Tenement Buildings
In the United States, tenement is a label usually applied to the less Commercial air travel was also beginning in the early 1930s,
expensive, more basic rental apartment buildings in older sections although it was so expensive that only the very rich could afford
of large cities. The tenement building in The Glass Menagerie would to travel this way. Films regularly featured new forms of travel
have been familiar to many in the 1930s and is described as a symbol of independence and freedom.
by Tennessee Williams thus:

“The Wingfield apartment is in the rear of the building, one of those

Cinema
vast hive-like conglomerations of cellular living-units that flower One-third of Americans were below the poverty line, yet some
as warty growths in overcrowded urban centres of lower-middle- industries actually managed to make a profit at the beginning of
class population. The apartment faces an alley and is entered by a the 1930s as the public looked towards entertainment as a form
fire-escape, a structure whose name is a touch of accidental poetic of escapism. If Americans couldn’t find work, at least they could go
truth, for all of these huge buildings are always burning with the slow for a drive, have a cigarette, or go to a movie. Correspondingly, sales
and implacable fires of human desperation.” of oil, gas, cigarettes, and movie tickets all went up.

The 1930s was “The Golden Age of Hollywood”, it was the era in
Travel
which the silent period ended, and Hollywood turned out movie after
In order to combat the depression, President Roosevelt put money movie to entertain an audience looking for an evening of escapism.
into public works and many people found themselves at work People of all classes now flocked to the grand movie palaces to
building new roads, railway lines and telephone communications. see favourite celebrities such as Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Shirley
The highway Route 66 was completed in the 1930s and ran from Temple and Errol Flynn.
Chicago to Los Angeles, creating connections between hundreds
of small American towns. It carried thousands of Depression-era
migrants to California hoping for jobs and a better life. Others
earned a living on the road, or by its side, running businesses.

11
A Unified Production
– Themes of the play
in visual form
Polly Teale and the Designer, Naomi Dawson, discussed their
responses to the play and began to evolve a shared vision of the
production. Their ideas about the world of the play can be seen in
the stage design. The giant billboards and movie images suggest
travel, adventure and romance. These images of escape act to
highlight the suffocation and claustrophobia the family feel at their
unfulfilled dreams. In Scene 6, Tom says: “I’m tired of the movies…
all of those glamorous people – having adventures – hogging it all,
gobbling the whole thing up. You know what happens? People go
to the movies instead of moving. Hollywood characters are supposed
to have all the adventures for everybody in America.”

The set will be “primarily two rooms, with the feeling of being on
the top floor of a large apartment block. Above them will be huge
billboards; one depicting aeroplane travel and another of the ‘ideal
family’, but they will have an old and worn look about them.” The
play is set in the 1930’s when there were dramatic advances in
technology and the belief in the ‘American Dream’ where people are
deemed to have infinite potential. This was in stark contrast to the
grim reality of people’s daily lives during the depression. And these
two forces are expressed in the set.

During the Depression, many industries struggled while the film

industry flourished. It cost very little to see a film; escaping into a Kyle Soller
more glamorous, adventurous world of romance and excitement,
where people’s fears and fantasies were projected on to the big
screen. America’s collective consciousness was forever changed. The decision to use huge images in the production was also partly
Both Tom and Amanda’s inner worlds are strongly influenced by the inspired by the knowledge that at the point of writing The Glass
movies; this is portrayed through the use of projected movie footage Menagerie, Tennessee Williams was being employed at MGM
in the production; Polly accounts: “When Tom explains why he has to Studios to write and rewrite movie scripts. From his published
leave St Louis, it’s because he wants to experience the life he’s seen diaries, we know he would sometimes wander around the movie
in the movies. Amanda’s life is only bearable because she escapes sets. Williams’ also wrote part of the play while staying at his
into her fantastical memories of her charmed youth. The stories family home.
play out like scenes from old films, as if she was the star of her own
movie. So, in order to conjure more vividly the characters experience,
we have created our own cinema. The celluloid movie stars projected
huge behind our flesh and blood characters, just as they exist in
their minds.” Tom’s images are to do with escape and adventure;
“Tom feels he’s under siege, being trapped and suffocated. In
expressionistic terms, it describes his inner state, his psyche.”

12
Interview with
Naomi Dawson – Designer
What main themes did you focus on in the set design?

One of the themes we were exploring in the set was memory;

we wanted to make it clear that the play is seen through Tom, the
writer’s, eyes and that the characters are figments of his memory.
We therefore created a space which is more expressionistic than
naturalistic; so it is not a replica of the family home, but holds items
and furniture which become symbolic for Tom and the story being
told. Also to highlight this idea, we created a space which could be
used differently by the different characters. Hence the space holds
no rules for the writer, he can roam freely wherever he likes, it is
his memory i.e. the other characters that are all confined by the
imaginary walls of the apartment.

How does the set express the lives of the

characters living in it?

It has drab colours and shabby furniture, which will hopefully

convey the harshness of their lives. This will be juxtaposed with
the projection of their fantasies on the billboard. It also features a
predominant fire escape, which can merge into the inside space.
This is as Tennessee Williams wrote in his stage directions:

‘a structure whose name is a touch of accidental truth, for all these

huge buildings are always burning with the slow and implacable
fires of human desperation.The fire-escape is included in the set
– that is the landing of it and steps descending from it’.

Another key theme was escape and fantasy. This is explored in a

social context by placing advertising billboards around the home
with images relating to the ‘American Dream’, and to have them in
a derelict state lets us see the reality for most people at this time
during the Depression. To convey the characters dreams of escape,
their fantasies will be played out using projection of old film footage
onto one of the billboards.

13
Design Questions

Notes from the Script

At the rise of the curtain, the audience is faced with the dark grim
rear wall of the Wingfield tenement. This building, which runs
Questions
parallel to the footlights, is flanked on both sides by dark, narrow Design
alleys which run into murky canyons of tangled clothes-lines,
garbage cans, and the sinister lattice-work of neighbouring fire- • How did the costumes in the play help to depict
escapes. It is up and down these side alleys that exterior entrances the characters?
and exits are made, during the play. At the end of Tom’s opening
• How did the lighting and sound design enhance
commentary, the dark tenement wall slowly reveals (by means of
a transprency) the interior of the ground floor Wingfield apartment. the atmosphere of the play?
• How did the use of projected film help to tell the story?
Downstage is the living-room, which also serves as a sleeping-room
for Laura, the sofa unfolding to make her bed. Upstage, centre, and • When in your opinion was the most effective use
divided by a wide arch or second procesnium with transparent faded of music or sound in the production, and why?
portieres (or second curtain), is the dining-room. In an old-fashioned
• What was your favourite aspect of the design?
what-not in the living-room are seen scores of transparent glass
animals. A blown-up photograph of the father hangs on the wall of • If you were designing this production with an unlimited
the living-room, facing the audience, to the left of the archway. It is budget, would you use Tennessee Williams’ notes on
the face of a very hansome young man in a doughboy’s First World the set, and how would your design differ from ours?
War cap. He is gallently smiling, ineluctably smiling, as if to say
‘I will be smiling for ever’.

The audience hears and sees the opening scene in the dining-room
through both the transparent fourth wall of the building and the
transparent gauze portieres of the dingin-room arch. It is during this
revealing scene that the fourth wall slowly ascends out of sight. This
transparent exterior wall is not brought down again until the very end
of the play, during Tom’s final speech.

The narrator is an undisguised convention of the play. He takes

whatever license with dramatic concention is convenient to his
purposes.

Tom enters dressed as a merchant sailor from alley, stage left, and
strolls across the front of the stage to the fire-escape. There he stops
and lights a cigarette. He addresses the audience.

14
Expressionism at
Shared Experience
In our everyday lives we hide much of what we think and feel, for During rehearsals we encourage actors to allow this bubbling
fear we would be considered foolish or even mad. We believe there emotional energy to erupt and take over. In a scene where someone
is a longing to see expressed in the theatre that which we conceal is secretly feeling very angry, when they allow the inner to erupt
in life; to share our ‘madness’ and understand that we are not alone. onto the surface they may viciously attack the other person; if the
other character is feeling afraid they might crawl under the table.
Central to Shared Experience’s approach is the desire to go beyond
Having allowed the inner to erupt, the actor must return to the scene
naturalism and to see into the character’s private world. There will
and struggle to conceal it. Although we may see two people drinking
be moments on stage when we literally enact whatever a character
tea, we sense that underneath the social ritual it is as if murder
is secretly feeling or imagining. In more realistic scenes the
is taking place.
social façade is a thin layer beneath which bubbles a river
of suppressed emotion.

“The past keeps getting

bigger and bigger at
the future’s expense.”
Tennessee Williams, Notebooks

This emphasis on subjective experience runs through all areas of

the production. For example, the setting of the play will be more
expressive of what a place feels like than what it realistically looks
like. In Jane Eyre everything on stage was grey or black to express
the loneliness of Jane’s inner world. In War and Peace the set was a
hall of mirrors to suggest the vanity and narcissism of the aristocracy
in Tolstoy’s Russia. In The House of Bernarda Alba the house felt
like a prison. We decided to make the door colossally large and
encrusted it with locks and bolts. It is this emphasis on the ‘inner’
or the subjective experience which characterises expressionism
and it is at the heart of Shared Experience’s approach.

“Memory takes a lot of poetic

license. It omits some details;
Emma Lowndes & Imogen Stubbs
others are exaggerated... for
memory is seated predominantly
in the heart.”
(Stage Directions, Scene One, The Glass Menagerie)

15
Interview with
Patrick Kennedy
Have you done any research to prepare for your role?

I have done a lot of research on this because it’s a very

autobiographical play. The Glass Menagerie was Williams’ first big
success and he drew very much on his own life, although there are
some differences. I’ve read his memoirs; it was a wonderful read at
first and the closer it got to the present time at which he’s writing,
the more despairing and tragic it becomes, you can feel how many
pills he’s popping and how much booze he’s swilling. I also read
Williams’ diary, and his frustrations were almost exactly the same
as Tom’s. Like Tom, he looked towards the Spanish Civil War and
saw it as an opportunity for adventure.

How much of his real life and personality have you applied
to your role?

I’m using a lot of background from his biography, but I’m not trying
to do an impersonation of Tennessee. The research I did was
really helpful, because I’ve got this ready made back-story to the
character. Immediately your imagination is filled in by the material Patrick Kennedy

facts of his and his family’s’ life in St Louis.

Can you tell us more about the rehearsal process so far?

The process is very honest; it’s not just ‘say your lines and try not
to bump into the furniture’. The way we’re approaching the play Questions
with Shared Experience is to really try to understand the characters
motivations and to completely delve into the psychological and The Writer
emotional aspects. The physical life of the characters is very
important, so we’re very aware of where we’re situated, living • Tennessee Williams’ play is very autobiographical;

in this small apartment. It’s a very detailed rehearsal process. what do you think he wanted to achieve, through
For every single reference in the play, Polly wants us to have writing about aspects of his own life and family?
an emotional or visual reference thought out, so the character
is fleshed out, no stone is left unturned. The Production

What kinds of work have you done in rehearsal • What were your expectations of the play before you

to physically embody your character? saw it and how did you feel at the end of the play?

I’ve never worked with a company that has this sort of depth of • What image from the production has stayed
approach; it’s often assumed you’ve done the preparation work in your mind and why?
yourself. Most of the morning we do improvisations and physical • What line from the play has stayed in your
exercises. Sometimes when we’re working on the text, Polly uses a
mind and why?
technique where she will clap her hands during a specific moment
of a scene and we have to express physically and vocally how the
character is feeling inside at that moment, which can really make
a scene take off, help you find the details and nuances in the text.

16
Emma Lowndes, Kyle Soller & Patrick Kennedy

Exercise
Chair exercise:

Two chairs are placed in the empty space and two actors (A and B) each sit on a chair. Each actor is given a ‘want’,
which needs to work in opposition with their partners ‘want’. For example:

A: to punish B B: to want forgiveness from A

Using only the chairs and their position relating to the other person, each actor must try to change the emotional state
of the other. No words or sound needed!

One actor ‘speaks’ by picking up their chair and moving it in relation to the other actor. Each person’s physical ‘sentence’
is complete when he/she sits back on their chair. The second actor ‘answers’ by then moving his/her chair. The actors must
stay in contact with his/her chair at all times. They pursue their ‘want’ in opposition to their partner.

Notice how much more interesting the exercise becomes when the actors desire to change the other person and achieve their
objective is very strong. Look to see what different strategies the person uses and what effect this has on the other actor.

17
Interview with
Emma Lowndes
What draws you to this play?

I was drawn to the project was because I knew of Shared Experience

and Polly’s work and was really keen to work with her. Also,
Tennessee Williams is one of my favourite writers. It is an exciting
challenge to play Laura in terms of her psychology and how to delve
into her world. As an actor I get to explore the things which in life
can be too difficult.

What have you found most useful during rehearsals to explore

and develop your character?

Shared Experience’s rehearsal methods explore what’s going inside

a character emotionally and psychologically and what that character
conceals and covers. We’ve done lots of improvisations about
Laura’s father leaving and improvised her first conversation with
Jim O’Connor at High School. We’ve also explored the things that
Tennessee Williams references about her life, but leaves out of the
Emma Lowndes
play. I found that really helpful.

Why is Laura’s glass menagerie so important to her?

It’s a world she disappears into when she feels frightened and
vulnerable; it makes her feel safe. Tennessee Williams describes her
Questions
as being almost like a piece of glass; the idea of being transparent
like glass is very comforting to her, because being looked at and Acting
seen is frightening to her. She has a very child-like quality and
• Which character do you have most empathy for & why?
an inability to develop into an adult. The glass menagerie
is a haven for her. • Choose one character in the play: what is their
Super Objective? or their driving want?
What is it that holds Laura back from leading a full life?
• And their over-arching objective in a particular scene?
Her overwhelming insecurity and anxiety, which I think in the main
• What do they fear most?
comes from her father abandoning her and her physical disability. The
problem with her leg has become enormous in her mind and stops her
from being a social person. St Louis is a frightening place to live for her
and the Depression a frightening time. She also finds it impossible to
live up to the woman her mother is, because Amanda’s beautiful
and really good at conversing, which makes Laura feel completely
inept in comparison.

How does Laura see her future?

She’s resigned to a life of loneliness, seclusion and illusion.

She doesn’t ever expect her mothers’ dreams for her to become
a reality. She’s a very intimidating role model.

18
 Exercise
Scene Study – Scene 7

In pairs, read through the excerpt of Scene 7 below, Decide what the crucial moments of the scene are. Create
when Jim O’Connor and Laura are alone together. a sequence of images which when put together tell the story
of the scene.
Discuss and consider the following questions:
• How does Laura feel being alone with Jim? Give each image a title or a headline to describe the
essence of it.
• What are Jim’s initial impressions of Laura?
Run through the images in sequence and now for each action
• Jim says that he suffered from an inferiority complex like image, create another parallel image of this moment, which
Laura. Does this surprise you? How do you think this has demonstrates how the characters are feeling inside, this can
affected his ambitions? Do you think Jim will fulfil his dreams? be abstract and expressionistic, rather than naturalistic.
• How does Laura make Jim feel when she talks Now go back to the script and read through again. Discuss how
about his singing? this exercise affected your understanding of the text: in terms
of your understanding of the characters and how they feel,
what they want and what their obstacles are in this scene.

The Glass Menagerie, Scene 7 Laura: What?

Jim: A pillow!
Jim: Hello, there, Laura.
Laura: Oh… [Hands him one quickly.]
Laura [faintly]: Hello. [She clears her throat.]
Jim: How about you? Don’t you like to sit on the floor?
Jim: How are you feeling now? Better?
Laura: Oh – yes.
Laura: Yes. Yes, thank you.
Jim: Why don’t you, then?
Jim: This is for you. A little dandelion wine. [He extends
it toward her with extravagant gallantry.] Laura: I – will.
Laura: Thank you. Jim: Take a pillow! [Laura does. Sits on the other side of the
candelabrum. Jim crosses his legs and smiles encouragingly at her.]
Jim: Drink it – but don’t get drunk! [He laughs heartily.
I can’t hardly see you sitting way over there.
Laura takes the glass uncertainly; laughs shyly.]
Where shall I set the candles? Laura: I can – see you.
Laura: Oh – oh, anywhere… Jim: I know, but that’s not fair, I’m in the limelight.
[Laura moves her pillow closer.] Good! Now I can see you!
Jim: How about here on the floor? Any objections?
Comfortable?
Laura: No
Laura: Yes.
Jim: I’ll spread a newspaper under to catch the drippings.
Jim: So am I. Comfortable as a cow! Will you have some gum?
I like to sit on the floor. Mind if I do?
Laura: No, thank you.
Laura: Oh no.

Jim: Give me a pillow?

Cont/

19
Jim: I think that I will indulge, with your permission. Jim: When did you recognize me?
[Musingly unwraps it and holds it up.] Think of the fortune made
Laura: Oh, right away!
by the guy that invested the first piece of chewing gum. Amazing,
huh? The Wrigley Building is one of the sights of Chicago. I saw it Jim: Soon as I came in the door?
the summer before last when I went up to the Century of Progress.
Laura: When I heard your name I thought it was probably you.
Did you take in the Century of Progress?
I knew that Tom used to know you a little in high school. So when
Laura: No, I didn’t. you came out the door – Well, then I was – sure.

Jim: Well, it was quite a wonderful exposition. What impressed me Jim: Why didn’t you say something, then?
most was the Hall of Science. Gives you an idea of what the future
Laura [breathlessly]: I didn’t know what to say, I was
will be in America, even more wonderful than the present time is!
– too surprised!
[Pauses. Smiling at her.] Your brother tells me you’re shy. Is that
right, Laura? Jim: For goodness’sakes! You know, this sure is funny!

Laura: I – don’t know. Laura: Yes! Yes, isn’t it, though…

Jim: I judge you to be an old-fashioned type of girl. Well, I think Jim: Didn’t we have a class in something together?
that’s a pretty good type to be. Hope you don’t think I’m being too
Laura: Yes, we did.
personal – do you?
Jim: What class was that?
Laura [hastily, out of embarrassment]: I believe I will take a piece
of gum, if you – don’t mind. [Clearing her throat.] Mr O’Connor, Laura: It was – singing – Chorus!
have you – kept up with your singing?
Jim: Aw.
Jim: Singing? Me?
Laura: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Laura: Yes. I remember what a beautiful voice you had.
Jim: Now I remember – you always came in late.
Jim: When did you hear me sing?
Laura: Yes , it was so hard for me, getting upstairs. I had
[Voice off stage in the pause] that brace on my leg – it clumped so loud!

Voice [off stage]: O blow, ye winds, heigh-ho, Jim: I never heard any clumping.
A-roving I will go!
Laura [wincing at the recollection]: To me it sounded like
I’m off to my love
– thunder!
With a boxing glove –
Ten thousand miles away! Jim: Well, well, well, I never even noticed.

Jim: You say you’ve heard me sing? Laura: And everbody was seated before I came in. I had
to walk in front of all those people. My seat was in the
Laura: Oh, yes! Yes, very often… I don’t suppose – you remember
back row. I had to go clumping all the way up the aisle
me – at all?
with everyone watching!
Jim [smiling doubtfully]: You know I have an idea I’ve seen You
Jim: You shouldn’t have been self-conscious.
before. I had that idea soon as you opened the door. It seemed
almost like I was about to remember your name. But the name that
Laura: I know, but I was. It was always such a relief when the
I started to call you – wasn’t a name! And so I stopped myself before
singing started.
I said it.
Jim: Aw, yes, I’ve placed you now! I used to call you Blue Roses.
Laura: Wasn’t it – blue roses?
How was it that I got started calling you that?
Jim [springs up. Grinning]: Blue roses! – My gosh, yes – Blue roses!
Laura: I was out of school a little while with pleurosis. When I came
That’s what I had on my tongue when you opened the door! Isn’t it
back you asked me what was the matter. I said I had pleurosis – you
funny what tricks your memory plays? I didn’t connect you with high
thought I had said Blue Roses. That’s what you always called me
school somehow or other. But that’s where it was; it was high school.
after that!
I didn’t even know you were Shakespeare’s sister! Gosh, I’m sorry.
Jim: I hope you didn’t mind.
Laura: I didn’t expect you to. You – barely knew me!

Jim: But we did have a speaking acquaintance, huh? Laura: Oh no – I liked it. You see I wasn’t acquainted
with many – people…
Laura: Yes, we – spoke to each other.
20
Writing a Review
Reviews help to communicate to others what a play is about and how the theatre company has chosen to tell the
story. When writing a review you should consider who might be reading it and what will be important to them.
You shouldn’t spoil the plot for the reader, but make them feel as if they have a sense of the whole production.

When writing a review you should: Consider:

• Say what you saw • The light, the sound, the movement, the colours
and textures of the play
• Say what you think
• The words, the music, the rhythms of the text
• Reflect on your responses
• The set, the costumes, the style of the production,
• Write freely from the heart
the objects
• Don’t worry about given theories
• The Themes
• Describe the tiniest moment that remains vivid
• The Characters
• Say why it spoke to you
• The Story
• The Ending

Write a review for a national newspaper. (Your review must be no longer than 500 words)

Write a review for a specific online website. (Your review must be no longer than 200 words)

Tweet your review. (Your review must be no longer than 140 characters)

21
Bibliography
• Hayman, R. Tennessee Williams – Everyone Else is an Audience (Hardcover - Feb. 23, 1994)

• Williams, T. & Devlin, A. J. & Patterson Tischler, N. M. The Selected Letters

of Tennessee Williams, Volume I: 1920-1945 (Paperback - Sept. 2002)

• Spoto, D, The Kindness of Strangers: Life of Tennessee Williams (The Botley Head, 1985)

Please contact Kate Saxon, Associate Director,

at Shared Experience for further information
regarding the company’s education work.
Tel: 0207 587 1596
kate@sharedexperience.org.uk

22