Prudence UptonTennessee Williams (1911-1983) is widely regarded as one of America’s greatest playwrights. A prolific and unabashedly autobiographical writer, Williams’ career spanned four decades of the 20th century.The Glass Menagerie, which premiered in Chicago on December 26 1944, was the writer’s first major success.
It won scores of national theatrical awards and catapulted Williams to enduring fame. An engrossing new production of the classic play, currently running at Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre, does more than simply revive the famous piece of theatre. It revitalises it for modern audiences.
A troubled family from St. LouisThe Glass Menagerie is a lyrical exploration of memory, longing and familial obligation. Set in the 1930s in St.
Louis, the play revolves around three adult members of the Wingfield family: Tom, a restless and possibly closeted young man torn between duty and desire; Laura, his painfully shy sister, whose physical disability and introversion leave her isolated from the world; and Amanda, their domineering but fragile mother who clings to faded Southern dreams. The plot is simple, and draws direct inspiration from Williams’ troubled family life. The Wingfields are struggling to get by.
They live in a cramped apartment, in the shadow of an absent patriarch who we hear “fell in love with long distances” a long time ago.Amanda is desperate to secure a future for Laura. She pins her hopes on the arrival of a “gentleman caller”, convinced t.
