The Glass Menagerie is a memory play that recounts the break-up of a family living in a tenement in St.

	"McLean Players Capture Fragility of 'Glass Menagerie'" Our current production of The Glass Menagerie got an excellent review this week. Provides a "... delicate and captivating experience." - Toscano, Washington Post Read the review

Louis in the 1930's. The action is the son's recollection of events that happened ten years earlier. Tom Wingfield, a would-be poet, works in a shoe warehouse to help support the family, but longs to travel the world. His frail sister Laura is a young woman who loves to tend her collection of glass figurines, but real-life encounters make her sick with fright. Their domineering mother Amanda, a one-time Southern debutante who pines over her lost youth and bad marriage, frets over their living conditions and her children's futures. She nags Tom into bringing home "a gentleman caller" for Laura. When the date goes horribly wrong, it leads to a disastrous family split.

"Tricks In His Pocket, Things Up His Sleeve: The Life and Art of Tennessee Williams." In a special pre-performance lecture on Sunday, May 10 at 1pm, Rick Davis (Associate Provost at George Mason University and co-artistic director of Theater of the First Amendment) explored the turbulent life and transcendent work of one of America's greatest men of letters.

Even after ten years, Tom is still haunted by the memories of his family, especially his sister Laura who was so painfully shy and walked with a limp. Ultimately, Williams paints a portrait of a family too fragile for life's harsh realities.

Tennessee Williams made no secret of the autobiographical nature of The Glass Menagerie. At an early age his family moved from Mississippi to St. Louis, the setting for his first success. His father was a shoe salesman and, like the character of Tom, Williams worked in a shoe warehouse. Like Amanda in the play, his mother would roust him out of bed for work with the refrain, "Rise and shine! I said rise and shine!"

See the article in The McLean Connection