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The Glass Menagerie is a memory play by American playwright and screenwriter Tennessee Williams. The play is autobiographical; it was first performed in 1944. The Glass Menagerie entails various elements of theatre, which play a crucial role in delivery. The distinctive feature of the play is the unrealism of events as each character lives in two worlds: a real and an imaginary one, bringing something that reality cannot offer. At the same time, all characters are prototypes of real individuals whose figures are not created by imagination but reconstructed from the author’s memory. This dualism is achieved by three elements of theater: individual performances, sound, and lighting, which are collectively paramount in the play.
The “real” part of the play is concentrated around the relationships between members of Wingfield’s family, with the most complicated of them between Amanda and Tom. The depth and complexity of their communication are effectively delivered in the play through individual performances of the actors. They express a diverse spectrum of emotions through facial expressions and body language, and the importance of the gestures is highlighted by the author in comments supporting dialogs (Williams, 2011). Given that most scenes seem unrealistic, hyperbolized concepts constructed by creative imagination, acting is crucial to ensure an unrealistic perspective of events and maintain the wholeness of characters, who make the audience empathize and draw parallels with their own lives. The individual performances in The Glass Menagerie are key to telling a deeply personal story whereby maintaining an imaginative basis of events.
Music plays an important role in The Glass Menagerie by introducing symbolic significance and helping to convey a sense of emotion throughout the play. For example, in the fourth act, the author includes Ave Maria as a background, which is both symbolic and functional: it allows the audience to sense her pure feelings for Amanda to her daughter. Furthermore, it serves as a symbol of the Biblical image of the mother. The music follows the scenes with Laura, another character in the play, who plays music to escape reality (Williams, 2011). These examples indicate that music in the play is one of the foremost instruments that express the idea of escapism and contributes to character development.
The theme of hope and hopelessness is effectively conveyed in the play by manipulating the lighting. The lighting is decreased when characters feel miserable and increases when they find hope. It allows to keep the atmosphere of memory and increases the symbolism created using music. For example, the production notes to the scene mentioned above with Laura say that “The light upon Laura should be distinct from the others, having a peculiar, pristine clarity such as light used in early religious portraits of female saints or madonnas” (Williams, 2011). Therefore, the light is an important instrument to convey basic ideas of the play and a useful tool to visualize the importance of memory.
The Glass Menagerie entails many ideas and themes like memory, hope, and escapism, which require complex and diverse instruments for effective delivery. Acting provides means to uncover complicated relationships between characters, whereby keeping the resemble of their real-life prototypes acting in the unreal atmosphere created by the author’s imagination. Music is symbolic and helps to emphasize dramatic moments. The use of light is crucial to delivering the cloudiness of the memory and pointing to the source of events. These elements of theatre collectively helped Williams develop the complex and touching play.
Reference
Williams, T. (2011). The glass menagerie. New Directions Publishing.
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