*Spoilers*
What is it with Tennessee Williams and his determination to not provide a happy ending? For awhile, it looked as if he would permit painfully shy Laura Wingfield a stab at romantic bliss but once your hopes are up, he smashes it like so much glass in the titular menagerie. Granted this is just the third Williams play/movie I've seen - the other two being Suddenly, Last Summer and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - so I don't know if all his plays have so melancholy an ending, but these three works are arguably among his best.
The Glass Menagerie, again like his other plays I've seen, takes place in the South and features a stable of fascinatingly unstable characters. Amanda Wingfield, the matriarch, is bitter for having given up "dozens of gentlemen callers" to settle for her drunken lout of a husband, who has since fled the family. She constantly vocalizes her high expectations for her children but it's all in a misguided attempt to better their lives. Her stifled son, Tom, bristles everytime she lectures him but hasn't really done much to rebel, till now that is. Her wallflower of a daughter, Laura, is so timid that she threw up in class when she had to take a speed-typing test. Since then, she's been content to stay at home everyday playing her old records and tending to her glass animal menagerie. The story takes place over two days, culminating with a dinner in which Tom's colleague, Jim, is invited, unbeknownst to him, as a gentleman caller for Laura. Literal and symbolic glass will be broken, as Tom announces his joining of the Merchant Marines, Laura has her hopes crushed, and Amanda sees her tenuous hold on the family lost.
This is Katharine Hepburn's first foray into television and she received an Emmy nomination for her masterful acting and the successful modification of her patrician New England accent to that of a Southern dame's. A young (and surprisingly good-looking) Sam Waterston of Law and Order fame also received a nomination playing her volatile son. A similarly young and good-looking Michael Moriarty took home an Emmy as dashing, aw-shucks gentlemen caller Jim, as did Joanna Miles, with her breakthrough performance as emotionally-crippled Laura.
What is it with Tennessee Williams and his determination to not provide a happy ending? For awhile, it looked as if he would permit painfully shy Laura Wingfield a stab at romantic bliss but once your hopes are up, he smashes it like so much glass in the titular menagerie. Granted this is just the third Williams play/movie I've seen - the other two being Suddenly, Last Summer and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - so I don't know if all his plays have so melancholy an ending, but these three works are arguably among his best.
The Glass Menagerie, again like his other plays I've seen, takes place in the South and features a stable of fascinatingly unstable characters. Amanda Wingfield, the matriarch, is bitter for having given up "dozens of gentlemen callers" to settle for her drunken lout of a husband, who has since fled the family. She constantly vocalizes her high expectations for her children but it's all in a misguided attempt to better their lives. Her stifled son, Tom, bristles everytime she lectures him but hasn't really done much to rebel, till now that is. Her wallflower of a daughter, Laura, is so timid that she threw up in class when she had to take a speed-typing test. Since then, she's been content to stay at home everyday playing her old records and tending to her glass animal menagerie. The story takes place over two days, culminating with a dinner in which Tom's colleague, Jim, is invited, unbeknownst to him, as a gentleman caller for Laura. Literal and symbolic glass will be broken, as Tom announces his joining of the Merchant Marines, Laura has her hopes crushed, and Amanda sees her tenuous hold on the family lost.
This is Katharine Hepburn's first foray into television and she received an Emmy nomination for her masterful acting and the successful modification of her patrician New England accent to that of a Southern dame's. A young (and surprisingly good-looking) Sam Waterston of Law and Order fame also received a nomination playing her volatile son. A similarly young and good-looking Michael Moriarty took home an Emmy as dashing, aw-shucks gentlemen caller Jim, as did Joanna Miles, with her breakthrough performance as emotionally-crippled Laura.