Menagerie ACT 1 SCENE 3

• Same scene as before. I guess they just stay in the house a lot. After Amanda's realization about Laura and the extent of her shyness as well as deception.
• Tom tells the audience that Amanda sole purpose in life has become finding a man for Laura and that she constantly talks about, thinks about, or prepares for it. This brings an oppression on Laura's spirits for fear than in and of herself she could never impress a man enough for him to desire to wed her. But she also fears her mother and disappointing her.
• Amanda berates Tom for not sitting up straight and for reading filth, going out drinking and the like and for talking back to her. He is a young man and it seems odd that she treats him like a teenager. He tries to escape the house during a heat of their argument.
• In the argument he mentions how he slaves to pay for the house--a clue into why he still lives there and how difficult life really is. "I'd rather somebody picked up a crow-bar and battered out my brains-then go back mornings!" Woah...Tom seriously hates his job and having to support the family. He'd rather chase his own dreams or set off alone like his father did. Foreshadowing?
• On his angry rampage out the door Tom breaks something in Laura's glass collection-Why is it so significant? It's obviously important, hence the title, but I don't know how yet. It's just a little play collection of animals that gathers dust.
• Tom is sorry. Not to the angry Amanda but to the crestfallen Laura, who is shattered by the breaking of her delicate glass.
• Maybe Tom has had to be there for Laura. They are war buddies under the tyrannical reign of Amanda. Or maybe he's the replacement father figure, bad as he may be at it. But through all his smoke and his bitter tongue he is soft. He has dreams and he cares about his sister.

BLACKOUT

Menagerie Act I Scene 2

http://youtu.be/ABV2JJrIqzs

Dramatic reading and analysis.

Analysis starts at: 8:40

Intro & Act I, Scene I

Upon reading the introductory material in The Glass Menagerie I'm struck by all the intricacies in the set staging. There are several layers of the house that need to be shown as well as a fire escape, two alleyways, and a dance hall. All aspects are supposed to be washed in unrealistic light with gauzy, opaque curtains in between sections. Tom, the narrator/brother/son in the play explains outright to the audience that it is a memory play and people and things are not exactly as they were but merely as they are remembered. The setting is New Orleans during the depression. Every set piece is supposed to show the wear of years and hope lost with the dowturn of the economy.

In this first scene we meet Tom, Laura, and Amanda. Tom seems to be stubborn and outspoken about his distastes with his mother. I picture him almost a bit sarcastic at all times in a way that's either charming or completely obnoxious. Laura is quiet and helpful and small seeming. She keeps wanting to help her mother, Amanda, but Amanda denies her and continues busybodying. Amanda talks and talks and talks-most of the time saying more than needs to be said and with the central focus being on the past and herself. Amanda likes to tell people what to do and also wants good things for both Tom and Laura it seems. In this scene she's particularly intent on keeping Laura "fresh and pretty" for the gentleman callers that she expects at any moment. Tom and Laura seem to have an understanding that these men, just waiting to whisk Laura away, do not exist in their current present. There is an air of discomfort throughout the scene as the children and Amanda seem to have totally different points of view.