Photo by Dan Daly
The Glass Menagerie is the work that defines the term “memory play.” In memory, nothing is quite as it was. This gives the play, as Tennessee Williams writes in his note on the script, an “unusual freedom of convention.” The story unfolds before us as our narrator, Tom, looks back on a version of his past, asking himself questions: Did I do my best? What did I leave behind? How do I persist?
This play catapulted Williams to success in 1944. It is strikingly autobiographical. Some details are different, but the shape of the heartbreak rings true. Tennessee Williams did in fact escape his childhood home in St. Louis, abandoning his sister, Rose. He went on to become a celebrated writer. She underwent a prefrontal lobotomy and was institutionalized for most of her adult life. In the writing of Glass Menagerie, Williams was examining a version of his life, prodding it with questions: Did he do his best? What did he leave behind? How did he persist?
Since its premiere, the play has been mounted countless times on stage and screen. It sits in the American canon, and it is a staple of theater and literature. The play itself has become a cultural memory. Like Amanda reminiscing about her youth in the Old South, this play breathes life into a version of America that no longer exists, and maybe never did. Meeting this play today involves interviewing a past version of ourselves: Did we do our best? What did we leave behind? How do we persist?
Even old plays always take place right now–theater is a medium that lives and dies in the present. Paradoxically, the practice of theater is one of memory, replicating the same words and movements each night. But today’s performance is utterly singular, because you are here. And as you watch this repeated version of a popular story about a copied memory, I invite you to let it ask: Did you do your best? What did you leave behind? How do you persist?
