I bring to you February's read, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.
(via)
Which character did you connect most with? I read the play with this question in mind (ahem, part of the reason I am late in posting) and I found myself waffling between connecting with each character in a different way and feeling complete alienated from all of the characters in general. Then Jim came into the picture and I was pulling hard for him. Until the end. The meanie pants. However, overall, I still find myself connecting the most with Jim, mainly for two reasons. First, he speaks truth and encouragement into Laura's life which is something I take seriously in my own life. I loved Jim's words in the seventh scene when he is speaking to Laura:
"And everybody has problems, not just you, but practically everybody has got some problems.You think of yourself as having the only problems, as being the only one who is disappointed. But just look around you and you will see lots of people as disappointed as you are."
If that's not the real deal, no? We are all broken people with broken lives and we are all doing this thing called life together. I must remember to give grace to myself and extend grace to those around me. On a lesser note, I also enjoyed what Jim said in the next sentence. "For instance, I hoped when I was going to high school that I would be further along at this time, six years later, than I am now." My life is nothing what I imagined for myself in high school, but I am quickly learning that I wouldn't change it for all the tea in China. Or Thailand. Thailand would be much more practical. The second reason I connect with Jim is much like the first, but not exactly the same. Later in the same scene he challenges Laura:
"Just look about you a little. What do you see? A world full of common people! All of 'em born and all of 'em going to die! Which of them has one-tenth of your good points! Or mine! Or anyone else's, as far as
that goes-- gosh! Everybody excels in some one thing... All you've got to do is discover in what!"
Again, maybe it's the teacher in me, maybe it's the insecure woman, but these are words I find myself telling my students but failing to remember myself. I wholeheartedly believe God equips each of us with a talent specific to His creation for each of us and we need to embrace that talent and go. I firmly believe that talent is not always academic and I could not be more grateful for that. I have had more students not go to college than go, but I know they were each created for a specific purpose that I, as their teacher, worked to bring out in them. Likewise, I may not have been created to be a wife and/or mother and/or anything else I have imagined for myself, but I believe God has equipped me in other ways and I must seek to serve Him with those talents until I am led by His spirit to do otherwise.
What were your expectations for the play? Did the play meet or exceed your expectations? I went into this play with exactly zero expectations. I may be the only English major to earn an undergraduate degree without having ever taken a poetry, drama, or British literature class so I am not at all educated in the way of the dramatic arts. That being said, I think plays are very fun to read and I choose to believe I have read more scripts than the average, non-English major person. I enjoy reading the stage directions in a script and generating the images in my mind. As a storyline, I felt the play moved slowly and then brought the proverbial hammer down hard and fast on the reader, but that is just my opinion. I would enjoy an opportunity to see this play performed live so that I can see another interpretation of the story and compare it to what I made in my own mind.
Overall, what were your opinions of the play? How do you feel about plays in general? Overall, I do not regret reading the play, but I definitely was hoping for something more. I am a huge fan of A Streetcar Named Desire and I think I was expecting something more from this play seeing as it too was written by Tennessee Williams.
How many stars would you give The Glass Menagerie (1-5)? I would give The Glass Menagerie 2.5 or 3 stars out of 5. 2 stars seems low, I still feel bad about 2.5, but 3 stars seems a little high. Perhaps 2.75 stars would be the best score, but that just seems a little ridiculous. 2.5-3/5 stars it is. Clearly it's a good thing I did not go into math. Oi vey.
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