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The script was in excellent condition and it was received quickly. And the price was fantastic as well. Terrific. Thank you.
Williams' ultimate points were two. Most people have great difficulty grasping the themes, much less deciphering the symbolism and foreshadowing, embedded within great literature from "A Separate Peace" and "Catcher in the Rye" to "The Glass Menagerie." Each of these examples is an exemplary piece of art, but if for no other reason than the prolific nature of Tennessee Williams' calling compared to that of the other two authors, "Menagerie" deserves a special place on the mantle of top-notch reads -- not only literary but true brilliance with ink on mere pages of paper. The first was that Thoreau was right (in Williams' own depressed worldview) when he wrote in "Walden": "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Some assign responsibility for the family's well-being on Tom's shoulders when all he longs for is a life of his own and at last arranges to flee his hellish world, aptly, via the fire escape -- whether it ends up going as he expects or not -- thereby "devastating" the others. Nonsense. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation."The second, which was quite a paradox to Tom's generally perceived as selfish desertion of the family, was that we all make our own lives. Tom simply chose to make his.
Tom: "I'll rise but I won't shine".An interesting play that fit the Zeitgeist and the spleen of the era and the playwright.
You can't help but pity all the main characters. "If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door." ~Paul Beatty The Glass Menagerie is a classic play of physical and emotional entrapment. At times our own psyches are just as fragile as Laura Wingfield's glass menagerie. The three members of the Wingfield family are all trapped (the mother by her past and the memory of her husband who left her; the daughter by her overwhelming shyness and lack of confidence; and the son by the overwhelming responsibility of caring for his family in a mind-numbing warehouse job). I believe the play is still popular today because most of us can relate to at least one of their plights. Somehow, I missed out on this book and play in high school. I am glad I have read the play; now I just need to see it on the stage as it was meant to be seen.
It's a heart-warming story about the stages in life where we are "initiated" into the greater reality of the world around us. Ignore the author's preface -- the main character of the play was escorted across the boundary of personal fantasy onto the larger realm of adult life -- by the only person qualified to take her there. Read the play --- review you own life for similar circumstances; you will likely find one --- you may fine more than a couple of them. Recommended for readers over 30.
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