Dramaturge Statement: The Glass Menagerie
In researching this show I’ve found that if I was directing it the most important thing would be to make the audience feel as much involved in the play as the actors. This show is so focused on showing us the hardships of the people it is centered around and the variations those hardships come in. It is important to make those things as real as possible so that when Tom and Amanda get into it the audience feels like they are sitting in on a real family argument which nine out of ten times is an extremely uncomfortable situation, or when Tom is just narrating and standing in the alley it is important for the audience to see that they live in the slum apartments so that they know where exactly these people are coming from.
The biggest thing besides casting this I think is the set. The surroundings these people are in tell a lot about their story and what they are up against in the world at that time. I think for the audience to feel as connected as possible they almost need to travel back with the cast into 1937 and really see what it was like for this family. Just because this family lives in the slums doesn’t mean they don’t have class, the set has to reflect that even though they are in the slums Amanda still takes pride in what they have and treats it well. So if the outside set is torn up and tattered then I think the inside needs to be somewhat nicer to implicate that these people were once upstanding people who fell on hard times but are still able to salvage something’s out of the hardships.
The value of a dollar in this show is enormous and the show should reflect that without anything having to be said. The things in the house that have sentimental value i.e. the glass figurines need to be placed in a spot where they are not a spectacle but very visible to the audience that way everyone has an understanding how important these things are and how fragile they can be.
The biggest problem in reading reviews of past productions was in worse off productions of this the cast wasn’t used as an ensemble. This is a very closely related show and each character has issues with the other one for different reasons and to different degrees. For instance, Amanda’s displeasure with Tom is a completely displeasure than hers with Laura, however both of them are still in conflict it seems the entire show. The biggest issue with this is that if all of these connections are not made between the four characters then it is easy to get lost in what the conflicts are and why they are happening to each certain person. If the cast works as an ensemble and not so much as individuals then it seems the objectives of each character become more clear and the audience is able to keep up in a much better fashion rather than trying to piece it all together like a jigsaw puzzle and ending up confused by the end of the play as to what’s going on.
Also, the direction has to be done in a way that the whole show is not just directed as one big fight. With this much conflict in a show it would be easy just to direct everything as if it was a constant fight throughout the show. The director has to find that happy medium between complete chaos and a calm sensible environment, the best way to do that is to really work on the moments where they do show genuine love to one another and then contrast them with the angry moments. The last thing an audience wants to see is just a fight going on onstage the entire time and never see any resolve anywhere not just the end of the play. I think if the actors and directors are committed to doing these things there is not much that can go wrong with the show because it lends so much to the director already in just writing.
