A Streetcar Named Desire
Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire
The next play, in which another Southern woman living in her memories meets someone who will not play along.
Read our takeThe Glass Menagerie
Tennessee Williams
The Glass Menagerie
A son remembers the St. Louis flat he escaped: his mother's stories of her girlhood suitors, his shy sister's glass animals, and the one evening a young man came to dinner.
- 1945
- 128
- Elegiac
- Melancholy
- lyrical
- autobiographical
- intimate
About Tennessee Williams
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeThe Glass Menagerie opened on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre on 31 March 1945, after a first run in Chicago. Laurette Taylor played the mother, Amanda Wingfield, and the production ran for 563 performances.[1] Within two weeks the New York Drama Critics' Circle voted it the best American play of the season.[2] Random House published the text in 1945.[3] The play is set in a small flat off an alley in St. Louis. Amanda lives there with her son Tom and her daughter Laura, and she wants a husband for Laura.[4] Paris saw it on 18 April 1947 at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, in a French version by Marcel Duhamel.[5]
The story, in more detail
Tom Wingfield is both a character and the narrator. He begins and ends the play by stepping forward and speaking straight to the audience, and everything in between is his memory.[6] The playbill for the first production set it in an alley in St. Louis, now and in the past.[1]
The family is three people. Amanda Wingfield was brought up in the Mississippi Delta and never stops talking about the young gentlemen who once came calling on her.[7] Her husband left the family years ago, and his photograph still hangs on the wall.[6] Tom supports them all with a job he hates in a shoe warehouse, and escapes to the cinema and to drink.[6][4]
Laura, Tom's older sister, walks with a limp from a childhood illness. She is painfully shy, could not cope with a college course, and spends her days with a collection of little glass animals.[6][4] The collection gives the play its name.
Amanda makes Tom a bargain. If he brings home a gentleman caller for Laura, a young man who might marry her, then Tom can leave. Tom invites Jim O'Connor, who works at the same company.[8][4][6] The first production divided the evening into two parts, Preparation for a Gentleman Caller and The Gentleman Calls.[1]
The full plot
Tom Wingfield steps in front of the audience and explains that what follows is memory. Behind him is the family flat in St. Louis, with a portrait of the father who walked out years ago.[6]
Amanda, Tom's mother, lives on stories of her girlhood, when gentleman callers crowded round her. She nags her children constantly, and Tom rages back.[7][9][10] Laura, crippled and shy, could not cope with a college course. Amanda pushes her to find a husband.[6][4]
Amanda strikes a deal with Tom: bring home a suitor for Laura, and then he can go. Tom invites Jim O'Connor, who works in the office at his company. Laura remembers him from high school, where he was a star athlete and performer.[8][6][4]
Amanda dresses up for the dinner in an old taffeta gown and her best manners.[7] She makes little secret of hoping that Jim will marry Laura.[9]
How it ends — spoilers ahead
Jim is kind to Laura, and for a short time she comes out of herself. They even dance. Then Jim tells her he is already engaged to another girl. Amanda's hopes and Laura's collapse together.
Tom leaves home, as his father did. In the last scene he speaks to the audience again, as he did at the start, and tells them he left the family.
Themes and analysis
A family Tennessee Williams knew
The Wingfields are close to the Williams family in St. Louis. Tennessee Williams's mother, Edwina Dakin, was the model for Amanda. His older sister, Rose, was the model for Laura.
Rose's room in the family flat held her own collection of little glass figures. Williams later said the room stood for all the softest emotions of remembered things. Outside it was an alley where, at night, dogs killed cats. Rose later became mentally ill. The family allowed a lobotomy, a brain operation then used on the mentally ill, and she spent much of her life in a sanitarium.
The play has earlier relatives. While under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Williams wrote a screenplay that the studio rejected. He turned it into a play called The Gentleman Caller, which became The Glass Menagerie. He also told the story as a short story, Portrait of a Girl in Glass. The Harry Ransom Center in Texas files the drafts of all of them together. The 2011 New Directions centennial edition prints the short story beside the play.
Chicago and Broadway: Laurette Taylor's comeback
The play opened first at the Civic Theatre in Chicago. Eddie Dowling produced it with Louis J. Singer, directed it with Margo Jones, and played Tom himself. In January 1945 the critic Lloyd Lewis wrote that nobody yet knew whether it would make money. He was sure, though, that it had brought Laurette Taylor back as a great actress.
Taylor had not been talked about so much since her hit Peg o' My Heart, thirty years earlier. On Broadway, Julie Haydon played Laura and Anthony Ross played Jim. Jo Mielziner designed the set and the lighting, and Paul Bowles wrote the incidental music.
The New York Drama Critics' Circle met at the Hotel Algonquin in April 1945 and gave the play its award on the first ballot, with nine votes out of fourteen. The citation praised the play's sensitive understanding of four troubled human beings. The 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Drama went to Mary Chase instead.
The printed play differs from what Broadway saw. Williams wrote in a screen that would show titles and images above the scenes. Reviewing the book in 1945, James MacBride called these legends hocus-pocus. The first production left the screen out, though later directors have tried it. New Directions now publishes the play in what it calls the reading text Williams preferred.
Paris, from the Vieux-Colombier to the Odéon
La Ménagerie de verre opened at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Paris on 18 April 1947, two years after Broadway. Marcel Duhamel wrote the French version. Claude Maritz directed and also played Tom.
Jane Marken played Amanda, Hélène Vita played Laura and Daniel Ivernel played Jim. Georges Wakhévitch designed the set, and the music was again by Paul Bowles. The programme even credited the shop that supplied the glass animals, the Maison Cadeau. Two years later Daniel Ivernel played Mitch in the Paris Streetcar.
Duhamel's text stayed in print for decades. The Librairie théâtrale published it in 1958, and the national library's record of that book ties the text to the 1947 opening. Robert Laffont included it in a collected Théâtre the same year. A second Paris version, by Robert Antelme, opened at the Théâtre Mouffetard in February 1963.
A new Paris production opened at the Odéon on 6 March 2020. Ivo van Hove directed a new translation by Isabelle Famchon, with Isabelle Huppert as Amanda. The Covid-19 epidemic closed the theatre after six performances. The production came back to the Odéon in 2021 and again at the end of 2022.
Two films and seven Broadway returns
The first film, in 1950, starred Gertrude Lawrence as Amanda and Jane Wyman as Laura. Janet Maslin of The New York Times later wrote that it gave the story a happier ending than Tennessee Williams had in mind.
Paul Newman directed the second film in 1987, from a stage production that began in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Joanne Woodward played Amanda, Karen Allen played Laura, John Malkovich played Tom and James Naughton played Jim. Maslin found it extremely faithful to the text.
The play has come back to Broadway seven times, in 1965, 1975, 1983, 1994, 2005, 2013 and 2017. The revival that opened in 2013, with Cherry Jones as Amanda, received seven Tony Award nominations. The 2017 revival starred Sally Field and Joe Mantello.
Quotes from The Glass Menagerie
A little woman of great but confused vitality, clinging frantically to another time and place.
like a piece of her own glass collection, too exquisitely fragile to move from the shelf.
A poet with a job in a warehouse. His nature is not remorseless, but to escape from a trap he has to act without pity.
Come back here, Tom Wingfield! I'm not through talking to you!
Why we recommend it
The play that made Tennessee Williams
The Glass Menagerie was his first play to reach Broadway. After the opening in March 1945 he had a long-running hit and the New York Drama Critics' Circle award.
Four people and one evening
The whole story builds towards a single dinner with one guest. The play is short, quiet and easy to follow, which makes it a natural place to start with Williams.
His own family, barely disguised
Amanda is drawn from Williams's mother and Laura from his sister Rose. Rose's own room in St. Louis held a collection of glass figures.
A long Paris life
Paris saw the play in 1947 at the Vieux-Colombier, again in 1963 in Robert Antelme's version, and at the Odéon in 2020 with Isabelle Huppert as Amanda.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Amanda Wingfield
The mother, deserted by her husband and living on memories of her girlhood suitors in the Mississippi Delta. Modelled on Tennessee Williams's own mother. Laurette Taylor created the part; Jane Marken played it in Paris in 1947 and Isabelle Huppert in 2020.
Tom Wingfield
The son and the narrator. He works in a warehouse, writes poems, and wants to get out. Eddie Dowling created the part, and Claude Maritz played it in Paris.
Laura Wingfield
Tom's older sister, lame from a childhood illness and too shy to face the world. She cares for a collection of glass animals. Modelled on Williams's sister Rose. Julie Haydon created the part.
Jim O'Connor
The gentleman caller, a friendly young man from Tom's company whom Laura remembers from high school. Anthony Ross created the part, and Daniel Ivernel played it in Paris.
Also in the book
Mr Wingfield
The father who left, seen only in the photograph on the wall. He worked for a telephone company.
Bring it to book club
- Tom tells the story from years later. How much can we trust his memory of his mother?
- Amanda is funny, tiring and brave at once. Which of those did you notice first?
- Jim O'Connor is kind to Laura and then tells her he is engaged. Did he do anything wrong?
- Tom leaves as his father did. Does the play blame him?
- Williams wanted a screen showing titles and images above the scenes. Would you use it in a production?
Timeline
1944
Opens at the Civic Theatre in Chicago, produced by Eddie Dowling, with Laurette Taylor as Amanda.
1945
Opens on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre on 31 March. In April the New York Drama Critics' Circle names it the best American play of the season. Random House publishes the text.
1946
The Broadway run ends at the Royale Theatre on 3 August after 563 performances.
1947
La Ménagerie de verre opens at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Paris on 18 April, in Marcel Duhamel's adaptation, with Jane Marken as Amanda.
1950
The first film is released, with Gertrude Lawrence as Amanda and Jane Wyman as Laura.
1958
Duhamel's French text is published by the Librairie théâtrale and in Robert Laffont's collected Théâtre.
1963
A new French version by Robert Antelme opens at the Théâtre Mouffetard in Paris on 15 February.
1965
First Broadway revival.
1987
Paul Newman's film opens in New York, with Joanne Woodward, Karen Allen, John Malkovich and James Naughton.
1999
New Directions publishes the current Paperbook edition, with an introduction by Robert Bray.
2011
New Directions marks Williams's centenary with a clothbound edition introduced by Tony Kushner.
2020
Ivo van Hove's production opens at the Odéon in Paris on 6 March, with Isabelle Huppert as Amanda. The Covid-19 epidemic closes it after six performances; it returns in 2021 and 2022.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Random House
- 1945
- Paperback
- New Directions
- 1999
- 9780811214049
- Ebook
- New Directions
- 1999
- 9780811220750
- Hardcover
- New Directions
- 2011
- 9780811218948
- Paperback
- New Directions
- 2019
- 9780811227308
Reader reviews
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Read our takeThe Glass Menagerie: frequently asked questions
What is The Glass Menagerie about?
A poor family in a St. Louis flat in the 1930s. Amanda Wingfield, deserted by her husband, pushes her son Tom to find a husband for his shy sister Laura. Tom brings home a young man from work, Jim O'Connor, and the evening decides all their futures. Tom tells the story from years later, as a memory.
Why is it called a memory play?
Because Tom, the narrator, tells the audience at the start that what they are about to see is his memory. He steps out of the story to speak to them at the beginning and the end.
Is The Glass Menagerie autobiographical?
In large part. Tennessee Williams modelled Amanda on his mother, Edwina Dakin, and Laura on his sister, Rose, who kept her own collection of glass figures. Like Tom, Williams worked at a shoe company in St. Louis as a young man.
Did The Glass Menagerie win a Pulitzer Prize?
No. The play won the New York Drama Critics' Circle award in April 1945, on the first ballot. The 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Drama went to Mary Chase. Tennessee Williams won his first Pulitzer three years later, for A Streetcar Named Desire.
Who was in the first Broadway production?
Laurette Taylor played Amanda, Eddie Dowling played Tom, Julie Haydon played Laura and Anthony Ross played Jim. Dowling and Margo Jones directed, and it opened at the Playhouse Theatre on 31 March 1945.
When was The Glass Menagerie first performed in Paris?
On 18 April 1947, at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, as La Ménagerie de verre. Marcel Duhamel wrote the French version, and Claude Maritz directed and played Tom.
Which edition should I read?
The New Directions Paperbook, ISBN 9780811214049, prints the reading text Williams preferred, with his essay "The Catastrophe of Success". The 2011 clothbound Centennial Edition adds the short story the play grew from.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document The Glass Menagerie, its publication, and its place in literary history.
2↑'Glass Menagerie' Is Best Play of Year, Drama Critics Decide
PeriodicalThe New York Times, 1945Used forThe New York Times report of the Drama Critics' Circle vote, April 1945.
3↑The Glass Menagerie: A Play — Library of Congress catalog record for the Random House first printing (LCCN 45007913)
ArchiveLibrary of Congress, 1945Used forThe Library of Congress record of the Random House first printing.
5↑La Ménagerie de verre, adaptation de Marcel Duhamel, mise en scène Claude Maritz (1947)
ArchiveLes Archives du spectacleUsed forThe production record for the Paris creation of 18 April 1947.
10↑Poet's Triumph on Broadway
PeriodicalThe New York Times, 1945Used forThe New York Times review of the printed play, September 1945.
11Tennessee Williams — Broadway credits, original productions and revivals
Official recordInternet Broadway Database, The Broadway LeagueUsed forThe Broadway League's list of Williams productions, including every Broadway revival of the play.
12Tennessee Williams — The 1948 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Drama, A Streetcar Named Desire
Official recordThe Pulitzer Prizes, Columbia University, 1948Used forThe Pulitzer Prizes' page, which lists the 1945 Drama winner.
13Tennessee Williams Is Dead at 71
PeriodicalThe New York Times, 1983Used forMel Gussow's obituary, on the family behind the play and its origins.
14Tennessee Williams: An Inventory of His Collection
ArchiveHarry Ransom Center, University of Texas at AustinUsed forThe Harry Ransom Center's finding aid, which files the play's earlier versions with its drafts.
15The Glass Menagerie — publisher's page for the New Directions Paperbook, with an introduction by Robert Bray
Official recordNew DirectionsUsed forThe publisher's page for the Paperbook edition.
16The Glass Menagerie (Centennial Edition) — publisher's page, with an introduction by Tony Kushner
Official recordNew Directions, 2011Used forThe publisher's page for the 2011 Centennial Edition and its contents.
17Un tramway nommé Désir, adaptation de Jean Cocteau, mise en scène Raymond Rouleau (1949)
ArchiveLes Archives du spectacleUsed forThe production record for the 1949 Paris Streetcar, for Daniel Ivernel's later part.
18La Ménagerie de verre, adaptation de Robert Antelme, mise en scène Philippe Rouleau (1963)
ArchiveLes Archives du spectacleUsed forThe production record for Robert Antelme's version, Paris, 1963.
19La Ménagerie de verre, traduction d'Isabelle Famchon, mise en scène Ivo van Hove (2020)
ArchiveLes Archives du spectacleUsed forThe production record for Ivo van Hove's staging at the Odéon, 2020 to 2022.
20La Ménagerie de verre, adaptation de Marcel Duhamel (Librairie théâtrale, 1958)
ArchiveBibliothèque nationale de France, 1958Used forThe national library's record of Marcel Duhamel's published text.
21Théâtre: La Rose tatouée, La Ménagerie de verre, Un tramway nommé Désir, La Chatte sur un toit brûlant, Été et fumées (Robert Laffont, 1958)
ArchiveBibliothèque nationale de France, 1958Used forThe national library's record of Robert Laffont's 1958 collected Théâtre.
22Film: Paul Newman Directs 'Glass Menagerie'
PeriodicalThe New York Times, 1987Used forJanet Maslin's review of Paul Newman's film, which also compares the 1950 film.
23The Glass Menagerie
PlayTennessee Williams, 1945Used forThe primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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