The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

What a wonderful week for reading plays! It’s been a long time since I read a play of my own accord and it was great to get back to doing that. I haven’t read "The Glass Menagerie" in quite a while and it was great to revisit it now when I am older and wiser and I know how to read plays as an actor and a director instead of just a reader.

If you don’t know what this play is about, it follows the Wingfield family and their life in St. Louis. The play is narrated by Tom, the son of Amanda and brother to Laura. Tom is constantly seeking escape from his overbearing mother who’s one goal in life is to find a gentleman caller and then a husband for Laura, who’s leg is crippled. At the end of the play, one gentleman caller shows up, but expectations are not met as they are supposed to be.

I loved the version of the play that I had because it contained a forward by Williams that explained how he wanted the set and the lighting and everything along with that. One of the important discoveries I made while reading the play was how central Laura truly is, even though she doesn’t speak much in the play. She is supposed to be lit in a light of “pristine clarity such as light used in early religious portraits of female saints or Madonna’s.” The play is constantly described as a memory play so the stage is said to be kept dim with shafts of light on focused areas or actors. This, I think, provides the audience and reader direction as to where to focus the attention.

When I first read this play I didn’t notice all of this, but now see how important it actually all is. The picture of the father who abandoned his family is said to be larger than life, which shows that his small act of leaving them has altered this family and has an ever present impact on their daily life. There is always a cloud of trouble and stress hanging over this family whether it’s about money, husbands, or finding a life of your own and all if that is expressed through the father’s picture.

This play is very delicately written; delicate is really the only word I can find for it, as if it were made of glass. Even the characters, especially Laura are delicate. Laura seems to be made of glass; beautifully crafted and taken great care of but if a person takes one misstep, the entire thing shatters. The most beautiful part of this play, in my opinion, is when Laura is dancing with Jim and her favorite glass unicorn breaks. When he asks her if it is broken she replies:

“Now it is like all the other horses… Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.”

Laura is changed by her one night with Jim forever; she will now be able to move through the world independently and conduct herself with confidence and not have to live in her own glass bottle anymore.

A menagerie is defined as a place where animals are kept to be trained for exhibition which is what the mother, Amanda, is doing through this entire play. Amanda has been so hurt by her husband’s leaving her lost youth that she is living almost vicariously through her children, who will have none of it. At one point while explaining to Tom why she must plan for everything so far in advanced, she says:

“You are the only young man that I know who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don’t plan for it!”

She is a character incapable of letting her own past failures go so that she struggles with accepting her children’s differences and failures. Although you can see her throughout the play as a sort of unsympathetic and pushy character because of how she treats her children, you have to realize how much she has been hurt by her past and how scared she is for the future.

Tom is a very interesting character to look at. He is so desperate for a life of his own that is jeopardizing his entire family to satisfy himself, like using his money for registering for the marine’s instead of paying the electricity bills. I can’t say that I don’t see where he is coming from. It hurts to have so much pressure like that thrust upon you and having no escape and when you do find that escape, you are reprimanded for it. My favorite quote from Tom is in scene four when he says:

“You know it don’t take much intelligence to get yourself into a nailed-up coffin, Laura. But who in hell ever got himself out of one without removing one nail?”

Tom is desperate for his own life so he knows that he will eventually have to make a false move in order to escape the life he despises so much, living in a home that is like a coffin and working in a warehouse that is like a prison.

This play is full of beautiful characters and is a wonderfully crafted and moving story. Anyone involved in theater should be required to read it but even more, anyone interested in reading about human actions and life should read this. This is a wonderful look at the show we are all putting on every day when we push our past and our pain back inside of our minds and live as we are “supposed” to live, as if being viewed as glass pieces.

Until next time, happy reading! Send me your book recommendations if you have them, I’d be happy to check them out and review them all! Leave any comments below! I’d love to hear them!

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

So, I set out on another assignment from my AP English literature teacher, this time reading the play “The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde. My teacher said that we would love reading this play because it was so funny and written in a very understandable way. After reading this I can honestly say, I did not enjoy reading this play. I tried reading it out loud but nothing helped. When you hate characters, it becomes a chore to read about them. Now that the book is over however, I can discuss a few things that I did like about the book.

It was very funny to see the different way women and men are looked at in this book. The men, Algernon and Jack, view women as fickle and flighty and in a way, very stupid in comparison to men. When discussing their plans for marriages, they talk of planning to introduce the girls to each other. They say that they will be calling each other sister after only having met. Algernon remarks that “Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first.” This did make me laugh because it is true. The best friends I have ever had, I started out hating. As I have heard, this is the case with most girls. Props to Wilde for picking up on that.

Lady Bracknell bugged me a lot, but she was funny. Every time any type of subject was mention, she objected in one way or another. She cared so much about appearing fashionable that everything was wrong. All in all, the characters in this book just frustrated me! There was no reason for any of them to be pissy but they spent the majority of their time that way which, in turn, made this book a chore for me to read. If anyone can clear this up for me, please let me know that I was reading this book wrong because I was just angry every time a character spoke.

What I did enjoy about this play was the many different meanings of the word earnest. The women in the play, for no reason, have vowed only to marry a man named Ernest. Earnest itself means having a serious and intent state of mind which, ironically, neither man has. Each man invents different lives for himself so that he may act in any way he chooses without dealing with consequences. When one of his fake lives begins to displease him, he only needs to kill off that life. At the end of the play when Jack states that he has finally realized the importance of being earnest, he has finally found what he wanted in life so he no longer needs to fake his life, he can be honest now.

Wow, my first negative review. I feel bad for not liking this play; I feel like I missed something. The characters just got on my nerves. Any help would be appreciated!

Until next time, happy reading! Send me your book recommendations if you have them, I’d be happy to check them out and review them all! Leave any comments below! I’d love to hear them!

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

In my AP English Literature class, we were assigned to read A Christmas Carol over Thanksgiving break. Believe me, I was the complete opposite of excited. After a terrible introduction to Charles Dickens via Great Expectations in the ninth grade, I had sworn to hate Dickens for time and all eternity. The book sat like a hideous demon on the stack of books on my bedside table, a weight on my brain that needed to be done. Finally, I picked the book up and began to read it, sort of. I flipped through the pages, just getting more and angrier about having to read it. To procrastinate even more, I read the back cover. On the back cover, I discovered that Dickens read this story publically every Christmas Eve. This gave me an idea; try reading Dickens out loud and just buck up and give him a second chance.

Here’s is what I learned; when you are in doubt about an author, READ THEIR WRITING OUT LOUD! Dickens is like Shakespeare, if you read it silently, it’s just a bunch of words with no feeling or meaning behind it. It was not written to be read silently, it was written to be shared with an audience. Now, I’m not going to lie, I read this book out loud with a British Accent. Am I embarrassed? Nope. I never would have been able to understand his writing approach without reading it out loud. I was automatically transported back to the mid eighteen hundreds and I watched the spirits visit Scrooge one by one and saw his transformation take place.

When I first read Dickens, his over description threw me for a loop. I thought it was too much, it was forced, and it made his reading drag very much. Now after hearing it come out of my own mouth, I’ve discovered that he wrote just as he spoke. When you tell a person about something you care about, you leave nothing to their imagination. Dickens cares so much for his characters and his stories that he can’t leave anything out and I thank him for that. He gives the readers an image that will not soon be erased from their minds.

His metaphors throughout the book are so brilliant and original. He describes Scrooge’s house as a house that “one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and have forgotten the way out.” How brilliant is that personification? Can you not see that image perfectly? Mmmm… imagery is yummy.

So, I won’t lie, I was a bit creeped out when Marley’s ghost appeared. It’s a terrifying idea, having your house filled with usually lifeless bells and then suddenly chains rattling! Creeptastic, right?! But, I loved the humor that is thrown into the conversation Scrooge has with Marley. Scrooge takes the time, while terrified mind you, to speculate if a spirit can sit in a chair or not. Dickens is one funny dude.

‘Tis the Christmas season, which means it is the season for crappy holiday movies meant to warm your heart but, in truth, just make you gag because of all the special happy feelings. During the reading of this book, I wished more holiday movies took a creative approach while pounding you with moral values. Of course I am familiar with this story but I had forgotten about the two terrifying children hiding under the ghost of Christmas present’s cloak. Reading their description, I had to stop and take a minute to think about what Dickens is telling us. “Man’s Children,” symbolizing Ignorance and Want with Ignorance being pointed out as the sin Scrooge should most look out for has so much meaning to me personally as well as to all of us, I feel. I’ve always believed in the motto that ignorance is bliss. Recently though, I’ve gotten tired of holding back my feelings about everything in my life. I’ve become more direct and if I sense a problem, I have to know about it so I can clear it up. Ignorance is not bliss because in the end, ignorance leaves you all alone.

All in all, I’m so glad I gave dear Charles another chance. Now when I have to read Great Expectations again, I will hopefully appreciate it. Thanks for this assignment Mrs. Hansen!

Until next time, happy reading! Send me your book recommendations if you have them, I’d be happy to check them out and review them all! Leave any comments below! I’d love to hear them!

The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman

This week I finished reading The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman and all I can say is wow. This play left me so stunned and enthralled that the thought of starting a new book completely fell away; I just can’t leave this story yet! I’m the type of person that if I fall in love with a story or a piece of history, I have to spend the next six hours of my life googling it and getting every last drop of information I can about it. And so here I am, sitting at my computer, researching the death of Matthew Shepard.

If you don’t know what this play is about let me fill you in a bit. Led by Moises Kaufman, members of Tetonic Theater Company went to the town of Laramie, Wyoming after the brutal murder of a young gay man. There, they conducted interviews with people in the town. These interviews range from friends of the accused, the police officer called to the scene of the murder, to students at the local University. Through these accounts, Matthew Shepard’s murder is told from voices we wouldn’t typically hear from. By doing this, the reader sees so many different opinions on the attack and its aftermath.

Now, whether or not you are pro gay rights or anti gay rights, this is definitely a book I would recommend to you. During my entire time reading this book, I never felt preached at or anything of the sort. The members of the Tectonic Theater Project really took the words of Father Roger Schmit to heart and “do your best to say it correct.” They didn’t alter what the people of this town said at all so you as a reader are exposed to literally every viewpoint possible. You hear from locals who are active in the gay community, locals who don’t support that lifestyle, various religious leaders with different thoughts, and people who just saw the whole terrible incident happen. The writers of the play are holding back no information and no opinion is too harsh from this play. Even with the spirit of togetherness that the gay community felt after the murder, there was of course backlash, and we are lucky enough to see both sides.

Throughout the play, a noticeable unique quality about the script is the lack of scenes. Instead of an act being filled with scenes, the acts are filled with moments and they are listed as such. In my theater classes lately, my teacher has stressed the use of moments and their importance in our daily lives. A big theme in this play is that of destiny and reasons why things happen. The character Aaron Kreifels spends the majority of the play questioning why he was meant to find Matthew on the fence while he was out riding his bike. Without these specific moments in our lives, we wouldn’t be who we are. Personally, one of my favorite moments is Act III Moment: Dennis Shepard’s Statement. The thoughts from Matt’s father literally rip at my heart because of how he goes about speaking to the murderer of his son with such grace and elegance. The entire play is filled with this sort of delicacy and beauty while still managing to get a point across about this hideous crime.

While reading this, I never felt as if I was being bombarded by drama or dramatic scenes. They playwright took a lot of care to not overwhelm the reader with too much intensity. Because of that, it was easier to keep my attention on the book because I never felt like what I was reading was too much to handle. Because the script is truly just real people talking, it felt as if I was sitting there talking with them, not seeing a play being put on in my head.

Overall, my attention and my heart were captured by this play. It was a very fast and easy read because I couldn’t manage to put it down. Anyone studying theater should read this play because of the unique approach it takes to staging and characterization. Anyone who enjoys watching the news or enjoys thinking outside of the box should read this play because of the different views you are allowed to see. I recommend this book to one and all!

Until next time, happy reading! Send me your book recommendations if you have them, I’d be happy to check them out and review them all!