Tennessee Williams and “The Glass Menagerie”

Tennessee Williams and “The Glass Menagerie” presented by Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) 

$15 (plus $25 OLLI membership required)

In this session, we will discuss Tennessee Williams’ early life and his family relationships informing the characters and the plot development of his iconic memory play “The Glass Menagerie.” Questions we will discuss include: What makes this a memory play? What inner turmoils does the playwright address through his characters?

The instructor will choose several scenes to be read aloud to participants revealing important dynamics between Amanda, Tom, and Laura Wingfield that reflect Tennessee's own relationships with his controlling mother, his alcoholic father, and his mentally ill sister. We will discuss emotional dependencies, the creative process, the struggle for emotional independence, and racial and sexual bias in the pre-war period in the American South.

In preparation for this session, students are asked to read the play or watch the iconic YouTube stream of “The Glass Menagerie,” directed by Paul Newman, starring Joanne Woodward and John Malkovich.