American Views Abroad

 
The English Theatre of Hamburg celebrated its 30th anniversary with an excellent production of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams which will be running till April 8th. Information on the cast, production, booking tickets, address and parking can be found at http://www.englishtheatre.de/.

This is Williams' most lyrical play and many Americans in the audience were discussing how they remember it fondly from school days, though few had actually read it. Would the play disappoint these memories? Absolutely not and most of us were struck with the language that is simply beautiful and poignant to listen to and, yes, read again. Is the mood, setting, statements about society as gripping today as it was when it premiered in 1945? Definitely. From Tom's first appearance where he informs us:

Yes, I have tricks in my pockets, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion. To begin with, I turn back time. I reverse it to that quaint period, the thirties, when the huge middle class of America was matriculating in a school for the blind. Their eyes had failed them, or they had failed their eyes, and so they were having their fingers pressed forcibly down on the fiery Braille alphabet of a dissolving economy.

To later in Scene VI where he has the following to say about Americans and movies:

Yes, movies! ...All of those glamorous people --- having adventures --- hogging it all, gobbling the whole thing up! You know what happens? People go to the movies instead of moving! Hollywood characters are supposed to have all the adventures for everybody in America, while everybody in America sits in a dark room and watches them have them! Yes, until there's a war. That's when adventure becomes available to the masses! Everyone's dish, not just Gable's! Then the people in the dark room come out of the dark room to have some adventures themselves --- Goody, goody.

The dialogue hits you and perhaps more so now than when it was read in college years ago. There's an honesty and directness in its critical view of society that seemed more accepted in 1945 than today. Of course, it is not the masses that are seeking adventures in war today, just those looking for a job, a way to pay for college, health insurance. Blindness, illusion, the looming affect movies and popular culture have on the masses understanding of the wider world still stands. It is a play very worth seeing today, particularly when it is as well done as this production.
- posted by Gloria @ 6:43 PM