The Glass Menagerie

I've spent 40 years teaching theatre in colleges and universities and I'm teaching The Glass Menagerie tomorrow. This production is still as vivid to me as it was the night I saw it as a college senior in 1966. I had very little interest in plays before watching this--and if one experience can be said to transform a person this did...Pat Hingle's performance was so real and remarkable--all of the confused, sad and empty sincerity of the high school hero who has found how far short life can fall from its promise...I've seen numerous performances of this play since and worked on several of them--but never been as touched, or as changed as by this one.

Up until I saw this at age 10 or 11, I thought virtually everything I saw on TV was a fantasy that had no connection whatsoever to real life. Seeing The Glass Menagerie for the first time was a shock. Obviously, I can't be sure, but my recollection of the production was that it was perfect (unlike the 70s TV version with Katharine Hepburn and Michael Moriarty). Seeing it started a long involvement for me with theatre and began my search for quality television. It is my #1 "want" to see again; the last time I looked for it at the Museum of Television (several years ago), they didn't even have it. At least it is finally listed here on IMDb, for which I am thankful.

Those proud but shopworn Wingfields are the subject of a CBS Playhouse production of The Glass Menagerie. And we are fortunate to see Shirley Booth in a classic role as she did not make very many big screen appearances during her long Broadway career. Clearly she favored the stage just like the Lunts and just like the original Amanda Wingfield Laurette Taylor.

Unlike other productions I've seen with Gertrude Lawrence and Katharine Hepburn, Booth is opting for a doughtier version of Amanda than the other two. When Laura who is played here by Barbara Loden asks Booth about the DAR meeting she was supposed to be at, looking at Booth I can't imagine the DAR letting her in the door. In her own way mother is as much in her own world as daughter.

The title refers to the delicate collection of glass figurines that shy and withdrawn Laura is obsessed with. She is also crippled and has withdrawn from the world. The little glass animals are delicate and someone like Laura also delicate completely submerges self into her play world with them.

Like any other mother Booth wants someone, anyone who is a proper gentlemen to take her daughter off her hands. For that she entrusts the task to son Tom who desperately wants to unshackle himself from his dead end warehouse job and see the world and do things. But Hal Holbrook is as much chained to his family as George Bailey is to the town of Bedford Falls. It's also his eyes with which we see all that unfolds.

Completing the quartet in this cast is co-worker of Holbrook's, Pat Hingle. Given Hingle's southern speech pattern I kind of thought that maybe he should have played the son. Still he turns in a nice performance in the least complex of the four roles.

For her role which is the pivotal part of the quartet Shirley Booth got a deserved Emmy nomination. For me with The Glass Menagerie the question is always, is Tom Wingfield making the right life decision in the end. I think those who watch The Glass Menagerie for generations to come will debate that question.

The 1966 CBS Playhouse broadcast of "The Glass Menagerie" will stand as a truly seminal moment in the history of television. That same year, "Death of a Salesman" was also broadcast and proved to be a landmark production. The Xerox Corp. was the sponsor of both plays. Arthur Miller's play was released on DVD as part of the Broadway Theatre Archives series. For reasons unknown to the public, this production of "The Glass Menagerie" has not been released in any video format. To deprive everyone of seeing Barbara Loden's transcendent performance of Laura is a true injustice to all who feel that certain moments in television history MUST be preserved. I'm hoping that the people in authority will share this feeling and release this on DVD.

This is about the fourth version of this play I have seen and like all the movie versions I've seen, it lacks something compared to the Broadway version I saw. There is something more intimate in seeing it live...live as Tennessee Williams originally intended his play.

This is a made for television version starring Shirley Booth, as the annoying and super-talkative head of the Wingfield family. She is a woman who talks a lot but says very little most of the time...a woman who almost seems to talk just to hear herself. Her son, Tom (Hal Holbrook) is a guy with secrets* and he frequently spends his evenings out of the apartment. As for Laura (Barbara Loden), the daughter, she's painfully shy and hyper-aware of her game leg. Mrs. Wingfield has no husband (you can really understand why he disappeared long ago) and spends all her time haranguing her kids-- pestering Laura to date and Tom to help Laura find a boyfriend. As for the siblings, they mostly try to ignore mother and her very old fashioned and overly gentile Southern ways...much like the affectations Blanche Dubois put on in "A Streetcar Named Desire".

Ultimately, Tom is so annoyed and pestered by his mother that he finally agrees to bring home a 'gentleman caller' for his sister. Jim O'Connor (Pat Hingle) is one of Tom's only friends and he brings him home for dinner. Little does Jim know that Mrs. Wingfield is hoping to snare him for poor Laura.

Compared to other versions, this one is fair. Although it's in color (which is very nice), I felt like Shirley Booth delivered her lines too quickly. I also felt that Barbara Loden was too pretty to play Laura...an interesting problem! Otherwise, the play is the play...and each version pretty much follows the script to the letter. Worth seeing...but I would still say it's best to see this one live.

*When I first saw this play, I thought that the gay subtext was obvious with Tom. After all, he supposedly goes to the movies almost every night and doesn't come home until very, very late. This double-life as well as the author's sexual orientation as well as Mrs. Wingfield NOT pestering him to find a girlfriend all would seem to indicate he's gay. Oddly, most of the time I've read about the play this subtext is never mentioned.