Third Draft
The Struggle and the Runaway of an “Outsider”
IB Literature&Performace-B
Nan Zhou
March 9, 2018
My group performed the last scene of The Glass Menageries. In order to provide the audience with enough background information about the situation,we decided to start from Jim’s explanation to Laura from page 64 of the book. I played the role of Jim in this scene. In many ways, it was a challenging role to play. Firstly, it is not easy to play a character in the opposite gender than me. The fact that there is no strong emotion involved in his part made it even harder. However, I still chose to play this role because I want to find out more about him and his feeling towards the Wingfields. Does he feel sympathetic to them or is he just trying to leave a good impression to them? In the book, Jim was really popular when he was in high school. Laura’s quote “You were always surrounded by your own friends so much that I never had a chance(to ask for your autograph)” (P.58) showed how much he was loved by others. However, the spotlight on him had somehow faded. When he met Laura, who remembered all the shining moment of his, it seemed that the spotlight had come back to him. Being admired by someone is always a joyful thing. Therefore, when Jim talked to Laura, he seemed so confident and so inspirational. He talks about how pretty Laura is to make her be more self-confident. He hugs her. He even kissed her! But this is not love. As Jim said, “if I have a sister like you, I’d bring my friends home to meet her”(P.64) He just want to tell Laura she is good and there will be someone who treats her like the “apple of his eyes.” However, Jim really does not want Laura to misunderstand his intention. He talked about Betty, his girlfriend, to Laura truthfully in a relaxing way. He described Betty to her as “nice quiet homegirl just like you.” (P.64)It is just like chatting to a friend. He also explained the reason why he accepted the invitation from Tom: he thought it was just a normal invitation and didn’t know Tom was creating some chance for Jim to meet Laura and maybe even be her gentleman caller. After Amanda enters, Jim asked to leave. He tried not to mention the true reason to Amanda because he does not want her to feel bad right away. Nevertheless, Amanda seemed to be expecting him to come over more and more oftenly. She said to Jim, “I want you to come all the time.”In order to avoid further misunderstanding Jim told Amanda about Betty too. But the way he talked about Betty was nature too. He told Amanda, “(Betty is) Just a girl. The girl that I go steady with. We are going to be married the second Sunday of June.” (P.66)He didn’t mention anything about gentleman caller to avoid embarrassing Amanda and Tom. In my opinion, Jim really tried not to hurt anyone’s feeling. Jim had the empathy towards the Wingfield family also because he knew that Tom is going to leave. He warned Tom not to make the boss mad anymore so that Tom can stay in his job. But Tom doesn’t care. Instead, he talks to Jim about leaving. Jim was so shocked that he could not react to it right away. He stared at Tom for a while just to figure out if he heard it correctly. How could his sister and mother live without any incomes and support? With a question in his mind, he seemed even more empathetic towards Laura and Amanda.
We planned lots things for our version of the play in order to show our understanding of the characters in the scene and the relationships between each of them. We decided to take Laura out the scene because she only has two lines throughout the scene and these lines would not help the audience to understand the concept of the scene. Our performance starts with a spotlight on Jim. After Jim is done with his monologue, the light change into normal stage light. The light remains the same until Jim left the building. It goes dim as Jim leaves, indicating the light of hope for Amanda when along with him. The lights go back to spotlight on Amanda and Tom when they were having their big argument. In that way, the audience can feel the tension between them and focus more on the actors. The lights go out after Tom left home, indicating Amanda had pushed out the only remaining hope she has and lived in darkness since then.We decided to use some music before Tom’s monologue with lights all out to show that time had passed after Tom had that big argument with Amanda. The quiet music also corresponds with Tom’s quiet monologue in comparison to the big argument that they had before Tom left. We also inserted a few seconds form that music when Tom mentioned: “perhaps, it’s a familiar bit of music.”(P.68) in his monologue. When Tom presents his monologue, the spotlight was on him. When he talks about Laura, the one spotlight increased to three spotlights, one on him(center stage), one center left, and one center-right. These lights go out one by one when he says the last part of his monologue, “blow out your candles Laura, and so long, goodbye.” The lights go out one by one, imitating candles being blown out by Laura one by one. We also designed some body movements for each character. For example, Jim stands up to show his excitement when he said the line “right away from the start, I knew it was, love!”. (P.64)Another one would be that when Amanda spite the lemonade on herself, Jim tries to hand her some napkin so that it feels like she actually did so. However, most of the body movements were improvised to our performance to make the performance more nature. When we planned the scene out, we followed the strategy of “method acting”. It means that we were trying to imagine what we would do if we were under the same situation as the characters. For example, I was moving around a lot as Jim because I want to show that even Jim is talking relaxingly, he is nervous too. He knows inside that his action would hurt Amanda and Laura’s feelings. But he had to do so. The use of different levels of voice was present in our performance as well. I start Jim’s monologue in a weak volume to show his struggles. Then my voice raises as I say “so I accepted the invitation, not knowing--I mean, not knowing…” (P.64)to show that he did not expect the things to go the way it went and he has a reason for it. When Tom and Amanda had the argument, their volume was very high. However, Tom raised his voice, even more, when he says, “I’m going to the movies!”(P.67) and “ the quicker you shout at me, the quicker I will go!”(P.67) These lines show how intense the argument was and give the audience more understanding of the situation also.(To be continued)
We planned lots things for our version of the play in order to show our understanding of the characters in the scene and the relationships between each of them. We decided to take Laura out the scene because she only has two lines throughout the scene and these lines would not help the audience to understand the concept of the scene. Our performance starts with a spotlight on Jim. After Jim is done with his monologue, the light change into normal stage light. The light remains the same until Jim left the building. It goes dim as Jim leaves, indicating the light of hope for Amanda when along with him. The lights go back to spotlight on Amanda and Tom when they were having their big argument. In that way, the audience can feel the tension between them and focus more on the actors. The lights go out after Tom left home, indicating Amanda had pushed out the only remaining hope she has and lived in darkness since then.We decided to use some music before Tom’s monologue with lights all out to show that time had passed after Tom had that big argument with Amanda. The quiet music also corresponds with Tom’s quiet monologue in comparison to the big argument that they had before Tom left. We also inserted a few seconds form that music when Tom mentioned: “perhaps, it’s a familiar bit of music.”(P.68) in his monologue. When Tom presents his monologue, the spotlight was on him. When he talks about Laura, the one spotlight increased to three spotlights, one on him(center stage), one center left, and one center-right. These lights go out one by one when he says the last part of his monologue, “blow out your candles Laura, and so long, goodbye.” The lights go out one by one, imitating candles being blown out by Laura one by one. We also designed some body movements for each character. For example, Jim stands up to show his excitement when he said the line “right away from the start, I knew it was, love!”. (P.64)Another one would be that when Amanda spite the lemonade on herself, Jim tries to hand her some napkin so that it feels like she actually did so. However, most of the body movements were improvised to our performance to make the performance more nature. When we planned the scene out, we followed the strategy of “method acting”. It means that we were trying to imagine what we would do if we were under the same situation as the characters. For example, I was moving around a lot as Jim because I want to show that even Jim is talking relaxingly, he is nervous too. He knows inside that his action would hurt Amanda and Laura’s feelings. But he had to do so. The use of different levels of voice was present in our performance as well. I start Jim’s monologue in a weak volume to show his struggles. Then my voice raises as I say “so I accepted the invitation, not knowing--I mean, not knowing…” (P.64)to show that he did not expect the things to go the way it went and he has a reason for it. When Tom and Amanda had the argument, their volume was very high. However, Tom raised his voice, even more, when he says, “I’m going to the movies!”(P.67) and “ the quicker you shout at me, the quicker I will go!”(P.67) These lines show how intense the argument was and give the audience more understanding of the situation also.(To be continued)
After playing the role of Tom, I found some interesting connections between Jim and the Wingfields. Everyone in the Wingfield family is running and hiding away from something. Laura runs away from her disability, staying home. Amanda runs away from her fear, blaming Tom for everything. Tom runs away from the endless pressure, going to the movies all the time. However, Jim, a stranger who doesn’t even belong in the family seems to run away from this family too. He mentioned leaving for several times in his conversation with Amanda. He says to her, “As a matter of fact, I’ve got to be going.” “Well, you know how it is.”(P.65) He also said, “You know how they are…” (P.66)It’s like pushing the questions back to Amanda without saying the actual answer. He also mentioned, “I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m rushing off”(P.66) but he is actually demanding to leave. After all, Jim is running away too. He tries to run away from Laura’s love and Amanda’s hope. He cannot take the responsibility.
Playing this role also changed my view towards Jim. When I first read the book, I thought he is just like a player. He talks about all the good things and his big big dreams. He dances with her and hugs her. Those actions are normal. However, he even kissed Laura! Even though he said, “I shouldn't do that.” (P.64) to me, his action is exactly the action of a player. Nevertheless, this impression changed after I played this role. His monologue was full of honesty and regret. All the explanations that once seemed like quibbles become so gentle and tender.
Work Cited
Tennessee Williams. The Glass Menagerie. Dramatists Play Service INC., 1976. March 9, 2018
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