Only a month after Dr. Benjamin Rawlins’ English III Advanced classes finished reading Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie, Houston’s Alley Theatre premiered a production of the play. In response to the wonderful coincidence, we were offered the opportunity to attend a production. It was one of the most enlightening learning experiences I have had. Sitting in the dark theater, immersed in the lighting and dreamy music, I fully understood everything I had read. All the stage directions I poured over, trying to picture in my head, were real. I finally got to see what Williams had intended.
Junior Darcy Sabloff echoed this sentiment, believing that seeing the play “humanized … the book.” Sabloff argues that sometimes it can be a struggle to “imagine [the play] as [she reads] it,” but seeing “the scene changes, … the costumes, and the actual gestures” helps “put a person to the words … and to the feelings that the play is trying to convey.”
At the play’s close, Laura Wingfield talks with her first gentleman caller, Jim O’Connor. As I read, I created this belief that this scene represented Laura moving on, gaining the confidence Jim was attempting to give her. Yet, sitting in the theater, watching actress Melissa Molano portray Laura, I could see the tears in her eyes and the way her hands shook. My original belief drifted. Now, Laura was not gaining some unknown confidence, she was losing part of herself. She handed away her favorite glass piece, now broken, in reminiscence of the person she would never become. Seeing the true emotion of Laura’s face and the director’s intention, the play became something new.
Junior Gaby Brown voiced similar comments about how the set also served to elevate her understanding of the play. Brown said, “You could really tell that each aspect of the set … was so well thought out, and it really elevated my experience.” The mysterious curtains (portières as Williams calls them) of the stage directions were finally real, dropping between rooms dramatically when the scenes became the dreamiest. The floors slid open during set changes, a kitchen table and Laura rising in its place. And the bare nature of the living room set highlighted their strained family dynamic in a way I never grasped in the book.
Junior Emily Newman took specific note of the symbols in the play, noticing how “[the play] highlighted certain symbols that we analyzed as a class and individually in symbol analysis.”
Similarly, I waited on the edge of my seat to see Tom’s monologue about the Paradise Dance Hall. In class, I broke down each word of his monologue to complete my symbol analysis assignment, determined to discover what Tom meant. As I watched, eventually, the back of the Paradise Dance Hall sign began to glow neon red and Tom’s monologue began. Secretly, I felt like I understood Tom better than anyone else in the theater. My hard work paid off, and I applied everything I discovered in class to the actor before me. It worked both ways. Seeing the play created a deeper understanding, and reading the play strengthened what I was able to take away from the performance.
Sabloff urged the importance of “continuing these learning-outside-of-the-classroom experiences and really trying to connect them to the classroom inside [to] cement their importance.” Agreeing, Newman thinks “having these like optional field trips allows … students to find ways to get excited about the material we’re learning if reading the book doesn’t create that experience for us.” Brown similarly believes they create a “bonding experience,” helping to further our understanding, increase excitement around the material, and bring us together.
Not only did Dr. Rawlins create a fun experience that brought many of his students together, but he also gave us an opportunity to understand the material for what it truly was. All those moments we could not quite grasp on the page, came to life, vivid and remarkable, on the stage.
