The German Glass Menagerie

By Katja Wiegand, Julia Kausch, Adrian Weigandt

Adaptation:

Scene 6

To explain the setting of scene six, we chose to divide it into six smaller units:

1.Tom introduces Jim
2. Amanda prepares for gentleman caller 3. Laura has to open the door
4. Jim's future plans
5. Amanda and Jim
6. Dinner is served

Change of screen image: "The clerk" to "The cashier"

In the following we will describe each section and try to set it in a modern German context.

In the beginning Tom introduces Jim to the audience describing him as the former high school hero. Back in school he used to be class president and captain of the soccer team, which is why he was everybody's darling. Since the age of thirteen he was known as the school's chick magnet. Today Jim and Tom work together at the local grocery store. Where Tom is a cashier, Jim works as team leader and therefore has a higher position.

Amanda is all excited about Jim's arrival and therefore dresses Laura and herself up. She is a middle-aged, unemployed stay-at-home-mom, who relies on financial aid of the German government and dresses up as if it was her own date. In an attempt to look younger, she wears a leather skirt, which is only long enough to fit her former self (at the age of 27). Her flouncy blouse matches the style of her white cowboy boots, all topped of with cheap, fake jewelry. She forces Laura to wear a dress, which she bought for this exact occasion the day before at the local H&M store. The short pink dress with black polka dots doesn't seem to fit Laura very well, maybe because she usually dresses more casually in jeans and t-shirt. Laura complains about the heavy make-up Amanda makes her put on and is wondering why she has to be put in such a disguise. Amanda states that men expect women to dress a certain way in order to make the man feel special.

Despite Laura being uncomfortable with her dress and make-up, she opens the door in embarrassment. Without introducing herself she takes a short glance at Jim and then hurries quickly back into her room.

Tom and Jim are on the balcony watching the dull skyline of Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. Tom opens up to Jim: he feels trapped inside his life as a cashier, needing to provide for his family. He tells him about all the TV series he's been watching lately and how witnessing other people's adventures is not enough anymore – he wants to experience them himself. His urge to move on and overcome the barriers of the flat increased. Thus, he applied for assignments abroad at the German Bundeswehr to leave the family behind just like his father did.

Amanda joins Tom and Jim on the balcony and asks Tom to go and get his sister so that they can have dinner. Using this opportunity, Amanda brags about her glorious past when her husband was still living with them and provided for the family. She goes on about her former popularity, telling Jim that she was well courted. Back in the days, no less than 17 well-situated gentlemen callers were after her. Amanda settled for one of them; the only one who proposed to her and should later become the father of her chil- dren. Her attitude suddenly shifts and Amanda reveals her inner motives and starts flirt- ing with the young and handsome Jim O'Connor. Jim on the other hand, does not fall for her attempts to arouse him and politely suggests going back inside to have dinner. At that very moment Tom returns, telling them that dinner is now served.

Laura appears at the door, her face pale and anxious. She stumbles inside, trying to get a grip on herself. On her way to the table Laura faints due to the pressure her mother put on her. Ignoring her duty to take care of Laura, Amanda tells Tom to escort her to the living room so Laura can rest on the sofa. As the scene fades out we see Jim and Amanda raising their glasses to celebrate Jim's visit. The last words we hear are: "To you, Jim!"

Analysis:

We chose scene six because we felt that a lot of key elements of this play reflect in this scene. Namely: Amanda's motives, Tom's future plans, the introduction of Jim as the all-American High School hero and Laura's insecurities regarding men and herself. To put all these facts into a more German context, we changed some aspects of their social background and even individual actions.

First of all, Tom does not watch movies at all; he watches TV series in his room, isolating himself from his social environment, especially regarding his mother. Like in the original play, he does not want to be stuck in her dream of a better future, but searches for his own salvation. To achieve that, he applies to the German Bundeswehr, which is basically a German equivalent for the Union of Merchant Seamen, but not to be taken as literally the same. To put his working situation into a more German context, we made him work as a cashier at a local grocery store instead of selling shoes. His only friend at work still is Jim in our play. Jim also works at the grocery store, the occurrences of Tom inviting Jim still remain the same. Tom feels bad for his sister, he in fact knows the deeper motives of his mother. But to protect his own plans of leaving the family, he just accepts his mother's behavior.

Amanda's hidden motives are quite clear in our version of the Glass Menagerie. She feels attracted to Jim, longing for her imaginary glorious past. She puts her daughter in an uncomfortable position, lowering her self-esteem even more and trying to take her place in this arrangement. Hiding her motives, Amanda dresses Laura up, still convinced that Laura could overcome her issues and attract Jim. Instead of the gay deceivers Williams uses, we feel like our fancy version of the dress suits the modern context better. As we still want to reflect the original idea of deceiving and disguise, we use the image of heavy make-up instead of stuffing Laura's bra. The choice of colors for the dress explicitly draws attention away from her natural beauty and simultaneously reflects a cheap modern lifestyle. We intentionally draw the attention away from Laura, as we want to lay the focus onto the unsatisfied, modern mother of the 21st century. Amanda still does not want her motives to be unveiled, but soon realizes that her daughter is incapable of charming a man. Where the original Amanda projects her own wishes onto her daughter, our Amanda is more straightforward and uses the opportunity to push her own ego and therefore takes matters into her own hands.

Laura therefore becomes a minor character in our play, symbolizing her insignificance to Amanda. What we want to express is, that Laura actually doesn't get recognized by her family. We made her a natural beauty with insecurities and don't mention her being crippled at all. She just has no self-esteem and is being taken advantage of by her mother. Even though Tom is the only person caring for Laura, he can't escape his own life if he continues to provide for her. He ignores the fact, that Amanda takes advantage of Laura and just keeps on moving forward.

It was really difficult to put Jim into a German context. We don't really have high-school heroes in Germany. Therefore we tried our best to make him as attractive as possible. Soccer is the German equivalent to football and being the class president shows responsibility and confidence. German ideals are honesty, being on time and being able to take care of people. We feel like putting Jim in this situation suits the German values the most. Since another German value is being well educated, he visits the night school to achieve his A-level to move on in life – he is all-German now.