The Glass Menagerie

Amanda Wingfield lives in a small apartment in St. Louis and tells the stories of her southern girlhood over and over. Her son Tom works in a warehouse, escapes to the cinema at night and dreams of leaving. Her daughter Laura is lame, cannot face people, and spends her days with a collection of glass animals. Amanda sets her mind on finding Laura a suitor and asks Tom to bring someone home from work. Paul Newman directed Tennessee Williams's play, and he makes no attempt to open the stage out into a film; he stays inside the apartment and trusts the text. Joanne Woodward's Amanda is neither a monster nor a victim, just a woman loading her own disappointment onto her children. John Malkovich plays Tom and Karen Allen plays Laura. The play itself is generally taken as the one where Williams came closest to his own family.