The Glass Menagerie and Expressionist Theater

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.1. Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.2. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.9-10.1. Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9-10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

The expressionist movement in literature had its roots in Germany in the 1910s and in the work of Swedish playwright August Strindberg. Unifying features included rebellion against artistic and social conventions of the day, and bold innovation. The overall aim of expressionism was to offer a total spiritual renewal by confronting the darkest aspects of reality. The movement influenced a number of artists, writers, and poets around the world, including James Joyce and T.S. Eliot. Among them were 20th-century American writers who questioned widely-accepted beliefs. They opened new psychological and emotional dimensions within their works. In the 1920s, expressionism found an outlet on the American stage through experimentalists from the Theatre Guild and Provincetown Players such as Susan Glaspell and Eugene O’Neill. Starting in the 1940s Tennessee Williams adopted expressionist techniques and incorporated them through dialogue, action, sound, setting, stage design, and lighting into his dramatic works such as The Glass Menagerie (1944), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), and Camino Real (1953).

The Encyclopedia Britannica’s entry on Production Aspects for Expressionist Theatre provides background context on the movement related to theatre.

Certain theatrical techniques can be classified as expressionist. See Modern Theatre in Context: Expressionism from Canada Research Chair in Performance and Culture for a detailed description. A synopsis is noted below:

• Dramatic characters are usually social or spiritual archetypes;
• Space/time categories are symbolic and suggestive of abstract places such as "the world," "a church," "a graveyard";
• Highly visual staging involves atmospheric lighting to express the emotional nuances of the play and various expansion devices, (i.e. staircases) to make the stage space more suggestive and symbolic;
• New style of acting rejects realistic communication in favor of expressive movements.

Tennessee Williams adopted such expressionistic techniques and integrated them into The Glass Menagerie as a way to present several of his themes. He used them to highlight reality as subjective, expose the dehumanization and grotesqueness effected by modern urban culture, and express the resulting angst over that condition. This drama is characterized by dreamlike states rather than realism, and imagery and symbolism rather than naturalism.

For more information on the Expressionist techniques of Tennessee Williams, click here (PDF).

Tennessee Williams’ oeuvre has always been difficult for critics to categorize. In the seven decades since The Glass Menagerie premiered on Broadway, this play has been diversely classified as idealist, naturalist, symbolic, poetic, and romantic, among others. Indeed, in this and other plays Williams often combines different elements in pursuit of what critic John Gassner calls “a fusion of naturalistic detail with symbolism and poetic sensibility.” According to drama critic Kenneth Tynan, Williams achieves a new kind of romanticism “not pale or scented but earthy and robust, the product of a mind vitally infected with the rhythms of human speech.” His subject is the often “terrifyingly ambiguous” human nature as he observed it—brilliantly rendered into dramatic form. Nancy Tischler sums it up:

This play, unique among Williams’ dramas, combines poetic and unrealistic techniques with grim naturalism to achieve a gossamer effect of compassion, fragility, and frustration typical of Tennessee Williams at his most sensitive and natural best.

A detailed biography of this author’s life and work is available from the EDSITEment-reviewed Poetry Foundation, which offers myriad assessments of Tennessee Williams’s dramatic techniques by lead scholars and critics.

Students compose and annotate an original, additional scene for The Glass Menagerie using expressionist techniques to advance one of the play’s themes. They will treat a theme from the play that they have traced through the unit’s activities. Students should annotate their work to clarify their intentions and illustrate their understanding of this theatrical technique and the rich themes Williams infuses into his drama.

Distribute and review the Summative Assessment Rubric document with students before they begin their compositions, as a guide to ensure that they understand the criteria and as a tool to assess their work.

Encourage students to cast, direct, stage, perform and/or film their expressionist scenes from the Summative Assessment. Then ask the class as a whole to identify and discuss the effects of expressionist form on the content.

Have students represent a scene graphically—e.g., in a comic strip—to illustrate the interplay of form and content in a scene from The Glass Menagerie.

Have students compare the following reviews from the first two productions of The Glass Menagerie in the 1940s with the reviews of the play from two productions mounted in 2013. Discuss how elements of expressionist techniques and theatrical devices used in each production may transcend or be influenced by the social milieu of that time.

Reviews of original productions:

• The New York Times review of the play’s original 1944 production in Chicago;
• The New York Times review of the play’s subsequent 1945 debut on Broadway.

Reviews of contemporary productions:

• The review “Wounded by Broken Memories” of the 2013 Broadway production at the Booth Theater;
• The review “The Shape of Memory, Both Fragile and Fierce” of the 2013 production at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

View one of the many films versions of the play and have students write a review of the film performance. Discuss the additional challenges and/or benefits of producing a film based on a stage-play.

Have students read Tennessee Williams’ essay, “The Catastrophe of Success,” which describes the fallout of the overnight success of The Glass Menagerie. Then have them use the Launchpad to complete an analysis of this informational text.