The Glass Menagerie, a play by Tennessee Williams, focuses on Laura Wingfield six years after her high school graduation. In those years she has done little but listen to old phonograph records and dust and rearrange her collection of glass animals. A brief foray into business college resulted in her dropping out after a matter of days because timed typing tests gave her panic attacks. She hides the fact she has dropped out until her mother discovers her ruse.

So now, her mother, controlling, intimidating and unable to recognize her daughter's frailty and peculiarity, is obsessed with finding a "gentleman caller" to woo and wed Laura. Tom, Laura's brother, who escapes the doldroms of his life and the irritations of his mother, by haunting old movie houses each night, agrees to bring home a co-worker for dinner, a young man judged suitable. And Laura, who kowtows to her domineering mother, agrees.

Jim, the caller, turns out to be the one boy Laura had a crush on in school, the only boy ever kind enough to befriend this painfully shy, lame girl. He even had a nickname for her, Blue Roses. Laura, panic-stricken at the prospect of seeing him again, resists at first, but finally enjoys a talk in which she shows him her prized glass unicorn.

After a dance to one of her old records, she discovers he is in love and engaged. As the play ends, her mother is in a frenzy, and Laura blows out the candle, extinguishing her dreams and leaving the stage in darkness.

For those who do not know the play, I would recommend a magnificent version on dvd starring John Malkovitch as the brother and narrator, Joanne Woodward as the mom and Karen Allen as Laura.

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