• Great speeches
  • Moon Tiger
  • Smut

Bookclub titles

  • As you like it
  • Our kind of traitor
  • The Finkler Question
  • Jamaica Inn with film
  • 12 books that changed the world
  • Three men in a boat
  • Never let me go
  • Beloved
  • The man who never was - film
  • Going Solo
  • The Music Room
  • The Sea Room
  • Behind the Scenes at the Museum
  • Excellent Women
  • Picnic at Hanging Rock - book and film
  • Mrs Woolf and her servants
  • Grapes of Wrath - book and film
  • Slaughterhouse Five
  • A Little History of the World
  • 26a
  • Left Hand of Darkness
  • Nathaniel's Nutmeg
  • Toast
  • Wolf Hall
  • Contemplating the Future
  • Esprit d'Corps
  • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - book and film
  • When I lived in Modern Times
  • Brighton Rock - book and film

Sunday, 9 May 2010

A visit to the theatre

Following on from our last meeting, when we watched 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof', we decided to go as a group to the Oxford Playhouse to see another Tennessee Williams, 'The Glass Menagerie', produced by the wonderful Shared Experience company. TW himself said in his introduction that it is about memory. It certainly seems to be quite autobiographical.

Tom and his sister Laura live with their mother Amanda, played by Imogen Stubbs, in a small flat in run-down part of St Louis. Amanda lives with the memories of her beautiful charmed youth.

Tom works in a warehouse and has been christened Shakespeare by his fellow workers because he is always writing. But he feel his life is too internal, and he yearns to experience the 'real' life he sees in the movies he goes to every evening.

The character of Laura seems to be based on that of TW's sister Rose, who ended her days in an asylum. She has been sent to secretarial college, but never attends her classes, as she cannot deal with people.

Like all TW, very intense and full of the heat and humidity of his settings. An excellent cast.

Enjoyed by all.

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