2nd draft

(Everything in bold is new)


In the play The Glass Menagerie  I choose to play the role of Amanda. 
She doesn't believe that the circumstances in her life will change after the transition from talking to Jim and from talking to tom. After Amanda and toms conversation Tom  leaves because he has had enough of the disrespect and the passive behavior Amanda has been having.  Her character has reckless emotions and she takes her anger out where it is most important not
to. In the play I chose to portray her character as a strong willed women who was hopeless, because while ready the book that is how I seen her character fit best. While asking myself Uta Hagen’s nine questions I found it easier for myself to grasp the role of Amanda.

Starting off in the first scene of the play my group decided to do a monologue of Jim outlining the reasoning of his appearance. Jim described the way that he has strings on him and that he is in love with a girl named Betty. This allows the audience to know that this is what’s really going on and the other characters in the play are unaware. This scene also symbolizes the hopelessness that Amanda has. She is already a single mother of two and is in poverty. She lives in a run down apartment of one bedroom and her living circumstances are not that great. To symbolize this my group chose to not include a lot of props just simply a small table, folding chairs, and a coat rack. This helped to show that they were poor and couldn’t afford nice furniture, this was important for the play to describe and add to the theme of hopelessness that Is showed through out the book, and Jim can feel this emotion just by being in their home. As for Amanda she knows because of her age she is hopeless of finding a husband of her own so she turns to putting that responsibility on her daughter.
This sets the next scene up which is when my character Amanda comes in with good spirits. I start of Singing a lemonade song to Jim as I place the tray of lemonade on the small table. By me singing the song it demonstrates how enthusiastic I was for having Jim. After that me and Jim continue to have a conversation about the gaiety of the occasion. Soon Jim authorized that he’s got to be going. This surprises me, and because my character has no idea that Jim is engaged to be married I insist that he comes again and stay later next time. My body language in the these parts of the beginning of the play is very collective and easy. I am trying to welcome Jim and make him feel comfortable so that he can come more often and feel homely. So I pat him on the shoulder when I say “it’s only the shank of the evening!” When he says he’s got to be going. This shows that I want to comfort him and let him know that i want his company. Or another time when he is getting ready to leave and I say “I wish you happiness and good fortune”, I held Jim’s hand and shook it with both hands again as a sign that I am trying to be sincere and I want him to feel like the family can possibly be an option. As he leaves my character Amanda is completely embarrassed and disappointed because of all the preparation she went through and the change of attitude she had to have for no reason in her opinion. My character sat alone center stage with the spot light on her as she said “well well well things have a way of turning out so badly —- I don’t believe I would be playing the victrola. Well well — well, our gentleman caller was engaged to be married! Tom!” I played Amanda as I seen her in the movie which was very disappointed and dispirited. In her mind at this point she felt like she had been made a fool out of.
My character takes this aggression out on Tom in the next scene when she blames her humiliation on him. She believes that because Tom and Jim are good friends he should have known that he was engaged and not have invited him over. While her and Tom passively argue she says “that’s very peculiar” when Tom states that he had no idea jim was engaged. This raises the tension in the play. To show that this part of the play brought tension I stood up and got in tons face. We walked from center stage right to  stage left and yelled back and forth at one another. We both showed signs of disgust and aggravation as we yelled back and forth at each other. Tom had a more serious facial expression while I had a whatever look on my face only because I was so outdone with him.  I end my part of the scene by explaining how it was his fault I went through all the preparations “the floor lamp, the rug, all for what to entertain some other girls fiancé, that fine don’t think about us a mother deserted, and a sister who’s crippled and has no job just go don’t let anything interfere with your selfish pleasure just go,go,go to the movies”.  This was a very important part in the part of the play that my group choose. My character Amanda says this to give Tom guilt and she points at him to emphasize how she’s blaming him and  putting all the burden of the family’s situation on him. I also come closer into Tom when I say this line and this is because I want him to feel my rage sand anger towards him. When reading the book you can’t really feel the emotions of amanda to Tom or even Tom to Amanda because of the language the author uses so when performing this scene you can interpret the scene in many ways. I decided to show more of the blame that I had for Tom and the attack on his character.
The idea of antagonizing Tom was to basically release my anger about the current situation onto Tom. This is something that shows you Amanda’s true colors, and it gives off  the impression that she most likely acts this way a lot and has been this way for a long time. 

After this part of the scene is when I basically give up on holding any type of grudge back from Tom. Since we both rose up at each other and Tom said “the more you shout at me about my selfish pleasures, the quicker I’ll go, and I won’t go to the movies either.” This then brought me to say “fine then go to the moon you selfish dreamer!” The author in the book wanted to convey that out of anger the character Amanda Can easily say words that are disadvantageous towards her,  and can make situations worse. Tom says he won’t go to the movies either which indicates that her opinions on the places where he chooses to go are not regarded and he is now not hostage to the remarks that she makes. Amanda then says go to the moon you selfish dreamer which is more of a punch to the face. By her saying this it means Tom can go as far as the solar system gets and it won’t effect her it will only make things better. Though this is what she said I don’t think she meant it. I don’t think she ment it because she was more embarrassed and upset and felt like he was running out just like his father, when really Tom feels captive to the lifestyle that he is being forced into. Amanda knew deap down inside how much Tom really ment to her and how much she truely needed him in the family.
This is a main reason why I chose this scene and that was because I seen that the ending scene is really the climax of the play. This part is when everything comes crashing down. All of the hopes and dreams that Amanda had for the family, all the preparation, everything that was consealed finally was unwrapped at the end. Not knowing what is in store for Amanda, and Laura
.