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Info About The Play

In the play The Glass Menagerie, Laura is Tom’s older sister and Amanda is Tom's mom, they both are unemployed and the father of the house is not in the picture. So Tom being the only man in the house and only one with a job, is the breadwinner he pays all the bills in the house. But Tom doesn't like this responsibility he wants to be free and discover the world and take risks, but he can't because his mom and family is holding him back. On top of that Amanda is a mother who constantly nags him on what he's doing wrong and never compliments him on what he's doing right, this making her look like a negative person, and she kinda is. She has this negative energy that happens to spread to Tom. Me playing the role as Tom I had to show this Mood of depression and negative towards his mom. Ex she tells Tom to “ straighten up his back” and “slow down when your eating, put cream in his coffee to cool it because hot coffee isn't good for you” even though he likes it how it is. She even tries to tell him what books to read. In my opinion it's ok to be that controlling if your child is 10 years old but if he's 20+ that's outrageous. I understand that she cares but she needs to learn how to let go.

Reflect on my performance

  Being an actor is not a easy task. It's not as easy as people make it look and sound in the movies. It's a lot of preparation and hard work. There's countless of details that you have to pay attention to,  like your reactions toward an event that has happen, hand movements to express yourself, and facial expressions example if something smells you don't wanna sit there with a regular face. You have to make a stink face. This plays a big key in performing because if you don't have them, you'll look like your going through the motions. When I was playing Tom those were the three rules I had to work on, when my group and I practice I found myself being very dry. I knew I had to fix it, so when I got more comfortable with my lines. Making expression became easy. I felt as if I was actually In the character's shoes and I've been in arguments before, so I just reacted like how I would if it was my personal argument . This helped me a lot, actually I learned this from Lee Strasberg and his lesson on method acting. He taught to use pass events in your life to help act out your character. Example like if you have to perform a sad scene you can use a sad experience in your life to remember to get you sad and maybe even cry, I know this may sound weird and upsetting but a lot of amazing actors uses this method.

The proposal

In our scene Amanda tells Tom to sit up straight multiple times and he gets upset  and starts the argument between them. I can't blame him for getting so mad. Amanda treats like a baby. Tom is old enough to make his own decisions. He said ”Look !- I've got no thing, no single thing!,  In my life here that I can call my OWN ! Yesterday you confiscated my books ! “ That proves that Tom is at the end of his patience with his mom because all the things she did like taking all the books and bringing them back to the store. That's his personal stuff she shouldn't interfere with his personal life. I could relate to Tom too because if my mom had took my things that I bought with my own money, and brought them back to the store I would be upset also expectually if it's something not serious, like books. But Towards the end of the argument. Tom leaves knocking over the glass menagerie breaking it. This scene is very  important because it shows how corrupt the family is. The audience can see Tom’s depress  life, Amanda's annoying behavior, and Laura's awkward shy personality because she just sits there and does nothing when her family is arguing.

Literary analysis 

In our performance, we tried to bring The Glass Menagerie to life. In the play I feel like Amanda and Tom have a hard time accepting reality. The believe that life should always go their way, and when they don't get there way they throw a fit. Mainly it's Amanda but her complaints and wants affected Tom. This made him express himself and say “hey I have wants too” then he starts to see all his hopes and dream and ending up wanting to chase them. Laura on the other hand is handicap, she can't think for herself, so she doesn't have any dreams to follow. She drop out of college, stays home all day, and is very socially awkward. Example when the gentleman caller showed up at her house, she stood behind the door trying to hide from him. When we performed we tried to show their personalities traits in the characters during the play. For Laura she sat quietly on the bed when Tom and Amanda was going through their dispute. She didn't move a muscle and when she tried to have a input in the conversation she gets shut down because she can't physically express her opinion with confidence and stand up for herself. Amanda is hyperactive she tries to tell everyone what to do, say, eat she ask her grown son where he's going at night. Being an adult and having your mother constantly telling you how to live your everyday life can be annoying, so Tom is like a dandle in distress. Who's at the point to blow up. He snaps at his mother easily In the play he starts the argument with no hesitation because of all the past experiences he has of her annoying him. If you watch the video of us it may look like Tom just gets angry out of nowhere, but you have to take in consideration that our scene took place towards the middle-end of the story. So you wouldn't be able to see all the past event/conflicts between Tom and Amanda.

 

  

final preformance

I was unsure of how good of an actor I was, I didn't know if I was very bad or very good. There was a lot of things I had to work on like my reactions, hand movements, and facial expressions. I found myself focusing on the little things like when I’m saying this line should I be angry or when I’m saying that line so I be more relaxed but then I realize I need to just go with the flow and not be a robot. There's countless details that you have to pay attention to, example props. When Tom knocks over the glass menagerie, it's supposed to fall off the table but it didn't fall off the table, it just fell over on the table. That little detail changed the play because Laura is supposed to be on the floor over her glass now she has to get it off the table and act like it fell when it didn't and that made it look kinda fake . One rule I follow was to try and put myself in the character's shoes. This how I began to improve as an actor, and was able to understand my character better. This was a learning experience for me. Overall I think my group could've done better. When we presented our scene from “The Glass Menagerie”. We didn't do so well. I remembered all my lines and practiced over and over again before the final performance I got through them perfectly and was ready to go . Then it was time for the real deal we messed up.  Acting is not as easy how people make it look on movies and films. It's a lot of hard work and practicing. My partner told me he was nervous before our performance. I wasn't, maybe because I was performing in front of my classmates and I know all of them and I've been acting in front of them since the beginning of the year. I got all my nerves out. But I understand where he was coming from and couldn't be upset because everyone is not the same and for some people it's not easy to get up in front of your pairs and perform but he had forgot some of his lines. So then he made a mistake and said the wrong thing, which screwed me up. So then we was sitting there for a long period of awkward silence I didn't know how to respond to what he said and he didn't correct himself. Not all the blame is on him though, actors should know when someone messes up they should recover so the audience doesn't think anything is wrong because they don't have the script they don't know what's supposed to be send and what's not.

First draft

        For my final draft based on my feedback, I need to work on talking slower. It's because the audience needs to hear and understand me clearly. When my group performed the first draft. We read off the script, so I mistakenly read off the paper like as if I was reading a book, which I should of extended my words loud and clearly like I was acting. I believe that when I act, I know my lines so I tend to push through mistakenly without taking my time to pause and pronounce my words. This is what I got from my feedback,  and i when I related the video I actually started to notice it .  Another thing that I noticed is when I start to speak fast it would sound like I was mumbling, I couldn't even make up most of the words I was saying and I'm the one who was saying it. If my partner also speaks slower, this would help with our time. Our performance was quick and dull, Right now it's at 4 minutes and needs to be at 10 minutes, we were mostly standing around and talking, so slowing that  down will help with the time. Blocking is also a key with timing because instead of Tom and Amanda arguing back and forth, standing around. We can include a scene where Tom walks around the house  trying to avoid Amanda. This also show more emotion on how annoyed Tom is with him mother. Or we can do scene in the beginning where Tom wakes up, gets off the bed and goes into the kitchen to work, have his mom makes coffee, than have her asked him to straighten his back and complaining how he never does that and it's so bad for him. Lastly out of nowhere he snaps at her and start the big argument causing the glass menagerie to break.