The IB2 students enjoyed a trip to Liverpool's Playhouse where they were treated to a stage spectacular of Williams's seminal play 'The Glass Menagerie'. This play closely mimics Tennessee Williams' own life, especially with the character of Laura and his own sister.

The students were initially somewhat underwhelmed by the sparse set and lack of the father's portrait, with Rachel commenting that she felt this was an important element and without it's omnipresent physical appearance, some of the looming aspects Tom's past was lost, however Edmund felt that the audience became the portrait somehow as we watched Tom as narrator and character weave the story in front of our very eyes, breaking the fourth wall .

Many other aspects of the production and questions relating to both play and text were raised by the students during the performance, and whilst Ruby felt the lack of set and props enabled her to gain a deeper understanding of plot and character relationships with her focus not being distracted by fripperies of set design, Rachel was concerned that not only was the 'living in the past' aspect lost, but also the sense of era and the threat of war was ultimately diminished by the sparsity of set. 

All in all Kelly loved the simplicity of the staging. Ruby felt the use of the 'shoe' (to both highlight physically Laura's disability, yet also to see just how irrelevant it became once it had been lost) was a stroke of genius but all were shocked ( yet pleased) the actor who played Laura's character worked hard to highlight the mental illness so inherent in the text, compared to the 1950 saccharine film adaptation by Rapper with Jane Wyman who played the character of Laura. And whilst Edmund pondered the relevance of the water trough, all became clear during the TalkBack at the end.

The students not only loved the play itself, but the opportunity to ask the actors key questions about their motivation, their interpretation and more importantly why the water was utilised in this production. Edmund was first off the line with the questions and the answer he received was not only clear but surprisingly interesting with the actors explaining the process of rehearsal and the producers decision to strip away props almost one by one and the inclusion of the water trough being representative of the constant references in Williams' text to water - whether it be rain, or storms. These 'storm' references, the actors explained, were metaphors for the looming threat of war. Not merely just the storm brewing inside of Tom as he longed for the freedom his own father had attained. There were many more questions from other members of the audience, which not only allowed the students to  better understand the process of a play's conception, but also explore the different levels of meaning that could be garnered from Williams' original text. These details are invaluable to the students understanding of the play and will no doubt form an interesting angle of analysis in exam responses.

All liked the play so much that they are already clamouring for more theatre trips...next up in February is Waiting for Godot at Sheffield's Crucible theatre.