These are the four characters in The Glass Menagerie, a memory play by Tennessee Williams, who revolve around.[break]
The same play was staged at the Kamalmani Theater at Patan Dhoka on Saturday and Sunday, put together by Eelum Dixit, also the director and actor of the play.
Set in the 1930s, during the Great Depression of America, the play takes place in a cramped apartment in St. Louis, Mississippi.
In Eelum’s version of the play, the stage presents a living room, a dining room and a balcony through which Tom, played by Eelum, the son of the family, likes to look at the moon, the building opposite his house, and also talk to the audience.
Tom talks to the audience to describe images and thoughts of characters, which have taken place in the past – an essential element in a memory play, a term used by Williams to describe a non-realistic play.
Tom is a young man burdened with family responsibilities but yearns to escape, like his father who abandoned the family 16 years ago with only a postcard sent back home.
The reason behind choosing the specific play Eelum elaborated was because he had the script with him for a long time.
“Columnist Dubby Bhagat had given me the script around eight years ago, and when the Spinal Injury Rehabilitation Centre (SIRC) in Kavre asked me how I could help them, the play came to my mind.”
The actors of the play, according to Dixit, have worked tremendously. The selection, too, he claims, was a vigorous process.
Riva Thapa enacts Amanda the mother, Shristhi Ghimire is Laura the sister, and Arpan Khanal is Jim the suitor.
All the actors put up a pretty good show, but Eelum stands out with witty dialogues delivered with great timings. Shristhi, in her meek and silent role with beautiful expressions, managed to woo the audience like none others.
Riva Thapa, who had the largest role to play with a huge amount of stage presence and lengthy dialogues, did a commendable job for a first-time act. Arpan Khanal delivered what he was expected to do as a jolly good fellow, vibrant and happy, and also the symbol of the hidden desires within the mother and daughter.
Although the play does not conclude with a happy note, what with the son following on his father’s footsteps, and the suitor confessing of being engaged, and the mother and daughter left to lament, the staging of the play is done fairly well and with a generous motive.
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