final draft

    In a story filled with madness, sadness and hopeless, Laura is extremely shy and sensitive. At the same time, she is quite nervous and depression while Amanda and Tom are fighting since she would like to have a cozy and warm family. Amanda's nagging about gentleman callers annoyed her, which shows she doesn't care about any gentleman callers. She drops from the business school because of her timid to communicate with people. She escapes the world by staying away from others, which implies she could not live as a normal people do. She is immersed in the world which is filled with the glass menagerie. That's also one of the reasons why Amanda is worrying and feels hopeless. I chose Laura as a challenge for myself since I have never try to shape character with fewer lines. Usually, I explain the character’s emotion and express their characteristic through scripts. As a result, Laura’s character requires me to think about more about the relationship between movements and emotion, which I think the acting method could be workability. Also, she is Amanda’s hope, Tom’s reason that he doesn’t leave the family, which indicates that she plays an important role in the story even though she has fewer lines. She is the person who kinds of connecting the family together.
I chose Act 1, scene one. The conflict starts when Tom is coming back, while Laura and Amanda are having dinner. The scene plays an important role in the whole story since as the foundation of the whole story, it implies each of the characters' personality clearly. At the

time when Amanda and Tom's fight attract the audience, Laura's depression and sadness due to

the family situation also influence the audience's emotion a lot. When Amanda is arguing Tom

that he chews food, Laura tries to leave in order to escape from this situation. When her mother

mentions the gentleman callers again, she says "I'm not expecting any gentleman callers."

Then, when Tom and Laura are arguing each other, she immersed in her own world, which is

telling the audience about her glass menagerie, "They are the thinnest little animals in the world.

Mom calls them the glass menagerie!Here's an example of one,  if you'd like to see. Oh, be

careful, if you breathe, it breaks." which illustrate that the glass menagerie is valuable for her. At

the end of the first scene, Amanda mentions again about the gentleman callers and asks " how

many gentleman callers do think we are going to receive?" Laura's answers "I'm not excepting

we are going to receive any, mother." She responds her mothers' worries resignedly by telling

the audience" Mother's afraid I'm going to become an old maid." At the second scene, Laura

only has one line by implying that Tom is writing. When Tom and Amanda start arguing again,

Laura is hurting by their fights. She is hopeless and feels depressed by sitting away with them.

      

Since Laura has fewer lines in the scene.Instead of shaping her character by speaking lines, the body language and details movements would help me to shape her character. Moreover, Amanda and Tom’s fight would always attract the audience so I would not get ignored by the audience by walking around on the stage and express my sadness and depression by variable movements. From the beginning of the table scene, when Tom comes back and Amanda starts nagging at him. As the one who is in the middle of them, I would try to remind Tom to be polite to Mum since I don’t want them to argue each other. However, at the same time, I’m afraid to persuade. When they are arguing, I approach to prevent Tom by dragging her clothes or touching his hands to remind him calm down. Since he ignores me, my head down and I look down at my shoes. When Tom says he is getting a cigarette, I was worried by looking up and make eye contacts with Tom.Then, I realized that the contradiction would become larger, so I would like to escape from the situation, I tells “Mother, I’ll bring in the coffee.” Amanda refused her request and mentions the gentleman callers. I say “I’m not expecting any gentleman callers.” I want to against Amanda by telling her that I don’t care the gentleman callers any more, but I’m afraid that mum will be worries again. After I say “I’m not expect.” with impatient tone, I stop a little bit and my voice down in a weak voice tone. Then, I’m hesitate whether I should persuade Tom, I walk into Tom slowly. I play with my fingers and clenched my skirts. When I request Tom to apologize to mum, I feel nervous with shaking voice since I’m afraid that he refused. Tom said nothing and at that time, Amanda walks into and starts to memorize her gentlemen callers.

When Amanda and Tom are talking since Laura is not interested in any gentleman caller. In her mind, she is playing with her glass menagerie. Then, when the background raises up, I’ll speak out my monologue which I have indicated before. Laura is naive and kinds of childish when she is immersed in her world worlds. In addition, she is full of happiness in her world. So I will dance to the center of the stage and dance by turning around. I’ll speak to the audience directly in a

soft and magical voice tone in order to show my careness to the glass. When I say “Here’s an

example of one if you’d like to say…” I hold the glass with both of my hands and lift it on the

position of my eyes flat. I look at the glass and the light go through the glass. I’ll say “Oh, be

careful, if you breathe, it beaks” with lowest and softest voice tone. The background is positive

and happy with faster melody. The monologue is one of the most significant part to show

Laura’s characteristic and her crazy to glass. I have a lot of movements on the stage. I’ll jump to

the front and face the audience. The whole speed should go slowly through my movements and

soft voice.

Then, I come back to my position while Tom and Amanda are still arguing each other. I feel

nervous in this situation. So i look down on my shoes and play with my fingers. Their loud voice

make me afraid which I would like to escape from the table. So I’ll say “Mother, I’ll clear the

table.” quickly and go towards the table. However, she interrupted me by mentioning the typewriting and gentleman callers again. And I would be kinds of surprised since Amanda thinks that no gentleman callers is the most terrible concerns. So I said, “It’s not a flood, it isn’t a tornado.” My voice would be louder since I don’t think having no gentleman callers is an issue. I could not

understand why mother thinks like that. I’ll look at Amanda with frown and make eye contact at

her this time. I spread out my hand to show my Moreover when I say “I’m just not popular as you were in blue mountain.” It’s better for me to look down on the ground and voice goes down again, which could show my unconfidence. She thinks she is a coward and not attractive at all. Then, I go in front and face to the audience and say “Mother’s afraid I’m going to become an old maid.

In the second scene, I only have one line that is “Mother, look, look, Tom’s trying to write.” The lines also provoke Amanda and Tom fighting. Amanda and Tom start fighting in a fierce way, their loud voice makes Laura afraid. At the same time, she feels guilty to the family. She thinks she is the one who causes the conservation every time. She would like to have a cozy and warm family, but Amanda and Tom always fight with each other. So at that time, I immersed in myself world again to escape the reliable life. So I would walk back and look at their argument at first, then I approach to interrupt the fighting by grabbing Tom's clothes, but he refuses by yanking my hand away. They ignore me and keep arguing each other. I feel so disappointed and walked back to the table slowly. When I walked towards the table, I look back their argument at the same time. However, they ignore her by paying no attention to Laura and the voice is louder and louder. I feel so depression by sobbing quietly and I sat know and huge myself. I locking myself by tightening on my own. Their voice is continuing, I start trembling and crying. When I heard Amanda's shouting and yield, I heard the heavy locked sound by the door. I look up and stand up. Tom's back is disappeared into the dark. Then, the lights turn off.

When I prepare for my character, I faced a lot of challenge due to Laura's characteristic, she is so sensitive and quiet that scrips could not be helpful to shape characterize. In addition, in order to shape the character better, we discussed several acting theorists to practice. I have used Michael Chekhov's theorists that memorizing one event which is connected with Laura's experience. I recorded that my father and mom was fighting while I was young. They fight every day due to my education concerns. So I feel nervous and afraid at that time, which has the similar emotion with Laura. I imagined what movements I had at that time, and pretending I was Laura. Moreover, for our group, we changed scripts a lot even though at the ending time, so it causes so problems. We focus more on the scripts edits instead of our performance, So we should also concentrate on our movements on the stage and how we should express our emotion through lines.

In the video, I think I still have a lot to work on. It seems like that I caught some characteristic of Laura, however, I didn't express all of her emotion well. The audience might think Laura is a quiet and unconfidence girl through the video. Also, the argument between Amanda and Tom are so attractive, it seems like I would be ignored by the audience due to the fewer movements on the stages.