A classic of the American stage, Tennessee Williams' hauntingly poetic play The Glass Menagerie tells of a single mother and her two adult children struggling to get by in Depression-era St. Louis. Amanda Wingfield, raised in Southern gentility and abandoned by her husband, now tries desperately to provide for her invalid daughter Laura and adventure-seeking son Tom. In spite of her best efforts, Amanda succeeds more in distancing her children from her, with Laura retreating into her own imaginary world and Tom plotting to escape the "prison" he sees himself in. Heavily influenced by autobiographical details from Williams' own life, the play grapples with questions of family loyalty as well as the fragile illusions we live by, which can so easily be shattered.