menagerie REVISED

Prince, don't ask me in a week / or in a year what place they are;

I can only give you this refrain: / Where are the snows of yesteryear?

Francois Villon, c. 1461

"Where are the snows of yesteryear?" asks Tennessee Williams in the opening screen of The Glass Menagerie (401), quoting a poem by Francis Villon. Williams explains in the production notes to this famous play that he has left in the manuscript a device omitted from the "acting version" of the play (Williams 395), a series of messages projected on screens, some verbal, some pictorial, that prompt and reflect the action on stage. Williams sums up the action in two lines before those notes as, preparation for a gentleman caller, and "the gentleman calls" (394). This summary is so understated as to suggest a possible joke, because The Glass Menagerie is such a rich a...
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