Die Glasmenagerie Ballett von John Neumeier

The story is very simple. It concerns a family. The conflicts, aggressions and love of a family seated around the kitchen table. A mother, Amanda, who is abandoned, her artistically minded son Tom who has to work in a shoe factory, and her fragile, dreaming daughter Laura Rose who loves glass animal figures – particularly a unicorn. The concerns of these three people begin to centre on a kind of saviour – the gentleman caller – Jim O'Connor. The limited dimensions of their St. Louis apartment seem unable to contain the enormity of each character's hopes, desires and dreams. These hopes, desires and dreams expressed but sometimes written "between the lines" in Tennessee Williams's brilliant dramatic poetry, are the (wordless) inspiration for my choreography. Tennessee Williams calls his autobiographical drama a "memory play": All action and emotion are remembered from Tom/Tennessee's past. In my "memory ballet", drama and biography, past and present exist simultaneously and interact.