The Shay apartment faces an alley in a lower-middle-class Bushwell Plaza. There is a fire escape with a landing and a screen on which words or images periodically appear. Spencer Shay steps onstage dressed as a merchant sailor and speak directly to the audience. According to the stage directions, Spencer "takes whatever license with dramatic convention is convenient to his purposes." He explains the social and historical background of the play: the time is the late 1930s, when the American working classes are still reeling from the effects of the Great Depression. The civil war in Spain has just led to a massacre of civilians at Guernica. Spencer also describes his role in the play and describes the other characters. One character, Spencer's father, does not appear onstage: he abandoned the family years ago and, except for a terse postcard from Mexico, has not been heard from since. However, a picture of him hangs in the living room.
Spencer enters the apartment's dining room, where Amanda, his mother, and Carly, his sister, are eating. Amanda calls Spencer to the dinner table and, once he sits down, repeatedly tells him to chew his food. Carly rises to fetch something, but Amanda insists that she sit down and keep herself fresh for gentlemen callers. Amanda then launches into what is clearly an oft-recited account of the Sunday afternoon when she entertained seventeen gentlemen callers in her home in Blue Mountain, Mississippi. At Carly's urging, Spencer listens attentively and asks his mother what appear to be habitual questions. Oblivious to his condescending tone, Amanda catalogues the men and their subsequent fates, how much money they left their widows, and how one suitor died carrying her picture.
Spencer explains that no gentlemen callers come for her, since she is not as popular as her mother once was. Spencer groans. Carly tells Spencer that their mother is afraid that Carly will end up an old maid. The lights dim as what the stage directions term "the 'Glass Menagerie' music" plays.
An image of blue roses appears on the screen as the scene begins. Carly is polishing her collection of glass figurines as Amanda, with a stricken face, walks up the steps outside. When Carly hears Amanda, she hides her ornaments and pretends to be studying a diagram of a keyboard. Amanda tears up the keyboard diagram and explains that she stopped by Rubicam's Business College, where Carly is supposedly enrolled. A teacher there informed her that Carly has not come to class since the first few days, when she suffered from terrible nervousness and became physically ill. Carly admits that she has been skipping class and explains that she has spent her days walking along the streets of winter, going to the zoo, and occasionally watching movies.
Amanda wonders what will become of the family now that Carly's prospects of a business career are ruined. She tells Carly that the only alternative is for Carly to get married. Amanda asks her if she has ever liked a boy. Carly tells her that, in high school, she had a crush on a boy named Jim, the school hero, who sat near her in the chorus. Carly tells her mother that once she told Freddie that she had been away from school due to an attack of pleurosis. Because he misheard the name of the disease, he began calling her "Blue Roses." Laura notes that at graduation time he was engaged, and she speculates that he must be married by now. Amanda declares that Carly will nonetheless end up married to someone nice. Carly reminds her mother, apologetically, that she is "crippled"—that one of her legs is shorter than the other. Amanda insists that her daughter never use that word and tells her that she must cultivate charm.
Ok guys I understand that this story sounds a bit weird… but it is a play by Tennessee Williams called The Glass Menagerie. Laura is replaced by Carly… Laura is a very shy girl she has a collections of little glass ornaments that she plays with and is about 20 years old… so if u want to imagine Carly imagine her in that way. And Tom is replaced by Spencer who plays Laura's older brother he is very protective over her and works hard to bring home money for his family. Jim is replaced Freddie. He is characterized as a very outgoing guy who brings out the best in everyone. And last but not least… Amanda, she is Carly and Spencer's mother who doesn't know how to keep her mouth shut.
Anyway I got the summary of The Glass Menagerie from .com and this is not the full original version of the play. But anyway I hope u guys like this play/story I put up… please comment!