For Whom The Southern Belle Tolls (Dec 9-12)

For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls is a parody of Tennessee Williams wonderful play The Glass Menagerie.

In this version Amanda is frustrated with her over-sensitive, hypochondriac son named Lawrence. Lawrence refuses to leave the house or get a job; he’s too shy to ever met anyone; and he spends all his time playing with his collection of glass cocktail stirrers. (“This one is called string bean because it’s long and thin,” he says. “I call this one thermometer because it looks like a thermometer.” “All my children have such imagination,” Amanda says with despair.)

Lawrence’s more regular brother Tom brings home a “feminine caller” from the warehouse, and Lawrence is overwhelmed by the butch girl Ginny who is deaf and shouts all the time. Ginny and Lawrence eventually sort of hit it off, and she teaches him how to swagger and talk about baseball in a loud voice. But then she leaves, and Tom goes off to the movies (where he has a tendency to meet and bring home sailors who have missed their boat), and Amanda is stuck forever with hopeless Lawrence.