With Armageddon approaching, global recession deepening, and natural disasters ripping apart the world in every sense of the word, depression and anxiety have embedded themselves deeply enough in all of us. What the people of today’s society need, over the dispiriting gloom provided in The Glass Menagerie, is the uplifting hilarity present in “For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls”. Durang’s “Belle” turns Tennessee Williams’ play Menagerie inside out, mocking and making light of the melodramatic, pathetic, and overall annoying characters found in the latter.
Part of what makes “Belle” so entertaining is its exaggeration of the feeble characters of its mother play. Take for example Laura, who is unbearably timid, crippled, and immature in her adoration of glass animals even at her post adolescent age. She makes these qualities most present during the last few scenes of the play, in which she is so shy that she cannot even muster the courage to open the front door.
“Laura: Oh, Mother—you answer the door!…Don’t make me do it!…
Amanda: Laura that is your brother and Mr. O’Connor! Will you let them in, darling?
…Laura: Please, please, please, you go!
…Amanda: Why?
Laura: I can’t, I’m sick!” (Williams, 56-57)”

This scene portrays Laura’s nervous timidity to the extent that it is inconceivable to the reader—how could anyone bottle so much anxiety as to fail to carry through with the simplest of social interactions?
Durang, to say the least, could not tolerate these irritating qualities. He ridicules Laura comically in his parody, taking the form of Lawrence—a pathetic “grown boy” with the sensitivity of a little girl and the complaints of an old woman. He too, cannot stand to open the door, but those around him are not so tolerant:
“I want you to let them in, Lawrence.
Lawrence: Oh, I couldn’t, mama, she’d see I limp.
Amanda: Lawrence, you are a grown boy. Now you open the door like any normal person.
Tom: Alright, I’m breaking it down [the door].
(Sound of door breaking down)
Tom: Why must we go through this every night???? You know the stupid f— won’t open the door!
Lawrence: Excuse me. I think I heard someone calling me in the other room. (Limps off, calling to Imaginary person:) Coming!” (Durang, 15)
After reading the same scene from Menagerie, everything about the mockery in “Belle becomes extremely amusing—from Tom’s outbreak about Lawrence’s incompetence to Lawrence’s flight to an imaginary person. The scene pokes fun at Laura’s personality and brings out the reader’s irritation for it in the dialogue of Tom and Amanda. Furthermore, it is enjoyable to read in its colorful language and derision of Lawrence’s ailments. Most importantly, it takes away the anxiety present in Menagerie, and leaves the reader with a hearty chuckle in the place of angst and tension.
Another mean by which Durang makes light of his inspiration is in the way Amanda expresses her concern for the future of her family, namely for Laura. In Menagerie the scene is fraught with worry and sorrowful anger, as Amanda succumbs to the fact that her son, the security and income for her family, is about to abandon her and her inept daughter:
“Amanda: Oh, I see the handwriting on the wall as plain as I see the nose in front of my face!…More and more you remind me of your father!—I saw the letter you got from Merchant Marine. I know what you’re dreaming of. I’m not standing here blindfolded…as soon as Laura has someone to take care of her…then you’ll be free to go wherever you please…! But until [then] you’ve got to look out for your sister.” (Williams 35)
The passage translates its anxiety into the readers—who feel what Amanda does, and relive similar concerns in their own lives. Although it is characteristic of good writing to be realistic, the current time warrants enough stress as it is without becoming preoccupied with imaginary worry.
“Belle”, however, does the opposite—rather than reminding the reader about future-related concerns, it makes fun of them in a corresponding passage:
“Amanda: Listen to your brother, Tom. He’s pathetic. How are we going to support ourselves once you go? And I know you want to leave. I’ve seen the brochure for the merchant marines in your underwear drawer…And your letter of inquiry to the Ballet Trockadero…But don’t leave us until you fulfill your duties here, Tom…or consider euthanasia…” (Durang, 23).
This passage, although it brings up the same worries as the previous quote, reduces the serious attributes of what is to come, and changes them into something to laugh at rather than to lose sleep over. In using terms such as “consider euthanasia” and “Ballet Trockadero”, the future loses its significance. For a few blissful moments, the audience can forget its own concerns—push them to the back of its collective head long enough to relax.
Perhaps the most amusing comparison between the two plays is found within the concluding scenes, in which Durang ridicules the use of a narrator in The Glass Menagerie. In Menagerie, the narrator is effective in conveying the solemn mood with the use of somber metaphors and hollow nostalgia. Tom describes his departure from his home and family in a terminating monologue:
“Tom: I didn’t go to the moon, I went much further—for time is the longest distance between two places…The cities swept about me like dead leaves, brightly colored but torn away from the branches…For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura, and so goodbye…” (Williams, 97).
Tom’s use of comparisons, involving leaves torn away and fragmented light, bring up the more dismal aspects of the play. To end with such potent melancholy is to leave the reader feeling almost surely dejected. Although the scene is powerful and very well written, something more upbeat and blithe would be better appreciated.
Durang, obviously not the drama-craving, mood-swinging, womanly type to enjoy such gloominess, provides just this. He decides to conclude, instead, with a roaring arousal of laughter. The Tom of “Belle” also has a monologue—but a 180 degree turn from that of Menagerie.
“Tom: I didn’t go to the moon, I went to the movies…I find myself thinking of Lawrence. And of his collection of glass. And my mother. And I begin to think that their story would make a good play. But then I lose interest. I really haven’t the energy…
Amanda: Tom, I hear you out on the porch talking. Who are you talking to?” (Durang 25).
In this speech to himself (for that is exactly what Tom’s monologue is, as Amanda hilariously points out) Tom makes fun of the main idea of the play in his consideration and immediate rejection of the storyline. Durang indirectly suggest that the lives of the main characters are not nearly entertaining enough to create a justifiable drama, but he proves that they create the basis for an unbelievably funny satire. However, whatever power that the monologue had initially is completely destroyed when Amanda calls her son out for conversing with himself. This derides the concept of a narrator—after all, how realistic is it to talk to no one for a stretch of time about a future that could not have possibly been carried through with in the time passed? This idea is torn apart, and the result is downright uproarious.
It can be concluded that Christopher Durang’s spoof, “For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls”, provides for a more enjoyable and uplifting read than the stressful sadness found in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. Although the latter is arguably better written in terms of its figurative language, it stirs too much negative emotion to be beneficial in the unpredictable society at hand. All in all, “Belle” makes the reader want to pick up a pencil, and write a parody of his own.