Derived from the final act of The Glass Menagerie, The Pretty Trap brings us to dinner with the Wingfield family and gentleman caller Jim Delaney, but with what Williams calls “a lighter treatment and a different ending.”
Amanda Wingfield, “a perennial Southern belle transferred to more rigorous climate and conditions,” is a single mother of two adult children, Laura and Tom. Both Laura and Tom mystify their mother with their more dreamy demeanors and distance from the refined Southern lifestyle Amanda knew in her girlhood, but tonight Amanda has finally convinced Tom to bring home a friend from work as a potential “gentleman caller” for Laura. The evening gets off to a tense beginning as Laura only very reluctantly comes out of her room and Amanda talks at uncomfortable if vivacious length at dinner. Yet when Jim and Laura are finally left alone, a pure and trusting connection between the two begins to bloom.
