by Will Dunne
Winning and losing. We learn how three-card monte works in scene 1, while Booth imagines himself as a dealer on the street conning a fool out of his money. The game challenges the player to guess the location of a particular card among three face-down playing cards shuffled by the dealer. The rule here is simple but binding: if you pick the right card, you win; if you pick the wrong card, you lose. The power of this rule is reinforced throughout the story and becomes paramount in scene 6, when winning and losing leads to murder.
Head of household. However small his “humble abode” may be, Booth is the head of household who decides not only how things work within these four walls but also how long Lincoln may remain as a paying guest. All other household rules flow from this basic assumption. Booth likes to wield his power so he can feel like a topdog, as in scene 1, when he threatens to evict Lincoln.
Money matters. As head of household, Booth has declared that, while Lincoln is responsible for most living expenses, Booth controls the budget. These dynamics are established in scene 2, which takes place on a Friday, when Lincoln gets paid and the weekly rent is due. Of the $314 that Lincoln brings home from the arcade, Booth must allot $100 for rent and then determine how the rest of the money will be divided to cover basic costs. When distributing funds for personal use, it is Booth’s prerogative to give himself twice as much as he gives his brother.
Sleeping arrangements. There is only one bed in the room and it is for Booth. Lincoln must sleep in the old recliner, another demonstration of Booth’s reign over the premises.
Boosting. While Lincoln’s income covers certain expenses, it is not enough to meet all of the brothers’ needs. “Boosting,” or stealing, is thus an acceptable means of obtaining whatever else is needed. This rule is established in scene 1, when Booth brags about boosting a “diamond-esque” ring for his ex-girlfriend, Grace.
■ THE CLEAN HOUSE
In the world of The Clean House, Lane is a dominant force in deciding how things are supposed to work, though her authority weakens as the story unfolds. Laws and customs include:
Housecleaners. When a professional like Lane hires someone to clean her house, she expects this person to keep the premises clean without being told what to do, to be invisible, and to remain emotionally uninvolved in her life. “I want a stranger to clean my house,” Lane says in act one, scene 13, after finding out that it is her sister, not her maid, who has been cleaning. Lane’s view of housecleaners accentuates the class differences between Matilde and her and fuels Lane’s resistance, in act one, to developing a personal relationship with Matilde even though they live under the same roof.
Marriage vows. When two people marry, they are supposed to love and honor each other for the rest of their lives. For Lane, fidelity is so integral to married life that until act one, scene 13, she could not conceive of Charles being with anyone but her: “How, I thought, could he even look at anyone else. It would be absurd.” Reverence for marriage explains why Lane is so devastated by Charles’s infidelity and also why Charles and Ana try so hard to justify their relationship. Though he is not Jewish, for example, Charles cites a Jewish law that he interprets as a mandate to be with Ana since she is his soul mate, or bashert. Bowing to the sanctity of marriage, Ana meanwhile feels compelled to stress that she is not a home wrecker and that, before Charles, she has loved no one since her late husband.
Helping others. As doctors, Lane and Charles have a professional obligation to care for the sick. This is why Charles heads to Alaska in search of a cancer treatment for Ana and why Lane visits her husband’s dying soul mate while he is away. Lane does not believe, however, that anyone should take care of her. She makes this clear more than once to Virginia, whose desire to help others, especially Lane, drives much of her behavior. It is not until late in the play that Lane is able to accept the social rule that Virginia cites after Lane’s marriage fails: “Everybody needs to be taken care of.”
Mourning attire. Matilde’s clothing reflects the social custom of wearing black to mourn the loss of a loved one and is an ongoing reminder of her deceased parents’ influence on her life.
ANALYZING YOUR STORY
Think about laws and customs that govern your characters and affect story events.
KEY SOCIAL RULES
• Are there any federal, state, or local laws that affect story events because a character chooses to obey them or to break them? If so, what laws are most relevant?
• What moral codes most influence your characters during the story?
• At home, at work, or in social groups, what personal dictates or expectations govern character behavior and affect how the story unfolds?
FOR EACH MAJOR SOCIAL RULE . . .
• Who established this rule?
• How long has this rule been in effect in the world of the characters? How has it affected life here?
• What are the rewards for obeying this rule? The consequences for breaking it?
• How do your characters each view this rule, and why do they see it that way?
• How and when is this rule first introduced to the characters? To the audience? When does it become important to the plot?
• Who is most affected by this rule during the story, and in what way?
ECONOMICS
Money, or lack of it, often determines who characters know, where they live, how they live, what they can do, and what they cannot do. It contributes to their outlook on life and their ability to get what they want. It is a common source of conflict and a frequently recurring motivation for human behavior. This is why many dramatic stories—from Shakespeare’s King Lear to Joe Orton’s Loot to Caryl Churchill’s Serious Money—center on characters and their relation to wealth, whether they are trying to acquire it, use it, protect it, or deal with its loss.
■ DOUBT: A PARABLE
Doubt is a story about certainty and doubt in the world of a Catholic elementary school. Money is of little relevance dramatically and never mentioned in the dialogue of the play.
■ TOPDOG/UNDERDOG
Economics is a driving force in the world of Topdog/Underdog. It contributed to the breakup of the family twenty years ago and underlies the hardships that the brothers face today.
The financial pressure of buying and maintaining a house was a key reason for the growing problems between the parents and their decisions eventually to abandon their teenage boys. In reliving this loss in scene 7, Booth remarks that, “She split then he split. Like thuh whole family mortgage bills going to work thing was just too much.”
For both brothers, money is the last memento of their parents: their mother secretly left Booth $500 in a tied-up nylon stocking, and their father secretly left Lincoln $500 in a clean handkerchief. While this cash may have eased the parents’ guilt about deserting their sons, it has become a defining factor in the brothers’ relationship to each other and to money. Because each inheritance was bestowed in secret by only one parent on only one son, money has created a wall between the brothers, who were implicitly encouraged to mistrust each other.
Since money is so closely associated with both parental love and abandonment, the brothers have come to view it differently. For Booth, who survives by theft, money is not a means of acquiring goods so much as a magical power to earn respect and attract women. This attitude explains why money is such an integral part of his plan to win back Grace, his ex-girlfriend, and also why he has never spent the cash his mother left him. For Lincoln, money is a means to pursue life’s pleasures and should be spent as soon as possible. When he receives a week’s severance pay after losing his job, he blows it all the same day. It is no wonder that the inheritance from his father is long gone.
Booth’s money decisions have led him to view honest employment as oppression and to work outside the system to get what he wants. Lincoln’s money decisions have led him to become a pawn of the system, allowing himself to be humiliated and underpaid in order to earn a legitimate income. Though the brothers have arrived at the
ir small room by different paths, they now find themselves in the same economic distress, a shared poverty that forces them at times to seek comfort in each other.
■ THE CLEAN HOUSE
In the world of The Clean House, economics translates into the class differences that shape the events of the story. As successful doctors, Lane and Charles have the money to do as they please, such as hire a live-in maid to keep their house clean. Thanks to the freedom and mobility that money brings, Charles, in act two, can shrug off the responsibilities of his job in order to be with Ana or to travel to Alaska at a moment’s notice to find a yew tree for her. He is even able to take flying lessons and rent a plane when he learns that this is his only option for getting the tree home.
In contrast, Matilde has so little money that she must live in someone else’s house and work as a cleaning woman, a job that saddens her. She can’t afford even to buy the kind of underwear she likes. As a result, she must defer her dream of becoming a comedian in New York. It is her lack of money that traps her here and contributes to her unhappiness. For Virginia, a housewife married to a middle-class man, money is not an issue in her daily cleaning routine. She has the resources to live comfortably and to entertain thoughts of doing volunteer work, if only she could figure out who might need her. For Ana, money is of little interest. She appears to have what she needs and is more focused on the challenges of having cancer.
ANALYZING YOUR STORY
Review the financial dimensions of your characters’ world.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
• Think about the world of your characters in relation to wealth and poverty. How would you describe the general economics of this world?
• In what specific ways are these economic conditions shown?
• How do economics affect the physical environment and what’s in it?
• Do economics contribute to the emotional environment of this world, and, if so, how?
• How do economics influence character lifestyles?
• Think about the collective spending habits of your characters. For what purpose is money or material wealth most often used in this world?
• What do the spending habits of your characters suggest about their values and beliefs?
• Who in this world has the most money and spending power? Who has the least?
• At what points in the story is money—or lack of it—most important?
FOR EACH CHARACTER . . .
• What is the character’s economic status when the story begins? When it ends?
• How does the character view material wealth or lack of it?
• How do economics affect the character physically? Psychologically? Socially?
• How much does the desire for wealth or the fear of poverty motivate the character’s actions during the story? What are the most significant examples of this?
• How would the character be different if he or she had greater wealth? Less wealth?
POWER STRUCTURE
Politics is a key ingredient of any dramatic story. Politics in this case means power: the ability to influence the behavior of others or the course of events.
Drama often explores how power is structured and how it affects the world of the characters. A power structure may exist personally between individuals, as in David Ives’s Venus in Fur, where a director and actor vie for dominance during an audition for a play. Or a power structure may exist formally within a group, organization, or society, as in Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman, where agents of a police state determine the fates of two brothers whom they hold prisoner.
Whether personal or institutional, the power structure affecting characters tends to be dynamic. It can change from scene to scene or within a scene. It is often a major power shift that leads to the main event of the story.
■ DOUBT: A PARABLE
The chain of command at St. Nicholas church and school is clearly defined by Sister Aloysius in scene 2 when she tells Sister James, “You are answerable to me, I to the monsignor, he to the bishop, and so on up to the Holy Father.” Since James is at the bottom of this weighty pile, she must do whatever she is told. This power dynamic permeates her interactions with Aloysius and contributes to James’s decision in scene 4 to report her concerns about Father Flynn.
The same power dynamics make Aloysius’s campaign to get rid of Flynn extremely difficult. He holds a position of authority that she cannot easily question and that cannot easily be overcome. In fact, the patriarchal power structure of the Catholic Church is what makes the play necessary after Aloysius learns about Flynn’s questionable relationship with an eighth-grade boy. Within this hierarchy of authority, she is allowed to report problems only to one person—Monsignor Benedict—who is not only senile but also a staunch ally of the popular priest. For the problem of Flynn to be resolved, Aloysius must take matters into her own hands.
■ TOPDOG/UNDERDOG
As the title implies, Topdog/Underdog is all about power: who has it and who doesn’t. From a broad social perspective, both brothers are underdogs who live in poverty, with few opportunities for advancement and success. Whether they try to work within the system or outside it, neither seems able to rise above the broken family, social inequalities, and bad habits that led them here.
Within their brotherly relationship, Lincoln is the topdog and Booth the underdog. These roles are clearly defined by the playwright but not always obvious as the story unfolds. As a card hustler, Lincoln knows it can be advantageous to “lose” a game in order to give the player a false sense of confidence. What the player doesn’t know is that the dealer is always in control and that the money on the board will be his when it is ample enough to be a worthy prize. Lincoln often uses this strategy with Booth, letting him win small battles so that Lincoln can win big ones later.
In scene 2, for example, when the brothers spar over stolen ties, Lincoln lets Booth have the one they both appear to want so that Lincoln can get the one he really wants. Lincoln uses the same strategy in scene 6 when he lets Booth win one round of three-card monte so that Lincoln can win the next one and con Booth out of his inheritance. This final power struggle is one that has no winner, however, as one brother ends up dead and the other a killer.
■ THE CLEAN HOUSE
In act one, when the action centers on physical cleaning, the well-to-do doctors Lane and Charles have the most power and the housekeeper Matilde the least. Though Lane at times feels uncomfortable with her household authority, she has no problem firing Matilde a few scenes later when the truth comes out about who has been cleaning her house. Virginia, as a middle-class housewife and sister to Lane, starts out somewhere in the middle of this chain of command. She is trapped, however, in a meaningless life and soon relinquishes her power to Matilde, becoming the cleaning woman’s invisible labor force in an effort to keep herself busy.
In act two, when the action centers on spiritual cleaning, the power balance shifts, with Matilde gaining authority and Lane shrinking into an emotional weakling who must be told what to do. After thinking up the perfect joke, Matilde becomes the play’s most powerful character, with the ability to grant Ana’s wish to die laughing. Matilde presides over Ana’s dying needs and guides Lane through the ordeal of being a doctor to her husband’s soul mate. During this time, Virginia builds the confidence to stand up for herself, rebel against her sister’s regime, and begin to define the terms of her own life. In act two, scene 11, for example, she refuses to support Lane until she first acknowledges that she needs Virginia’s help.
Charles and Ana likewise experience a shift in power as the story unfolds. At first, Charles is the doctor with the knowledge and authority to oversee Ana’s care. This authority is toppled when they fall in love, and he becomes increasingly childlike in her presence. When her cancer returns, Charles is unable to convince Ana to go to the hospital for further treatment and, in the end, finds himself standing helplessly over her dead body.
ANALYZING YOUR STORY
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p; Explore who has power and who doesn’t in the world of your characters.
POWER DYNAMICS
• What role do politics play in the world of the characters?
• How would you describe the political environment? Why is it like this?
• Onstage or off, who rules the world of the characters?
• How would you describe this ruling power?
• What are the usual rewards for obeying the ruling power? The usual consequences for rebelling against it?
• What is the pecking order of the characters when the story begins? When the story ends?
• If during the story there is a significant shift in the power structure, what causes it? Where and how does this occur?
FOR EACH CHARACTER . . .
• What are the character’s political beliefs and how important are these to the story?
• What is the character’s personal power status when the story begins?
• What people or events have most contributed to this power status?
• How does the character’s power status affect his or her needs?
• Who are the character’s greatest allies when the story begins? When it ends?
• Who are the character’s greatest adversaries when the story begins? When it ends?
• Right or wrong, how does the character view the ruling power in this world?
• Does the character take any significant action in obedience to this power or in rebellion against it? If so, what does the character do? How does this affect the story?