Repetition
The foundation of this play is repetition and familiarity. Four familiar faces (the actors) play nine different people. Two couples engage (or don’t) in spouse-swapping. Entire snatches of dialogue are repeated verbatim, but more importantly are those occasion when things are not entirely verbatim; not entirely identical. The point of the repetition, ironically, is to point out the slight differences between people. Metaphor helps substantially at certain point:
SONJA: It smells like melting tar.
PETE: Like fumes from a petrol station.
SONJA: Like the backyard of a restaurant.
PETE/SONJA: Like the sweat of another.
True Stories
Stories told about people that are related by characters in one part of the play become the fodder for introducing those people as characters later in the play. For instance, the woman at the center of a story told by Leon to Sonja in Part One will later appear as the character Valerie. Valerie’s story exists primarily within the structure of imagery and metaphor until then:
“He kept thinking that it would die, this hope that she would come back…It was like he was haunted by her. And then one day he’s on the bus. The bus he catches to work every day of his life and there she is with her head in some book, this woman who had just vanished, reading a book as though her life was normal, like every other life on the bus that morning but it wasn’t normal, not to him because she had this past and he just couldn’t reconcile the two.”
Unidentified Flying Truth
The play was first produced in 1996. At one point, metaphor is engaged as commentary upon the fluid nature of truth. It almost seems as though it had been written twenty years later:
“I think she genuinely believes that most people have been sexually abused. At least, most people who manifest psychological problems in adulthood. And it’s like UFOs, isn’t it? If you believe in them enough, then you’ll see them everywhere.”
Another Story
Leon tells another story to Sonja. About how he was jogging and accidentally smashed into a guy, breaking his nose form the force of the collision. But his reaction is anger at the guy even though it is his fault and suddenly metaphor takes over:
“And he’s there, right in my face, so I’m screaming at him… when I notice that he’s cowering. He’s got his hands up over his face and he’s cowering, like a dog being beaten.”
The Controlling Metaphor
Sonja gets to say the line that could be a controlling metaphor for the lives of every character. It is a desperate plea and confession at once and it fits everybody and certainly seems designed to connect strongly with many in the audience:
“Look, I don’t know what you’re doing here, in a place like this, but I’m here because my life is falling apart in ways I never thought were possible.”
