xWendy Wasserstein: Plays

Uncommon women and others

Superficial analysis

-Setting, EEUU, in a restaurand 1978 (reencuentro de compañeras) and 1972 in a college for
women

-Plot Reencuentro de compañeras de college, the whole play is a flashback of the time they were in
college and graduate, their dreams about future, friends’ issues, sexual relations etc.

-Style, Colloquial but “intellectual” in a way, emphasis on femenine characters

-Atmosphere

-Characters, all of them are women of approximately the same age

– Kate, serious, beautiful

– Samantha, attractive, classic, quiet (PASSIVE)
– Holy: expensive clothes (successful woman), strong moral
– Muffet (Muffie) attractive, cheerful, charming
– Rita, feminist, self confident, from a “middle class” family
– Mrs. Plumm, housemother, cozy
– Susie Friend, pink, wants to be leader MORE LIKE A PELOTA
– Carter, quiet
– Leilah, handsome but she is jealous of Kate, seirous, distant, shy

-Structure, Present (Reencuentro, Remember) – Past (Future’s fear, sexual relation, gossip…) –
Present (Successful)

- Theme: Women, sex, feminist

Present: 1978

Kate: Business suit, most handsome (Attaché> suit case), goes for a women-in-law conference,
presumida. Has become a feminist. (“Rich” father)
Samantha: Attractive
Holly: Expensive clothes, strong moral code
Muffet: stylish, reexamining her younger tenets, not graduated
Rita: Won a scholarship, wants to be writer, is going to “marry” Timmy ¿?

At college: 1972

Mrs. Plumm
Susie
Carter
Leilah

-P.9 Lesbian from a rock band

P10 → Children. “Do you ever think it’s odd that none of us have children? […] we’re the
uncommon bell curve, but I still think it’s odd. I can’t decide if I want any
P.11: “I always wanted a wife” (RITA)

ACT 1 SCENE 2

Mrs. Plumm housemother

SCENE 3

Making fun of Susie friend

Pataphysical ?¿

THEMES
-Sisterhood / Friendship

-Future and goals

Scene 3

“The lord is good to me”

Holly = Mrs. Plumm does not allow her to come to tea in pants

“I don’t have a skirt”

FEMINISM → RITA: imitating Susie Friend “I wax my legs” “I’d let …. violate my body for X
hours”

Muffet: Remember when Rita made a Rorschach test with her menstrual blood to summon back
Edvard munch? [PSYCHOANALYSIS]

Scene 4

P.23 Real problem for many educated women is the difficulty they have recognizing whether they
have been a success.

-Even the best cooks are men

-WORLD OF MEN

-suffragettes (In the class of women’s-history)

IMPOSED

P.25 “You girls are wasting your time. You should do more aver what you have down here – points
to her breasts-- than avec what you have up here” – points to her head.
→
Holly and Rita ran out of the room in protest

ALIENATED→ Muffet was confused about what to do “I didn’t think she was entirely wrong
either”
-I would really like to meet my prince. Even a few princes. And I wouldn’t give up being a person.

IDEA: Still want to follow the conventional idea of finding a prince, a person who give your life
BUT she has also feminist ideas in her mind but not so radical, a little bit alienated “And I wouldn’t
give up being a person” “I just hate going to bed alone”

P. 26 Samantha: LOVE AS FINDING SOMEONE SUPERIOR, passivity, successful but passive

Muffet: I don’t mind being alone. I like being strong+

Samantha: You’re just more capable than me

IDEA: Samantha wants to live behind the shadow of a man, she does not like being alone.

Scene 5

IDEA P 27 → Although the attitude of society toward educatio nfor women has changed in the last
century, the intellectual curiosity, hard work and spirit of adventure are still characteristic of MEN

KATE and LEILAH, Kate is sorry for boys loving her

CLITORAL ORGASMS: SEX

BOOK KATE IS READING: A man unfastened the buttons of a woman’s gown and she says
“What are you doing? I’m not one of your strumpets” MAN: But you were asking for it. You
wanted it. And you enjoyed every second of it. MALE ABUSE

Orthocreme: Vaginal crème

Holly: I hate being mounted […] There’s someone on top of you sweating and pushing and you’re
lying there pretending this is wonderful.

Rita: But it can be your conquest […] (Leilah le dice manipulative) I’m not manipulative. Our
entire being is programmed for male approval. Now on the other hand I want abandonment. I want
to do it with everything

Leilah: Rita, don’t you want some attachment? Some love?

Rita: From cocks?

[…]

Rita: This entire society is based on cocks […] (fields) – everything I can name is male. When I see
things this way, it becomes obvious that it’s very easy to feel alienated and alone for the simple
reason that I’ve never been included ‘cause I came into the world without a penis. It is my duty to
take advantage […] Did I ever tell you about the time I left X lying there after I’d had an orgasm
and he hadn’t?

WANTS TO FEEL POWER BECAUSE SOCIETY MAKE WOMEN POWERLESS just for not
having a penis

RITA= Liberated woman “I’ve tested my menstrual blood”

“All men should be forced to menstruate”

RESPECT

A WORLD WITH NO MEN p 38

Masturbation
-Ideal society with no men, just a few days to see men (KATE)
Samantha: I couldn’t live in a society like that. I guess I’m not as strong as you Kate

KATE: Holly don’t you want to fall in love? You don’t have to get married it would be nice to have
passion

HOLLY: Yes. Except if I fall in love it will be because I think someone is better than me. And if I
really thought some one was better than me I’d give him everything and I’d hate him for living
through him.

IDEA: To live through someone else ALIENATION

FRIENDSHIP who will you marry

CELEBRATE: that none of our marriage proposals has been reciprocated CELEBRATE WE ARE
SINGLE AND “INDEPENDENT”

p 52 BULIMIA

SCENE 5 → Kate and Carter’s

Kate fears she become and “efficient lady in gray business suit”, although she is serious, she does
not want to become a boring woman with no imagination. She is insecure because of what people
expect of these new “uncommon worker women”.

→ Likes sex
→ Feels comfortable with Carter
→ Carter does not really talk too much

SCENE 6 (P.58)

– Penis and penis envy (Freud): Men write with their cosks
– Why men do not have breast and womb envy? → Woman supremacy

– Holly: I envy their confidence, options […] but never wanted a penis → THE POWER THAN
SOCIETY HAS GIVEN MEN IS THE ONLY THING THEY ENVY

P. 59 → The only people who have penis envy are other men (Woman just envy their options and
opportunities)

RITA’S FUTURE → She refuses to live under expectations, she wants to be a writer “I’m not going
to throw my imagination away”

– Even women that are going to work live under certain expectations (Like Kate said before),
subjugated to society expectations

P. 62 The Bell jar → Sylvia Plath

SCENE 7 GRADUATION
→ Today all fields are open to women and more than 50% continue in professional or graduated
school

→ Mrs. Plumm wishes luck to all of them SISTERHOOD

–Rita → no security in marriage→ she will not spend her life trying to convert a male half-person
into a person (Change social standards)
-Professional work → self-destruction, you have to prove yourself
-She just wants a room to write

Mrs. Plumm (Going to Bolivia [Orgithology]) “Even I am in a transition period”→ Never too old
to be independent and do what you want as a free woman who rebels against standards of society.

SCENE 8 present P. 67 CHANGE OF VOICE from a man to a woman

→ Role of women in society is liberated

– Though women have obstacles to achievement and recognition. Society has trained women […]
to accept a limited set of options and restricted level of aspirations.

-They try to liberate

PRESENT → Carter making movies, Leilah got married in Iraq and becomes muslim (Less
freedom, can not divorce, running away from oppression gets more), Mufflet working as insurance
seminar hostess instead of waiting for her prince (Choice)

Samantha is ashamed and thinks the others will disapproved her choice (Alienation) marrying and
not working but it was her choice and women have to support each other. Anouncement (beginning)
she is having a baby.

Kate does not know if she wants children but she thinks she still has time to decide.