Amy Ward
Critique #1
The Waiting Room
By Lisa Loomer
Spirit Square, Charlotte, NC
2-6-2003 7:30 p.m.
(2.75 pages)
I work at the YMCA in Hendersonville, NC and our Active Older Adults
group was going to
Charlotte to enjoy
a play for one of their Travel Club trips. So I asked the director
in charge if I
could tag along
(at the retail price) and she agreed. That’s how I ended up going so
far to see a
play. Having
looked at the flyer provided, which sported a picture of Freud and three
women all
smoking cigars,
I wasn’t so sure this was going to be a good play for “older adults” to see,
even if
they were active.
I wasn’t even sure if it was going to be good for me, although it would be
a great
opportunity to get
in a critique. Reason for my misgiving was given again as I read my
ticket stub,
which said, “Adult
content and language”. I was glad my grandmother wasn’t going.
When we arrived, I sketched out the opening set in my
A&I journal while we waited for the play
to start, then during
intermission I sketched out the large panels hanging over the set.
Each one
represented one
of the three women who were the main characters. It was really neat
the way they
did scene changes
in the play. The stagehands were all dressed in medical scrubs, so
they, too, were
an active part of
the play itself – silent actors.
The play was set in “The Past, and the Present, and often
both at once” of “New York City,
England, and China”
and dealt with the perception of beauty for women. The playwrite was
trying
to show us how culture
and society have such a huge impact on what is perceived as being beautiful,
even if it’s detrimental
to the health of the women of that cuilture. The interaction between
these three
women of different
times and cultures, all going to the same surgeon to have phsyical changes
made to
make them more desirable
to the men in their lives, was truly touching, as was the personal struggle
the
doctor himself had
to endure. Ms. Loomer chose a Chinese woman suffering from the damage
of foot
binding, an English
lady confined to the ideas, not only of a small and corsetted waist, but
also of an un-
educated mind, and
a Modern Day woman dealing with multiple plastic surgeries and now breast
cancer.
There was a bonding created among the women as they each
began to understand the other’s story.
It was almost as
if the characters and the audience got to know each individual together,
and the characters
were able to offer
the support that we, as the audience, wanted so much to give.
There was a moment
just before intermission
when all four women (the fourth being the receptionist/secretary of the office)
found themselves
together in the park after dark. Something was mentioned about the
stars and how they
bring hope, and
as they all looked up at the sky, four starts were illuminated over them,
among the 3 images
of the women.
To me it was a sign of hope and of connection. I felt that even the
stars had been there for
hundreds of years,
and the stars women today look at are the same ones that women in the past
wished on.
Yet, it was still
sad. I had forgotten there was an intermission and I thought the play
had ended. It could
have ended, but
you would have known there was more.
As we waited, and stretched our legs, the director of
the trip and I interacted quietly about the play so far.
She was apprehensive
about what the members would say about it and asked if I liked it.
No, not really –
but I could see
the benefits of it. I don’t think that most of the people with us were
interested in being
benefited in such
a way. By that time of their life, they’re either going to enjoy something
like that or they
wont – they’re not
going to be up for learning something new. Most of the women probably
wouldn’t
even be worried
about what society thinks is beautiful, since most fashion magazines don’t
feature white
haired old ladies
on the covers.
As the second Act played through, the story was rounded
out and fulfilled, helping me gain satisfaction
with the experience.
It wasn’t an easy story line or one that caused you to dance out of the theatre
hall, but
it did give you
a sense of completion and satisfaction in knowing the issues raised are real
and quiet, but yet
other people know
of them. I think that the playwrite was successful in bringing a poingant
message to her
audience, the key
is how receptive it was to her message. I’m not sure if all the older
adults on our trip were
very open to hearing
it, but perhaps it will give them things to think about when they have their
grandchildren
around. Will
there be a generation that doesn’t force ideals of beauty on their women
when it’s painful and
unhealthy?
Are the women to blame or are the men? It’s a big question and this
play did a wonderful job of
portraying the struggles
on many sides. I think it would be a great play to take a college class
to – be it arts,
theatre, history,
humanities, psychology or any number of subjects.