Absurd Person Singular Literary Elements

Play, contemporary, satirical

English

A generic region of English suburbs in the mid-late 20th century

The audience watches as the three main couples (the Hopcrofts, Jacksons, and Brewster-Wrights) go about their lives as seen through three successive annual Christmas parties.

Disinterested, blackly humorous, satirical

As the Hopcrofts appear to be the main characters of the play, so to speak, it is difficult to call them the protagonist, as by the end Sidney has transformed into something of a sadist. Regardless, the story follows these three couples as their fortunes turn and their situations change.

The play's major conflict is the middle-class struggle of keeping up appearances and maintaining financial independence. Relationships take a backseat as the three major couples attempt to ensure their own security through the guise of having a party with friends.

The play's climax comes at the very end, when it has become eminently clear that Sidney and Jane Hopcroft have achieved financial dominance over the Jacksons and Brewster-Wrights. The final scene shows Sidney forcing the other two couples to participate in a humiliating game he calls "Musical Dancing" while he and Jane look on and watch with an air of sadism.

In the first act, Eva Jackson mentions how she needs to take her "pills" in order to avoid acting like a lunatic. It's clear that she's not the most mentally stable of people, and this innocuous comment turns out to be foreshadowing; in the second act, Eva has become suicidal.

"I don't imagine the wife of a banker will particularly choose to spend her evening in our kitchen." - Sidney (Act I)

As the play is set in 1970s England, there are scattered allusions to real-world events and places, including apartheid and various events that have relevance for egocentric middle-class people. References to jobs, expectations, and social cues also pervade the work.

All three acts of Absurd Person Singular occur at an annual Christmas party, each one hosted by a different couple. Accordingly, there are tastefully copious amounts of festive decorations on the set that vary by act. This pervasive imagery has an unpleasant irony: despite the fact that Christmas is supposed to be a time of love, enjoyment, and friendship, each of these Christmas parties is characterized more by tension, social pressure, and selfishness than anything else. The symbol of Christmas also applies to the play's major themes; the commercialization of the holiday makes the decorations feel, like everything else, a ploy for social advancement bereft of true meaning.

In the second act, Eva attempts to kill herself, but she is ironically defeated by her guests, who have no idea what she's attempting but nevertheless accidentally prevent her from accomplishing it. This darkly humorous paradox is just one of Ayckbourn's satirical elements criticizing the faults of middle-class life.

There is a significant amount of parallelism across the three acts of the play: each one takes place at the house of one of the three major couples: the Hopcrofts', Jacksons', and Brewster-Wrights' respectively. The first and third parties bear further similarities; in each case, a well-off couple visits the house of a couple who need financial assistance to survive.

Jane Hopcroft appears to be the personification of the generic middle-class wife: she is obedient, a bit airheaded, and perfectly content with her role as cleaner and cook.

Ayckbourn takes full advantage of the medium of theatre to imply the Potters in every way but actually representing them on stage; they are present at the first party, but because the audience is watching one particular room, they aren't visible. The Potters can be heard as they laugh and talk, but the playwright cleverly conceals them from the audience's view, making them more of an elusive symbol than a pair of actual characters.