Military Precision OCD
The first image presented on stage is that of Jane Hopcroft happily cleaning her already gleaming kitchen in the oddly disconcerting combination of a party dress, bedroom slippers and rubber gloves. Her husband enters to witness this apparently not unusual sight; both are excited by the imminent arrival of “important” party guests. The first indication that Janes cleaning frenzy is not rooted merely in pre-party anxiety is offered by her husband’s almost offhand observation:
“Like a battleship. Just like a battleship. They need you in the Royal Navy.”
Changing Fortunes
Two years later things have changed substantially. Sidney Hopcroft is in another kitchen, making another metaphorical observation about another wife. This wife is not his own, however, but rather that of one of those “important” party guests who had gotten he and his wife so worked up in anxious expectations when they were playing host. Marion is a banker’s wife. The bank is beginning to flail and Marion’s alcoholism has already become the sport of public humiliation. Sidney brings a Christmas gift for Marion. Pointedly, it is a bottle of gin to which her husband the banker responds with exasperation. Knowing full well that the future of that bottle is one unlikely to welcome in the New Year, Sidney reveals his own changes in fortune by insisting the liquor is merely:
“Bit of Christmas spirit.”
The Human Tuinal: or, Drinking Ronald
The banker’s wife has over the course of three Christmas parties moved from mere heavy drinker to embarrassing drunk. Ronald discusses this situation at the last party with Eva, the suicidal wife of architect Geoffrey. His summation is not just metaphor, but an insight worthy of study:
“When I first met her she was really one of the jumpiest girls you could ever hope to meet. Still, as I say, she's much calmer since she's been with me. If I've done nothing else for her. I've acted as a sort of sedative.”
Karma’s Chameleons
In Act One, the architect and the banker are on a higher social and economic rung than the Hopcrofts. This is made most abundantly clear when the two gab privately about the state of the home in which the party is being hosted. Karma is on the way:
“This really is a simply loathsome little house. I mean how can people live in them. I mean, Geoff, you're an architect, you must be able to tell me. How do people come to design these sort of monstrosities in the first place, let alone persuade people to live in them?”
The Banker, the Lamp, His Wife and the Truth
Ronald, the banker, fancies himself a bit of the common man in his assumption that he can fix households problems like chandeliers and lamps not working. Electrical problems seem to fascinate him almost as much as cleaning fascinates Jane Hopcroft. It turns out, however, that the banker is hardly up to the job of being an emergency responder in quite the way he imagines. As his wife Marion, in one of her more lucid moments, makes clear on the subject of a lampshade that burst into flames after her husband “repaired” it:
“The whole thing was an absolute death trap. I had to give it to the Scouts for jumble…It was like modern sculpture. Bare wires sticking out at extraordinary angles.”
