Sidney: Hallo, hallo. What are we up to out here, eh?
Jane: {without pausing in her work) Just giving it a wipe.
Meet the Hopcrofts. Jane, wearing a party dress beneath her apron, her bedroom slippers and rubber cleaning gloves notably incongruous, is cleaning the kitchen in advance of the arrival of Christmas party guests. Not that this is the reason she’s so busy cleaning. What used to be called a neat freak, but is today termed OCD in these more sensitively aware times, Jane might very well be doing the same thing next week or have done it a week before with the only change being the party dress. Sidney, a go-getter determined to make his place in the real estate game is good-natured, attendant, clumsy in small talk but generally speaking a good egg. He doesn’t take much interest in Jane’s obsessive cleanliness, but then it’s not really his business. As long as the house is clean, they are a happy couple. Even if Sidney is perhaps a bit less satisfied with the social status quo at the current time.
“You all right? You're still in your dressing-gown, did you know? Eva? Are you still thinking about this morning? I phoned you at lunch, you know. Were you out? Eva? Oh, come on, darling, we talked it over, didn't we? We were up till four o'clock this morning talking it over. You agreed. You did more than agree. I mean, it was your idea. And you're right. Believe me, darling, you were right. We can't go on.”
Meet the Jacksons. A year has passed since the Hopcrofts hosted the Christmas party last year. This year it is the Jacksons who are getting ready for guests to arrive. For the nest few pages of the script, two characters are engaging in discourse, but it is really a monologue by Geoffrey. His wife Eva never speaks throughout and, indeed, will not open her mouth for sounds to issue through until just before the curtain drops on this, Act Two, when she begins singing a Christmas son. For most of Act Two, in fact, Eva will make several different attempts by various means to commit suicide and will fail at each. As if this isn’t tragic enough, consider that these attempts will all take place in full view of at least one party guest and none of them notice she is trying to kill herself. Geoffrey begins Act Two by trying to place the burden on Eva for shouldering his decision to move in with his girlfriend Sally. The Jacksons are still better off than the Hopcrofts in economic and social terms, though not quite as better off as they were a year earlier. But does economic security and career status bring happiness as a matter of course? Or can an argument be made that the current domestic state of affairs in the Jackson kitchen is precisely the consequence of those economic and social privileges?
Eva: Are you warm enough in here?
Ronald: Oh, yes. It’s fine in here. Well, not too bad.
Eva: The rest of the house is freezing. I don’t envy you going to bed.
Meet the Brewster-Wrights. Well, Ronald, anyway. You will have to excuse the absence of his wife Marion. She’s not feeling well at the moment. And by well, what is really meant is that she’s working off another bender. Marion was a heavy social drinker at the Hopcroft party two years ago. Now, every day is a party. Well, not so much a party as an excuse to put another dent in the volume of available gin in England. Things are going downhill for Ronald as well. He has enjoyed even greater social status and financial independent than Eva’s architect husband. But lately the bank has been foundering. In fact, he even had to invite the Hopcrofts to this year’s party, despite the ever-increasing distaste toward them expressed by both he and Geoffrey. But, ever since Sidney’s real estate career took off, he’s been running all his business through Ronald’s bank and in light of so many others taking their business elsewhere, well, what’s a banker on the slide to do? Aside from cutting back on luxuries which used to be essentials, that is. Things like keeping the heat running all through the winter. Luxuries like that.
Sidney: I mean the site value alone—just taking it as a site—you follow me?
Ronald: Oh, yes.
Sidney; But it is a matter of striking while the iron’s hot—before it goes off the boil. . .
Ronald: Mmm . .
Sidney: I mean, in this world it's dog eat dog, isn't it? No place for sentiment Not in business. I mean, all right, so on occasions you can scratch mine. I'll scratch yours . . .
Ronald: your pardon?
Sidney: Tit for tat. But when the chips are down it’s every man for himself and blow you Jack, I regret to say . . .
Ronald: Exactly.
The play demands attention from the audience, especially in Act One. They must learn who is who and who is married to whom and where each couple fits within the social structure and why is it that the Potters are only ever heard from the other side of the kitchen door, but never seen? What is key in this opening act is traversing the social topography. Is Marion drinking heavily because she simply doesn’t believe the Hopcrofts are worth the attention of a family like hers? Or is she just a drunk? Why do the Jackson bring a dog to a Christmas party in the first place and in the second place if you go through the trouble of bringing it, why leave it locked up in the car outside? And just what is the deal with nobody seeming to realize who Jane Hopcroft—the hostess of the party—is when she returns through the front door after being locked out the back door on her way to refresh the supply of tonic water? And amidst all these questions and farcical situations is this little exchange nesting towards the end of Act One. A scene that explains everything that happens before and after, revealing why it is more than Sidney being of a lower social class that makes him less likeble to the Jacksons and Brewster-Wrights as the years roll by. Sidney is a man on the go, a determined little guy convinced he can become a big guy by pretending he knows the game and the rules, but exhibiting in full view of those in the know that he simply isn’t ready for the big time.
