Dysfunction
What do these characters have in common? Well, we start on a dysfunctional artist who doesn't want to perform unless everyone pays him attention, failing to realize that if his music is good, he will demand attention. Instead, he sours the mood. At home, he goes to the couch, a symbol for the dysfunction of the marriage. His seventeen year old gets caught sneaking back in, and then he gets caught sneaking in his mistress. No one is happy. No one has a functional, healthy relationship with anyone else in the story.
Fate and freedom
This story features a wild plot that goes quickly from one climactic moment to the next. In a way, the play seems to turn the volume all the way up on certain issues, like the theme of freedom (or lack thereof). The characters are desperate for control of their fate, but instead, they're stuck with each other, competing for the air in the room, they feel. They feel they are condemned. For instance, Billy decides to break away from Bananas, a decision that kills her in the end, one might argue. But, he does it for freedom, and when he promises to leave her in the first act, she is relieved. She doesn't want to be married either; she wants freedom.
Religion and death
The play plays on a religious theme when Ronnie admits that he has built a bomb to kill the pope, a plan that fails and only takes the life of Corrinna. The theme of death is also the final note of the play, because after the attempt on the pope fails, Billy and Bunny escape to Australia to make a new life for themselves, and Artie chokes Bananas to death. These complex symbolic deaths represent a loss of innocence, and they represent the fall of man, and they represent the tragedy of existence, especially in Bananas death, because as her name entails, she is constantly suffering because she is clinically insane.
