#26
Posted: 4/29/06 at 7:01pm
Okay, I think I got some more of the puzzle. Thanks, Calvin, for a great start.
I have a favor to ask of people who have yet to see the show to please listen up for an important detail that I didn't quite catch. How exactly did John's wife die? In an auto accident with another car? Getting in a crash in her car? Or hit by a car? I'm wondering whether it was accident or possible suicide. We have a very troubled spirit here in the dead wife. John said he feels his acts led to her death. People dying in both accidents and suicides have been known to haunt, but suicides have long been thought to remain earthbound, and to Catholics it is a great sin preventing entry into heaven. Remember we have Irish and a priest here, even if an ex-priest, and the Catholic faith must be reckoned with.
The woman at the end is clearly the ghost of John's wife. she is wearing the 2000 pound/euro/dollar(?) red designer coat and has the long dark hair that looks wet, she is behind a door and looks just as the ghost was described. Yes, there was the ice cream truck music as John had heard before she appeared to him. These things have nothing to do with Ian's life. She is John's haunting ghost and clearly she is not stuck in the house and has the ability to travel with him.
What does the sound of an ice cream truck symbolize? Two things for this play that I can think of, and both involve children. First there is the innocence of childhood, which both men shed in their adulterous forays (and I think Ian's adulterous homosexual encounter with the young male prostitute may very well have been consummated) and in their cruelty and dishonesty toward their female partners. And the second is the children that John's wife was unable to have, their childless marriage, and his anger and blame toward her for this.
John finally surmises that his wife had perhaps come back to help him. Given his distress at seeing her and hearing her voice, I doubt it. We got an unhappy spirit on our hands, what the Japanese might term a bad obake or the Chinese, a "hungry ghost." Angry at her husband's cruelty toward her.
There are situations of pleasant hauntings, where the dead or parted just want to convey love to those they left behind or assist them, but this doesn't seem one of those cases to me.
Why is Ian now able to see her? Could it be chance? Could it be that little shocker life dishes out when you buy into scientific/materialist theory and think you know it all? Or could it be that he has deeply sinned now and is so washed in guilt he is also able to see the damned? That is the darker interpretation. I prefer to think of it as a little shocker because of his telling John that at one point in his life when he was still in the Church he would have wanted to see a ghost because he wanted to believe in God.
And the big question is, since Ian has decided to go back to his girlfriend, why see the ghost now? What change could it make in his life now? Except perhaps to remember that what you do has sin or karmic consequences, for which you may pay later, and which you cannot ultimately escape. For John has not escaped this ghost that follows him about and hides behind doors wherever he goes...
All the acting, by everyone, was superb and Platt's monologue in the third scene was a masterpiece.
I have a favor to ask of people who have yet to see the show to please listen up for an important detail that I didn't quite catch. How exactly did John's wife die? In an auto accident with another car? Getting in a crash in her car? Or hit by a car? I'm wondering whether it was accident or possible suicide. We have a very troubled spirit here in the dead wife. John said he feels his acts led to her death. People dying in both accidents and suicides have been known to haunt, but suicides have long been thought to remain earthbound, and to Catholics it is a great sin preventing entry into heaven. Remember we have Irish and a priest here, even if an ex-priest, and the Catholic faith must be reckoned with.
The woman at the end is clearly the ghost of John's wife. she is wearing the 2000 pound/euro/dollar(?) red designer coat and has the long dark hair that looks wet, she is behind a door and looks just as the ghost was described. Yes, there was the ice cream truck music as John had heard before she appeared to him. These things have nothing to do with Ian's life. She is John's haunting ghost and clearly she is not stuck in the house and has the ability to travel with him.
What does the sound of an ice cream truck symbolize? Two things for this play that I can think of, and both involve children. First there is the innocence of childhood, which both men shed in their adulterous forays (and I think Ian's adulterous homosexual encounter with the young male prostitute may very well have been consummated) and in their cruelty and dishonesty toward their female partners. And the second is the children that John's wife was unable to have, their childless marriage, and his anger and blame toward her for this.
John finally surmises that his wife had perhaps come back to help him. Given his distress at seeing her and hearing her voice, I doubt it. We got an unhappy spirit on our hands, what the Japanese might term a bad obake or the Chinese, a "hungry ghost." Angry at her husband's cruelty toward her.
There are situations of pleasant hauntings, where the dead or parted just want to convey love to those they left behind or assist them, but this doesn't seem one of those cases to me.
Why is Ian now able to see her? Could it be chance? Could it be that little shocker life dishes out when you buy into scientific/materialist theory and think you know it all? Or could it be that he has deeply sinned now and is so washed in guilt he is also able to see the damned? That is the darker interpretation. I prefer to think of it as a little shocker because of his telling John that at one point in his life when he was still in the Church he would have wanted to see a ghost because he wanted to believe in God.
And the big question is, since Ian has decided to go back to his girlfriend, why see the ghost now? What change could it make in his life now? Except perhaps to remember that what you do has sin or karmic consequences, for which you may pay later, and which you cannot ultimately escape. For John has not escaped this ghost that follows him about and hides behind doors wherever he goes...
All the acting, by everyone, was superb and Platt's monologue in the third scene was a masterpiece.
Updated On: 4/29/06 at 07:01 PM
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