The Bald Soprano

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1950

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Pages 8-20

Pages 20-42

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Character Analysis

Mr. and Mrs. Smith

Since The Bald Soprano is an “anti-play,” there is no formal protagonist in the piece whose perspective and experience drive the play forward. The characters Mr. and Mrs. Smith are the closest to traditional protagonists as they are the first two characters presented on stage and remain onstage for the majority of the drama. Since the play takes place in the home of this couple, we associate the world of this play with the world experienced by Mr. and Mrs. Smith. However, this is turned on its head at the end of the play when the actors who play the Martins replace the actors who play Smiths as the play begins again. The lack of developed characterization in the play—and how easily interchangeable the characters are—is all part of its absurdity. The characters are distilled into one-dimensional caricatures distinguished only by their names and their societal labels (and potentially by the different actors who play the characters).

The Smiths represent a well-to-do, married, traditional English couple. Mr. Smith is described as an “Englishman” wearing “English spectacles and a small gray English mustache” (8). His pastimes include smoking a pipe and reading the newspaper in his armchair. Mrs. Smith is described as an “Englishwoman,” with no other defining features except her attention to “darning some English socks” (8). The Smiths are fond of stating the fact they live in the suburbs of London, where they enjoy a comfortable and mundane life. The most important fact about the Smiths is their elevated status as a wealthy, middle-class, English couple who can afford nice dinners and the help of a maid. There is no mention of an occupation for either character.

The couple has three peculiar children: a nameless little boy already thirsty for “English beer” (9), an exemplary daughter Helen who “never asks to drink English beer,” and a two-year-old daughter, Peggy, who “drinks only milk and eats only porridge” (10). While Mrs. Smith frets about teaching the children good morals early in the play—parodying what makes for good, proper, English parenting—the children are instantly forgotten a few seconds later and are never mentioned again. Mr. and Mrs. Smith bicker frequently about trivialities and each blames the other’s shortcomings on their respective gender, dramatizing normative gender roles and poor communication style between partners.

Mr. and Mrs. Martin

Mr. and Mrs. Martin are close friends of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They similarly lack distinct characterization and are caricatures of a married, English couple. Unlike the Smiths, the Martins are given first names—Elizabeth and Donald. The couple’s most notable trait is a general lack of certainty in anything. When they first appear on stage, they are expressionless and don’t seem to know who they are. As they slowly start to piece together that they are partners, this lack of expression is slightly transformed into a more lively expression of uncertainty. They often act embarrassed and timid, making conversation difficult. Mr. Martin even apologizes for trying to express himself, saying, “forgive me for attempting, once again, to define my thought” (36). At first, the couple is even unsure of how they know each other in the first place. However, they figure out that they are indeed a married couple who recently moved to London from Manchester. They live in a fifth-floor apartment on Bromfield Street. They have a two-year-old daughter named Alice, with blonde hair and “a white eye and a red eye” (18). Of course, this is all conjecture, as Mary the maid reveals the Martins are not, in fact, husband and wife, and are also not, in fact, Elizabeth and Donald. Nonetheless, the Martins accept these beliefs as fact and are content to continue on as if they are true.

The Martins’ strange existence parodies the alienation of human connection and fallibility of memory and reality. Despite supposedly being married, Mr. and Mrs. Martin cannot seem to remember anything about the other. Though they share many of the same memories and experiences, these memories and experiences seem not to include the other. Once they deduce that they are married, they embrace and fall into a peaceful sleep. They feel safe and content with their labels as “husband” and “wife,” despite not having any sense of connection that is the fundamental tenet of a relationship. Their focus on labels and disregard for true connection or memories together makes them vulnerable to fallible judgment. Despite their best attempts at deductive reasoning, it turns out they’re living a lie as they are not truly who they think they are.

Mary

Mary is the Smiths’ maid. Her lower social class makes her the subject of ridicule by the other characters. Mrs. Smith chides Mary for leaving the house to see a movie, despite having given her permission. Mary is also chastised and eventually pushed offstage for trying to rise above her station and share a story with the group when the Fire Chief is visiting. Nonetheless, Mary boldly perseveres with her actions, making her romantic past with the Fire Chief known by embracing him in front of the Smiths and Martins, to everyone’s shock and discomfort.

Mary is also a bit of a detective and is in possession of secret knowledge about the other characters, such as the Martins’ true identity. Mary claims her real name is “Sherlock Holmes,” a particularly British reference, which helps further the motif of “Englishness” in the play. Mary’s status as a detective also parodies how the other characters underestimate Mary simply due to the fact she is the maid, when Mary is perhaps the most intelligent and aware of all the characters.

Fire Chief

The Fire Chief is a caricature of a humble hero. He appears briefly midway through the play on a search for fires to extinguish. He is a figure of authority, public service, and respect. The instant he arrives, the group dynamic transforms from awkward conversation to lively dinner party. The group clamors to show their admiration for the chief and beg him to tell stories, especially since “firemen’s stories are all true” (29) and based on personal experience. The Fire Chief shyly obliges and tells some confusing and nonsensical moral fables. He then reunites with a past lover, Mary the maid, before dashing away to put out fires. His departure plummets the group into a complete disintegration of language and communication, ushering the play toward its conclusion.

The Fire Chief’s most distinct trait is his official role in society as fire chief. Consequently, he is the only character who seems to have a need for telling the time, in order to perform his job properly. When the Fire Chief requests to know the time, he draws attention to the absurd way time operates—or doesn’t operate—in the Smiths’ home.

Despite his title and occupation, the Fire Chief’s preoccupation with fires is strange. He bemoans the poor state of the fire business, where the lack of important fires means “the profits on output are very meager” (28). When Mary recites a poem dedicated to the Fire Chief titled “The Fire,” which ends with everything catching fire, the Fire Chief finds this poem “marvelous” (37) based on his sense of the world. The Fire Chief seems to find fires almost joyous and eventually realizes he has to leave because he is “having a fire at the other end of the city” (37), suggesting the fire has been scheduled much like an event or meeting. This obsession with fires and treatment of such emergencies as a business venture parodies professional culture, distilling even front-line work into an absurd social convention.