Rapture, Blister, Burn by Gina Gionfriddo (2012)

 

TW: Lots of Alcohol, Marijuana

SYNOPSIS

   Catherine returns to her hometown after her mother, Alice’s, heart attack and catches up with old friends that she called in a drunken haze before her arrival. The friends are Gwen, her old grad school roommate, and Don, her grad school boyfriend, that got together while she was studying in London. This is their first time speaking since. Gwen and Don get Catherine a teaching job at Don’s university and for the summer Catherine teaches a two-person course with students Gwen and Avery, the babysitter Gwen fired for showing up with a black eye. The three of them dissect various parts of second wave feminism with very different perspectives. Catherine chose her career and she wishes she had a family to fall back on now that her mother’s health is declining, Gwen chose to be a homemaker and wishes she had finished her degree so she wouldn’t have to rely on Don who’s barely providing for them as a dean, and Avery doesn’t initially respect either woman’s struggles. Catherine and Don continue to spend more time together since Gwen has to stay home with the kids and romance reblooms. The three of them eventually agree to switch for the rest of the summer with Gwen staying in Cathy’s old apartment and enrolling in summer courses. After time Don and Gwen want their old lives back while Catherine fights it. In the end Alice convinces Catherine to return to New York and Avery chooses to go with her. The final lines are that the two women are free from mid-century gender-roles, but it’s implied that freedom guarantees choices, and that those choices each have their own set of consequences, good and bad.

 

CHARACTER BREAKDOWN

    Catherine Croll, early 40s, described as Attractive, non WASP

    Alice Croll, 70s

    Avery Willard, 21

    Gwen Harper, early 40s, described as a WASP

    Don Harper, early 40s, non WASP

 

POTENTIAL MONOLOGUES

    Avery has two nice moments that could be monologues despite them technically being broken up with short interjections from Catherine. The first has her defending slasher films which her decidedly anti-feminist since young working and/or promiscious women were often tortured throughout the film. Avery talks about how before slasher films there was no "final girl." The girl that goes against her gender role, suffers, yet survives with or without the help of a man that comes to save her.

    The other potential monologue of Avery's comes later in the play when Catherine struggles with how to hold onto Don when their affair starts to unravel. She's tried having no expectations and she's tried pushing him to great expectations, but neither works. At this point in the play Gwen has enrolled in a New York graduate summer class and wants to drop out because she's the oldest person in the class. Don thought he could rise to Catherine's level but realizes he'll never actually write his book or be comfortable among Catherine's accomplished intellectual friends. It's realizing that neither of them actually had the willpower to do the things that they've convinced themselves they regretted that makes Don and Gwen long for their mediocre lives and dysfunctional marriage. Avery advises Catherine with an anecdote from her personal life. Whenever her family watches the Olympics she says that if she'd only kept up figure skating that it could've been her winning the gold medal and all her family agrees even  though it's not true. There's something about mediocrity that makes it more bearable when you think you had the potential to be great. 

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

    Feminism is believed to be a lot of things and only some of them are true. I think this play does well in recognizing that one of the core principles of feminism is that there is no one way to be a woman. We can find fulfillment as career women and homemakers both and neither is more or less correct than the other as long as we have the choice. Rapture, Blister, Burn goes a step further. Either way and any way in between also leaves room for disappointment and it's possible to be fulfilled in one area and be discontent in an other. I don't think there's a way around that until we achieve immortality and can take every path that life offers.

    In reality we only have so much potential and the amount differs from person to person as much as our varied aptitudes do. I don't think that any of these characters were meant to be unlikable. Alice never really got the chance try a different path while Gwen and Don tried it and realized they didn't actually want it. It's okay to settle for a "mediocre" life, not all of us get to choose our struggles after all. I think that if Catherine had gotten to spend more time with Don she would have eventually realized that he wasn't the answer to her desperation, in fact, she starts to in the final few pages. She talks about how the love her mother has for her is irreplaceable. Her mother cared about her in a way that a spouse nor child could be expected to replicate. Avery, the youngest, has yet to choose a path to stick to and I think that's a silver lining to the questions the play proposes. The new generation, our third wave feminists, have so many more options than our predecessors had and in that there is freedom.