Third and Oak: The Laundromat by Marsha Norman

Play Analysis

Mar 15, 2009 Carissa A. Boak

Marsha Norman is a playwright and novelist. In 1983, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her play Night, Mother. She currently teaches playwrighting at Julliard.

Marsha Norman was born in 1947, the daughter of a fundamentalist Methodist. Norman had a solitary childhood in Louisville, Kentucky. Her mother's religious views prohibited Norman from playing with other children and watching television and movies, and she credits her loneliness as a child as the reason she became a writer.

Production History

After the success of ther first play, Getting Out (1977), Norman moved to New York City because, as she said, she "needed to be in the world of living writers...I like seeing that there are some people who do what I do, who are still alive."

In 1984, Third and Oak: The Laundromat was filmed for HBO by Robert Altman, starring Carol Burnett and Amy Madigan.The playcontinues to be produced at regional theatres and universities across the country.

In 1989, Third and Oak: The Pool Hall starring James Earl Jones and Mario Van Peebles was filmed by Nederlander Television and Film and aired on General Motors Theatre.

Plot SummaryThird and Oak is set in real time, and is set in two different settings in two acts: a laundromat and a pool hall, respectively. Laundromats and pool halls are not places of flight and fancy, although they do hold a sort of allure or even romanticism, especially at 3 am, the time in the play the action starts

Third and Oak is an unusual play in that both acts can and usually are performed separately from each other, although they are sometimes performed as a long one-act play. Both The Laundromat and The Pool Hall stand on their own as individual one act plays.

This play follows the lives of two main characters: the older and more conservative Alberta, and the younger and more outgoing Dee Dee.

Emotional Urgency

Suffering is described as any emotional activity a character presents. Alberta's suffering is her immense and overwhelming grief at the loss of her husband. THis is exhibited by her jitters at the beginning of the play, and her desire for privacy. In her heart of hearts, she may want someone to talk to as badly as Dee Dee, but her pride won't allow her.

Dee Dee's suffering includes her need to find understanding and sympathy with someone else, someone she can confide in besides her mother. Dee Dee really wants a friend, and goes looking for one at 3 am in a laundromat.

Setting

One side of the laundromat is used to look out onto the street, so the presence of "Third and Oak" is there, as is Dee Dee's apartment across the street. The use of the song in the stage directions (Stand By Your Man) is not an accident: both women want to stand by their men, they both doubt themselves, and they both make a decision about this by the end of the play.

Character Arc

We seem to follow Dee Dee's journey throughout the play, which is more of an argument for her as a protagonist, but it is her behavior that creates change in the course of the play, and she is the source of conflict for Alberta.

It is Alberta that seems to resolve the conflict, although not much of a true resolution takes place. She simply puts an end to the conversation.

Alberta does not reach out to Dee Dee, doesn't give her any promises of friendship or her phone number or even any parting words of advice. She simply leaves as politely and gracefully as she can, perhaps knowing that she may hurt Dee Dee's feelings, but still determined to leave.

Climax

The climax happens when Alberta's secret is revealed, that her husband is dead. It's Dee Dee's speech that spurs the reveal: "Well, you're either kidding yourself or lying to me...You act like he's a saint. Like he's dead and now you worship the shirts he wore."

Denoument

The outcome starts when Alberta starts packing up her laundry, and takes her card off the bulletin board. We know she is leaving and because she takes the card back, we know she doesn't want anyone to contact her, especially Dee Dee. When she kisses Dee Dee goodbye on the forehead, it's a strangely intimate gesture.

The biggest reversal in the play comes at the end when Alberta leaves. Somehow throughout the play we are led to believe that these two women will somehow become great friends and bond over their experiences of love, loneliness and loss. Both characters seem to have made a connection of some kind with each other, but both are still alone at the end of the play as they were in the beginning of the play.

The person most effected by this ending is Dee Dee. The Dee Dee at the end of the act is ready for peace and quiet, not the person we met at the beginning of the play. She will wait a while before going home. Later she makes the decision to go to the pool hall, with less than desirable results. She still ends up alone.

Alberta's last line sums up the play: "Being alone isn't bad. I mean it's bad, but it's not that bad."

Norman, Marsha. Third and Oak: The Laundromat: A Play In One Act, 1980, Dramatist Play Service, New York, 27 pages

(IBSN: 0822211327)

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Marsha Norman, Playwright