In five pages this play is reviewed with the focus being upon Marion's character development.
Name of Research Paper File: JL5_JLtidyends.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
One of the many interesting aspects of Fiersteins On Tidy Endings is that, in a sense, the main
character never appears. Even though the drama takes the form of an interchange between Marion and Arthur, they are brought together by, and still involved with, Colin, who has died
just before the period which the play covers. The complexities
of the relationship between the three of them become clear as the drama unfolds. Colin was Marions husband, but he had left her three years earlier for Arthur and now,
after his death from AIDS, his two former partners have met to tidy the practical endings of his life, by signing some final documents relating to his possessions. They meet
in Colins apartment, in which everything is packed up and ready to be moved: this emphasises right from the start that the only endings which are left will be emotional
ones, since the practicalities following a death have been taken care of.
The bleakness of the apartment also reflects the prospective bleakness of the survivors lives, since both have been left to cope without their partner, despite the distance which
has developed between Marion and Colin. At first it appears that both of them will confine themselves to the formalities of what is in effect a legal ritual, but
their shared memories of Colin and the grief which they are both suffering first divides them and then brings them together.