Evelyn:
(Moon) "All the glass, the house is a prism." We don't see clearly through a prism, and we don't see these characters clearly either.
Are we getting to realize that that house is a microcosm of their lives? Is this what the playwright wanted us to see? Does the Janeway House stand for something else besides an edifice that Ned designed? And is there a Janeway House in each of our lives?

Eileen:
(KJ) What bothers me is the beginning of the Theo-Ned relationship.
They sound codependent. Ned needs Theo personally for friendship and professionally because Theo's a "people person." Theo needs Ned's loyalty and dependence.

(Moon) We don't see clearly through a prism, and we don't see these characters clearly either.
Great point. And they certainly don't see each other clearly!

(Evelyn) Yes, Colin's delivery of "you must publish" was terrific. He has great comedic timing.
As soon as I read it, I thought this was the most overtly funny line in the play. I knew ODB would nail it!

Moon:
(Evelyn) Are we getting to realize that that house is a microcosm of their lives? Is this what the playwright wanted us to see? Does the Janeway House stand for something else besides an edifice that Ned designed?
Yes! To all three questions, and we are working our way through it rather nicely, don't you think?

KJ:
Throughout most of Act I, we see Walker asking for the house, begging for the house, mourning for the house. Nan asked him directly "you hated him...why do you want his house?"

Walker answered that he wanted a place of his own and to stop living Ned's dream as a flaneur. He believed the house was safety and security. Terrified of his mother's fate, he didn't want to "end badly" and be a burden on the ones he loved (BTW, who are the ones he loved?). Notice when he and Nan walked out how he wanted the family to come, to visit. But mostly he wanted the house as a means to connect with a father who rejected him (at least ignored him) and who never spoke. He wanted the house to speak to him the way Ned couldn't or didn't.

And this father finally denied him even this last chance to connect, to be sane, to have a center, to have his own place (to hide?), to have his fears soothed. This father gave the house to Pip instead. What a terrible loss, that is, until he believed the house was not Ned's after all. What a wonderful relief! Remember, he wanted the interpretation to be that way. Maybe he burned the book to make sure it stayed that way, i.e., his father hadn't rejected him after all.

Evelyn:
(Eileen) I thought this was the most overtly funny line...I knew ODB would nail it
And did he ever. Sitting on a stool and waving those gorgeous hands around. (I don't think he is a vain actor, but I think he knows he has beautiful hands because he uses them so much.)

Karen:
(KJ) Remember, he wanted the interpretation to be that way. Maybe he burned the book to make sure it stayed that way, i.e., his father hadn't rejected him after all.
While that was the only interpretation he could accept, I don't think that's why he burned the book. He said he felt like Hedda Gabler at that moment. There was a devilish look in Colin's eyes as he said the line. He's striking back; he's destroying something that meant a great deal to his father. It's revenge, pure and simple.

(KJ) he wanted to stop living Ned's dream as a flaneur.
Doesn't it make you wonder why Ned, who hadn't the courage to be a flaneur himself, got married. His marriage was doomed because he admired a rootless life. It may not have been just Lina's madness. Ned may not have been suited to being married.

(KJ) (BTW, who are the ones he loved?)
Nan is one. But yes, who are they?

Gi:
(Evelyn) I don't think he is a vain actor, but I think he knows he has beautiful hands because he uses them so much.
Not necessarily. He knows real people use their hands. Perhaps he became more conscious of it since he's been consorting with Italians. BTW, one thing that bothered me was Elizabeth McGovern kept her hands in her coat pockets although evidently using them too.

(Karen) His marriage was doomed because he admired a rootless life. It may not have been just Lina's madness. Ned may not have been suited to being married.
Why do you think the marriage was doomed? I didn't think it was, apart from the fact that Lina went insane, and that didn't necessarily have much to do with Ned.

Who is Hedda Gabler?

Karen:
(Gi) Who is Hedda Gabler?
From my Cliffs Notes: Ibsen heroine who is selfish and willful, whose unbridled desire to dominate and destroy others brings death to herself. Lövborg, Hedda's castoff lover, is inspired by another woman (Thea!) to write a book and becomes famous. He writes another manuscript with Thea's help and inspiration which Hedda ultimately burns. "I am burning your child."

Moon:
(Karen) Doesn't it make you wonder why Ned...got married.
Ned marries Lina because he loves her. We do not see other examples of his being a flaneur. It is just talk. Walker on the other hand is. His wanting the house meant a commitment to change. His burning the book ultimately keeps him as he was. His using the book as a memorial at the end was in contrast to his lighting the candle at his father's grave in the beginning when the candle would not light because of the rain. (beat)

Evelyn:
Rain, rain, rain. Rain at the cemetery. Rain at the house. What's with all this rain?

And did the candle not light at the cemetery because of the rain? Or was it the father's ultimate rejection of poor Walker?

Moon:
(Evelyn) What's with all this rain?
(1) The title, (2) cannot see clearly through it (fenestration again), and (3) Suzie Wong.

The candle did not light at the cemetery because of the rain. The memorial was not to happen until the end, when he burns the journal and finally severs any connection to his father.

Eileen:
(KJ) Maybe he burned the book to make sure it stayed that way, i.e., his father hadn't rejected him after all. 
(Karen) He's striking back...It's revenge, pure and simple.
Each of these observations make sense. Can't it be both? Walker seeks revenge since anger is easier to deal with than rejection. Both rejection and anger motivate behavior.

(Karen) Doesn't it make you wonder why Ned, who hadn't the courage to be a flaneur himself, got married?
And named his only son—his heir, his legacy—Walker. "Flaneur Janeway" just doesn't have a ring to it! By the time baby Walker came along, Ned made peace with the fact he wasn't going to be the flaneur of his dreams and passed it onto his son. I think Lina's madness pushed this family from dysfunctional to seriously dysfunctional.

KJ:
(Eileen) Why were Ned's subsequent projects less successful?
Even Walker (or was it Pip?) remarks that in the later years he just coasted. It probably wasn't a conscious attempt by Ned to preserve Theo's legend by not overshadowing him. Instead, it might have been the lessening of Theo's influence over Ned. Theo was the one who wanted fame and success. With Theo around to impel him, Ned pushed his own creativity (and probably Theo's as well). When that ended, Ned may have just slipped back into living the life he wanted and let his young proteges do the sweating after fame and fortune but never as well as he had.

Karen:
(Moon) And therefore left the house to Pip as a way to give "something" back.
Like his reputation? If Walker believed that Theo was the creative genius behind Janeway House, it is likely that others would as well and, in that way, Ned gave Theo the fame he desired. 

(KJ) Walker believed that the house could "speak to" him of his father...But as soon as he believed the house was Theo's, he didn't want it any more.
Right, why would he want it? It wasn't his father's; it served no purpose for him.

(Evelyn) Are we getting to realize that that house is a microcosm of their lives?
It is a symbol of something. The aspect of fenestration and prisms is quite apt, but what about the other characteristics mentioned by Nan and Walker? The alternating use of solids and voids. Then the mention of light. Rooms that change like liquid. What do all these mean?

Could the house be Ned? Or people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones? (couldn't resist) ;-D

(Gi) Why do you think the marriage was doomed? I didn't think it was, apart from the fact that Lina went insane
Maybe her insanity was aggravated by the realization that she shouldn't have married Ned when she really loved Theo? (Gasp! How could anyone prefer David Morrissey to Colin?) Lina and Theo had a symbiotic relationship, like Theo and Ned. Could two codependents (codependents on a third party) be happy together, compounded by the fact that one wished he could be free to roam the world?

You didn't think it odd that neither of the children could see any traces of a loving marriage? Lina's hospitalization occurred when Nan was 10. At that age, she should have some recollection of earlier, happier, more normal days. Lina wasn't always catatonic and rocking soundlessly before throwing herself through plate-glass windows (glass again?). Remember she said she was a nonstop talker. Why didn't she tell her future drinking partner about herself and her dad?

Lina is a big missing piece in my puzzle. If we knew what she represented, we might understand what happened. Lina, Carolina, southern state, what? It's killing me!

(Moon) 3. Suzie Wong
Don't you just love it? The boy cloud and the girl cloud. I cannot believe how it all works so beautifully.

All these writers and philosophers mean something.

KJ:
(Karen) odd that neither of the children could see any traces of a loving marriage?
I, too, wondered why Nan is pretty much ignorant of how her Dad and Mom got together. Both children refer to the marriage as something that was "settled" on when all other options expired.

Maybe even Lina felt that way. She thought it was tragic when Ned revealed that there was no "secret" to the city, but she responds, "Still...I want something...I suppose I'll marry Theo and that will be something—" and when Ned asks "is that happening?" she replies, "Nobody ever says anything, but...what else?" She doesn't sound terribly enthused about it. I think she was settling for Theo, until she realized how smitten Ned was for her. I don't believe she was really ever in love with Theo.

Their marriage broke up simply because "my father became spectacularly successful, and his partner died shockingly young and my mother became increasingly mad." My guess is that, by the time the children were old enough, Lina was already beyond the pale, sanity-wise. How long had it been going on and how intensely? What kind of model did these children have of normality? It's a wonder that either could grow up to be remotely normal (Walker obviously didn't). But I don't think the dissolution of the marriage had anything to do with Theo. His death may have triggered further withdrawal behavior in Lina but can't be said to have caused it. The divorce was simply a response to Lina's complete separation from reality and became necessary.

I have to admit that when she and Theo were together, she had come to know him very well but never suffered the guilt Ned did when shifting allegiances.

Heide:
It's been asked how we in the audience felt when Jane Austen and Italy were mentioned. What gave me a thrill was hearing Colin as Walker says to Nan, "Would you please, please, please just...hug me." Shades of Paul Ashworth. See, we don't see Darcy in everything. ;-)

I don't think Walker hated his father as he seems to do and as his sister says he did. I think he was desperate to understand him. He has studied architecture, perhaps as a key to understanding Ned. I agree with others who've said, by reading the passage in the journal that Ned has taken everything from Theo, that he thinks he now understands his father. This is what "I want it to be." It's an agreeable revelation to him. He doesn't want to know more. He burns the book then, "a selfish and willful act." It's not out of revenge because there's no need for revenge anymore. He thinks he's found the answer and there is (mis)understanding and forgiveness.

Ironic that it is Nan who wants to know nothing of what is in the journal but when Walker starts to burn it, wails "Now we'll never know anything."

There are early signs of Lina's problems. She wakes to a "brown study." She's gloomy sometimes and opaque. (Fenestration again?) I doubt the children ever knew a mother who could pass for normal. I feel sorriest for Lina. She's so bright and witty. She's responsible for Ned's success. Her scene where she charts Ned's "flight path" is loving and poignant. But you see the desperation and yearning. Was she ever happy?

I like Gi's take on Theo as the PR man. Karen said he was hell bent on fame and fortune. He found it but not in the way he expected though only he, Ned and Lina knew it. His wife had an idealized vision of him. Doubt she ever knew what the true roles in the firm really were.

I like Greenberg's joke on us in the Pip monologue—his mother liked to get caught up in a play where you "could never remember the plot of where the girl got caught in the rain and had to put on the man's bathrobe and they sort of did a little dance around each other and fell in love." Then in Act 2, Lina's coquettish line to Ned when she goes to put on a robe after getting caught in the rain, "I've seen this scene before." The little dance Lina and Ned did around each other then was superb.

Moon:
(Karen) what about the other characteristics...The alternating use of solids and voids. Then the mention of light. Rooms that change like liquid.
One can't see through solids. Voids in one's life can block the understanding of oneself. They are metaphors for the characters themselves. We need the missing pieces (all the solids) to understand the whole (structure). Rooms that change like liquid are never quite the same or never what they seem. Ned, Lina and Theo are never quite what they seem.

(Karen) Lina and Theo had a symbiotic relationship, like Theo and Ned. Could two codependents (codependent on a third party) be happy together
Codependents in a building is a solid; free to roam the world is a liquid.

(Karen) Lina is a big missing piece in my puzzle. If we knew what she represented, we might understand what happened.
Greenberg may be using her as a deus ex machina. In that case, we really wouldn't need to know.

(Karen) All these writers and philosophers mean something.
They make us understand the characters. Hegel and Heidigger are very "heavy." Ibsen, I think he admires.

Karen:
What do you all make of Walker's aversion to the city? Is he saying that no city dweller can really have roots?

(KJ) Their marriage broke up simply because "my father became spectacularly successful, and his partner died shockingly young and my mother became increasingly mad" 
Let's not forget that Lina loved to drink and Ned may have withdrawn even more with some feelings of guilt at Theo's death.

(Heide) Ironic that it is Nan who wants to know nothing of what is in the journal
Yes, it was strange that Nan was so adamant about not reading journal. Having gone through lots of family papers, I can't understand this. What is she afraid of finding out?

(Heide) I like Greenberg's joke on us in the Pip monologue—the plot of where the girl got caught in the rain and had to put on the man's bathrobe and they sort of did a little dance around each other and fell in love.
Wonderfully clever foreshadowing.

(Karen) All these writers and philosophers mean something. 
(Moon) They make us understand the characters.
Actually, they helped me understand what the play was about. The search for truth. Each developed his own form of logic (or structure/architecture) for getting at the truth and for understanding relationships. Their individual methods and conclusions matter not, but I think it ties everything together. The one exception: La Rochefoucauld. His writings go right to the heart of this play.

Heide:
(Karen) What do you all make of Walker's aversion to the city?
Another rejection of his father? His father saddled him with the name Walker taken from flaneur—a wanderer through the city. And when I say "saddled," I mean that many of the connotations in the play are negative. The saddest is one Ned gives Lina: "His life has no pattern...just traffic...and no hope."

(Karen) Is it that no city dweller can really have roots?
Even a weed growing through the cracks of a city sidewalk has strong roots.

Emma:
(Heide) The saddest is one Ned gives Lina: "His life has no pattern...just traffic...and no hope."
But it is what Ned would wish for someone better than himself. "I think it would be the best thing!" By naming his son Walker, it's Ned's wish that his son would have the strength of character he lacks. A wanderer is never lonely. So I would assume that Ned is rather lonely.

During the first act, all three characters mention food and how hungry they are and ask each other: "Did you ever eat?" But somehow they never manage to eat (except when Nan munched on something from her purse). Is Greenberg communicating a deeper sense of hunger here?

Eileen:
(Karen) What do you all make of Walker's aversion to the city?
He's not averse to the city but to his life. ("It had become—the filth of it—the chaos of it-it just happened. So I left.") He flees.

I think he actually likes big cities, flaneur that he is. ("What could ever possibly happen to you on a street in Boston? You might, what, run into a cleric and repent something? Boston is only a city if you're a swan boat.")

I also enjoyed the running joke about the restaurant/art gallery/cigar store across the street.

(Karen) odd that neither of the children could see any traces of a loving marriage? 
Both Walker and Nan are quite blasé about why their parents married and give very similar responses at different points in Act I. Walker said "they were the last ones left in the room" and Nan "because it was 1960 and one had to and they were there."

(KJ) both children refer to the marriage as something that was "settled" on
A rationalization of why they didn't see traces of a loving marriage.

(Emma) is Greenberg communicating a deeper sense of hunger here?
Definitely a metaphor.

KJ:
Walker said, "I love the city, but it's dangerous to me. It's let me...become nothing." Even after he gives up the idea of having the house, he says he'll stay in the barren apartment until he finds something in the country.

Eileen:
City, country. I don't think it makes a difference with Walker. He just keeps on running away from life. After they took Lina to the hospital, he hid in the laundry room for hours. He's still trying to hide.

KJ:
(Heide) it is Nan who wants to know nothing of what is in the journal
I felt that Nan was only trying to get Walker to stop reading it. He was in a very shaky state already and she was worried about the effect it would have on him. When he reads a part, Nan comments on his reaction and not on the entry itself. And she was right. Note what his very last (over)reaction to its content was.

Evelyn:
Here is an interesting thread that starts with Walker's pronouncement that this is "The Story of a Moment."

Lina: isn't that moment thrilling, right before it starts, and everything turns purple, and the awnings shake and the buildings ignite from the inside?

Lina: Begin. 
Ned: What? 
Lina: The house. Begin the house. 
Ned: NO. 
Lina: I know you see it. I know you see the whole thing. Don't you? 
Ned: Yes. I know every moment

Karen:
(Heide) "His life has no pattern...just traffic...and no hope."
But as Ned goes on to say, "Because he has no need of hope! The only thing he wants from life is...the day at hand." While that lifestyle is solitary, it is never lonely.

Maybe Walker hasn't learned to appreciate what the city has to offer or maybe Ned's ideal is warped.

(Emma) during the first act, all three characters mention food and how hungry they are...But somehow they never manage to eat.
Oh my! What an interesting set of circumstances. They are constantly putting off eating by some other action. Didn't you just love Walker, who hadn't eaten in days, but tried to order a cheeseburger and was intimidated by the waiter; Pip, who really wanted to get something but Walker's return (return of guilt) interrupted, and Nan who turned down the squid-tiramisu thing. Can't get much more nourishing than Pip's star fruit!

(KJ) "I love the city, but it's dangerous to me. It's let me...become nothing."
In the city, he's a flaneur and isn't comfortable with it. Ned's ideal makes him unhappy. He wants to be normal, set down roots, and have people over to his place. When he was in Tuscany, he rented a villa and he stayed put for nearly a year.

(KJ) And she was right. Note what his very last (over)reaction to its content was
No, I don't think so. Remember, the house for the journal—that was her offer. She didn't want him to read it at all and she didn't want to hear it. But why she put it back under the mattress. Silly woman. Walker and only Walker was meant to read it—the Prince[ss] and the Pea! ;-)

(Evelyn) Does the house symbolize Ned's life? Made up of events beyond his control?
I am thoroughly convinced that Greenberg is making a statement about the will of the individual and shaping one's destiny. He comes out firmly on the side of destiny (and one's genetic makeup). Poor Theo tries to make himself into something noteworthy and what happens? He dies at a very young age. Everybody else just goes with the flow and lets life happen to them.

Lina: "I didn't even realize I was here! I didn't even realize I'd come to the neighborhood. It was not my intention."
Ned: "It was the same as you...I...d-didn't come home right away. I walked out of my way because it was all so...pleasant, the day. I felt like a...flaneur."

The happiest and most normal person in the entire play is Pip. He has no great aspirations. He just lets life happen to him and he enjoys it. ("Life is good.") 

KJ:
Great and glorious summing-up!

(Evelyn) "I know every moment."
But didn't Ned see with "astonishing clarity" that "the whole thing will blow up in our faces." Initially, Lina's "genius" fate had seemed to win out over Ned's "guilt" fate. His vision of collapse, poverty, abandonment was not his (or Lina's) immediate fate. So how can he see "every moment" of the house?

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