Plenty (Criticism)

Criticism

D. L. Kellett

Kellett is a professional writer with a specialty in drama. The following essay explores the theme of ambiguity in David Hare’s Plenty.

The extent to which readers are able to understand or discern an author’s intended meaning is often a topic of literary debate. Some authors refuse to discuss the meaning of their works and thus it is not possible to know for certain whether critical interpretations of their writings are accurate. Doris Sommer’s article “Resisting the Heat: Mench, Morrison, and Incompetent Readers” in Cultures of United States Imperialism, expanded this debate even further. Sommer argued that readers may not necessarily be capable of accurately interpreting a work’s meaning because “some books resist the competent reader.”

Sommer noted that writers like Guatemala’s Rigoberta Mench and the United States’s Toni Morrison may intentionally prevent readers from pinning down an author’s meaning. Sommer’s article raises the point that authors go to varying lengths to either help or hinder interpretation of their work. In addition, she noted a critical distinction between ambiguity and what she calls resistance. She stated that “ambiguity, unlike the resistance that interests me here, has been for some time a consecrated and flattering theme for professional readers. It blunts interpretive efforts and therefore invites more labor.”

David Hare’s works combine resistance and ambiguity. In the introduction to The Early Plays: Slag, Great Exhibition, Teeth ‘n’ Smiles, Hare states, “as you can’t control people’s reactions to your plays, your duty is also not to reduce people’s reactions, not to give them easy handles with which they can pigeon-hole you, and come to comfortable terms with what you are saying.” In the “Note on Performance” that precedes Plenty, Hare goes further. He says of Plenty, “I planned a play in twelve scenes, in which there would be twelve dramatic actions. Each of these actions is intended to be ambiguous, and it is up to the audience to decide what they feel about each event.”

Taken as a whole, Hare’s Plenty may seem rather overwhelming — in fact it has confounded many critics over the years. Taken piece by piece, however, the play may be more readily accessible. In the “Note on Performance,” Hare states that he intends for his audiences, or presumably his readers, to judge his characters and plots in order to arrive at conclusions about the work as a whole. One impediment to judging quickly, however, is the presence of ambiguity in Hare’s writing. Thus prior to judging, one must explore the nature of Plenty’s ambiguities in further detail.

One of the greatest obscurities in Plenty surrounds the characterization of Susan Traherne. Should she be detested, admired, or pitied? Is she selfish, inspired, or crazy? Can she be detested, admired, and pitied because she is selfish, inspired, and crazy? These questions are not easily answered; however, they seem to be the very judgments that Hares insists his readers make. In David Hare, Joan Fitzpatrick Dean remarked that “there is a fundamental ambiguity in Hare’s presentation of Susan. On the one hand she is frustrated, trapped, and unfulfilled; on the other, she is selfish, insatiable, and unreasonable.”

Scene 7 is the pinnacle scene of Susan’s frustration with the polite inanity of the British diplomatic world. Her barbs towards Darwin, who to that point had epitomized the acquiescence and silence Susan detests about diplomacy, reflect her deep dissatisfaction with Britain’s social mores. In a heated moment she declares, “I would stop, I would stop, I would stop . . . talking if I ever heard anyone else say anything worth . . . stopping talking for.” But does Susan’s outburst reflect a warranted frustration or simply the ranting of a self-centered unstable idealist who wishes to control the present and who cannot let go of the past? Susan’s dealings with Mick suggest the latter.

In asking Mick to father a child for her, Susan exposes an intolerance for allowing other people into her private world. She is absorbed in her own wishes and would be more than happy to “do the whole damn thing” alone. After Mick and Susan’s attempts fail, she reveals that she does not care for Mick’s feelings. The Susan presented in Scene 6 is cold, calculated, and self-absorbed. She does not demonstrate compassion for Mick, who feels used, but rather she is preoccupied with the work she must do on her newest ad campaign. In the end, Mick concludes that “she is actually mad,” yet is she not just frustrated by his love for her?

Hare suggests that the answers to these questions betray the values of the one who judges, thus what does it imply to say that Susan is frustrated or Susan is a raving lunatic or Susan is selfish? Better yet, what does Hare evoke by wanting his readers to categorize Susan as one thing or another? To see Susan as a frustrated and trapped woman places the reader squarely within a camp that openly criticizes British culture; however, labeling her as crazy may indeed do the same. Susan’s madness may account for the lack of perfect British decorum in her behavior, yet it does not necessarily diminish the impact of what she says.

Whether she is frustrated or crazy, Susan’s honesty still reveals social criticism. The reader who is willing to label her as frustrated shows his or her willingness to be overtly critical, while the reader who prefers to call her crazy can be shielded from implicating him/herself in such criticism. In the end then, the ambiguity surrounding Susan Traherne ferrets out those folks who value honesty above decorum or those who value diplomacy above forthrightness.

Hare weaves ambiguity throughout Plenty not only through his characterization of Susan but within each scene as well. As he clearly states in his “Note on Performance,” he intended each action to be ambiguous. One of the ambiguities raised in Scene 2 concerns the British presence in France. Angry about losing the guns and explosives from an armed Lazar, the Frenchman declares, “Nobody ask you. Nobody ask you to come.” In French he adds, “you are not welcome here.” The implicit “you” of the Frenchman’s statement is not simply Susan and Lazar but the British in general.

In this scene Hare suggests that despite their allegiance in resistance to Germany, England and France were perhaps not as united as one might think. What then are the rules of engagement by which Susan and Lazar must abide when France, a supposed ally, becomes adversarial? She says, “they [the Gaullists] just expect the English to die. They sit and watch us spitting blood in the streets.” In a frightened state of dismay Susan questions, “what’s the point of following the rules?” Susan’s questioning contrasts sharply with the comment she makes earlier in the scene that, “it really is best if you always obey the rules.” Scene 2 thus embodies two contradictions that leave the audience or reader somewhat mystified: allies stand in opposition to one another and rules are both to be followed and not to be followed.

Although Scene 2 does not include Alice, the themes it raises have metaphorical implications on Susan’s relationship with her. In that Alice and Susan share a distaste for England, she and Susan seem alike. In David Hare, Dean suggested that although Alice and Susan share such distaste, “the contrast between them is at least as strong as their shared disdain for convention.” Dean noted that Susan “admires Alice’s freedom and independence,” but she does not achieve the same in her own life. In Scene 6 Alice prompts Susan to leave her job and Brock, yet Susan convinces herself not to do either. Susan does not leave Brock for another ten years and continues to torment herself with unfulfilling occupational choices. As she sees it, she chooses instead to continue “living in hell.”

Susan and Alice’s relationship symbolizes the notion that within similarity, differences may exist. Alice most definitely does not believe that one must always obey the rules. Her sexually active Bohemian lifestyle flies in the face of such social conventions. Susan’s rejection of the rules manifests itself only sporadically and thus she can ironically be seen as someone who in part obeys the social mores of her time. The action advanced in Scene 2 involves Lazar and Susan in 1944 in France, yet the ambiguities it evokes permeate the play throughout its entirety.

Because ambiguity plays such an integral role in Hare’s work, one should not be surprised that his title also reflects this basic organizing principle. The title calls to mind Susan’s postwar optimism. In the final scene, which chronologically precedes the majority of the other scenes in the play, Susan declares “there will be days and days and days like this.” Susan’s perception of what the day is like differs greatly from that of the Frenchman who seems downtrodden and pessimistic about the future and his own reality. Thus, the days that follow or — in the jumbled chronology of the play — have passed, can either be seen as Susan perceives them or as the Frenchman perceives them.

The scene’s placement at the end of the play also has important significance. First, it calls attention to the fact that the days that follow it chronologically do not meet Susan’s expectations; however, if one reads the final scene as a 1962 dream sequence induced by Susan’s drug use, her words may express a valid hope for her future. The title, like this final scene, embodies two possible perceptions of the past and the future: one of plenty and one of lack. Again, Hare leaves this judgment for his readers and audiences to make. The irony afforded by the more pessimistic reading may seem a bit more appealing; however, the two readings play into Hare’s use of ambiguity. Despite the reading that each viewer of Plenty may choose, the inclusion of options makes Hare’s play an exercise in decision-making.

As Colin Ludlow noted in an article for the London Magazine, “the power of his [Hare’s] work is to provoke thought and to disturb complacency.” At the very least, Hare stirs his audience into debate. For this reason, I would argue that the title of “Empty” that George Perry suggested in his review of the play for the Sunday Times lacks the subtlety required of this wonderfully ambiguous play.

Source: D. L. Kellett, for Drama for Students, Gale, 1998.

What Do I Read Next?

• Paris by Night is another of Hare’s works. It was first published in 1988, and was written expressly for film. The story is about an English woman attending a political conference in Paris who must confront her limits and her understanding of herself.
• The television play Licking Hitler (1978) was written by Hare at the same time he was working on Plenty. It takes place during World War II and, like Plenty, explores the themes of honesty and dishonesty in the public and private realms.
• Sefton Delmar’s Black Boomerang (1962) was used by Hare as a factual source for Licking Hitler. In this autobiographical work, Delmar details his direct involvement in the black propaganda efforts of Britain during World War II.
• Hedda Gabler (1890), a play by Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, is the story of a strong female protagonist. The title character, Hedda, struggles with the world in which she lives much like Susan in Hare’s Plenty — she also possesses destructive tendencies and an explosive personality. Ibsen and Hare are both known for addressing political and personal problems in their works.
• Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1959) examines England’s role as a colonial power in Nigeria. The novel traces the empire’s influence on an African tribal village.