Thoughts on Lidless

(I'm hoping maybe this could be a late Aristotle post?)

I've never seen a play with so few props, and I like the change. I feel like I could focus more on the characters and less on the scenery. Still, sometimes it took me awhile to figure out where and when we were in the sequence of events.

I got confused about Ali when he was in the hospital bed--at first I thought he died, then later he started talking, and still later I thought we were seeing his ghost, only it was Alistair. In the end I'm guessing Rhiannon gave her liver to him, but then we never see her in a hospital bed.

Also, did anyone understand why Alice was interrogating an empty chair in the beginning, and why Rhiannon is sitting to the side, going on about "just one breath, etc.?" Maybe it comes back to that line when someone says, "Rhiannon thought that the world would be a better place if we all just learned to breathe deeper."

I think there must be some significance of sickness in the play other than just "Ali has Hepatitis and needs a liver." Ali has it, Alice has it, and Rhiannon has asthma. The three of them make a family unit, so perhaps that is why they're all sick.

Also, I liked how Alice, Ali, and Alistair all have names that begin with 'Ali.' I don't know for certain what the significance of this is, but maybe it's because they are all very affected by Alice's past. Then again, Rhiannon is definitely affected as well (Alice attacks her), and she doesn't have a name that contains 'Ali.' I looked up "Rhiannon" in a baby names dictionary because of its uniqueness. Rhiannon means "Great Queen." She is also a Welsh mythological goddess. Or maybe Alice just like Fleetwood Mac.

I thought the metaphor of the icing on a burned cake was great. When it came up, I didn't yet understand that Alice had taken pills to "feel better," but when that came out, I thought the cake was very meaningful, and true for many people.

It felt very strange to see a mother acting so cruelly, I guess I generally think of people who don't have children as more likely to be that brand of crazy.

I think the play gave me a better understanding of what happened at Guantanamo and it was a reminder that we can't just forget our pasts, because they make us who we are.