A SINGING WASHER, RADIO DRYER, BUS, AND MOON


Caroline, or Change features singing household appliances: a Washing Machine, Dryer, Radio (played by a Supremes-esque trio of women), as well as a city Bus and the Moon. In giving these objects bodies, emotions, and behaviors, writers Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori have utilized two literary devices: symbolism and anthropomorphism.


THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ANTHROPOMORPHISM Anthropomorphism is the ascription of human characteristics to nonhuman objects. Anthropomorphism comes from the Greek words “anthropos” (human) and “morphe” (shape or form). People from all cultures ascribe human consciousness and motivations to nonhuman things: trees, animals, deities, computers, and more. Anthropomorphic characters are common in children’s literature. Musical theatre, too, has a long tradition of anthropomorphic characters, from the singing felines of Cats to the cursed household objects Lumière, Cogsworth, and Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast.


Research suggests that there are two main reasons humans anthropomorphize. The world, both natural and man-made, is fraught with mystery, uncertainty, and risk. In order to understand it and decide how to move forward, humans use what they know best—themselves—to explain what’s going on and predict what might happen next. Ascribing human behavior to a forest, for example, can reduce uncertainty and fear about that environment. Anthropologist Steward Guthrie suggests that all religion is built on anthropomorphism: the attribution of human characteristics and behavior to nonhuman events such as weather or crop failure leads to an understanding or construction of the divine and its relationship with mortals.


Secondly, anthropomorphism reflects humans’ need for social contact. Studies have shown that the experience of loneliness can trigger the same physiological pathways as physical pain. Humans are hard-wired for socialization, and, in the absence of relationships, see human qualities in objects and use them to invent new social connections.


Looking at Caroline, or Change from this perspective suggests that Caroline, isolated and alone, has turned to conversation with the objects in her world to alleviate her loneliness. In anthropomorphizing appliances like the Gellmans’ Washer and Dryer, Kushner and Tesori allow for Caroline—a naturally taciturn and emotionally distant character—to share her innermost feelings with the audience in a way that is consistent with her personality. The objects are played by Black actors, based on an idea from George C. Wolfe, director of the original production, that the ghosts of enslaved people who had lived in the area and who had come to inhabit the machines. Times had changed, but the source of manual labor remained the


16 ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANY


same. Caroline, struggling to move into the future, is in constant conversation with the past.


OBJECT AS SYMBOL


Objects on stage are often symbols: rather than just being what they are, they can also stand in for a value or an idea. For example, Laura’s glass animals in The Glass Menagerie symbolize her fragility. Lena’s plant in A Raisin in the Sun symbolizes her dreams for her family and of owning a home with a yard.


In Caroline, or Change, the moon is used as a universal symbol that conveys the same message to all the characters. She represents change—change in the seasons, change of day into night, and on a broader scale, the social changes Caroline, Dotty, Emmie, Noah, and the Gellmans are experiencing through the civil rights movement and the steady march of progress in the late 20th century. It is the Moon who vocalizes one of the show’s principal motifs: “Change come fast and change come slow,/ but change come…” Her presence is a signal for the audience that a shift is coming, and helps to cement the salient theme of change as an important part of the show.


Keira Keeley and Patch Darragh in The Glass Menagerie


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