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Chapter 3
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Play It As It Lays, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Meaninglessness
Gender Inequality and Identity
Loss and Recovery
Superficiality
Summary
Analysis
It’s a hot, October evening—the time of day when all around town, “pretty women” don perfume and bracelets before “kissing the pretty children goodnight.” Maria sits on a chaise and watches BZ throw ice cubes from his drink into the pool. They trade bits of Hollywood gossip. Not wanting BZ to leave, Maria asks him who he’s hanging around with these days, though she doesn’t much care about the answer. BZ is a producer on Carter’s film, but he hasn’t mentioned Carter once. Maria begs BZ not to leave, but he tells her he has to meet someone. When Maria asks who, BZ says Tommy Loew. Maria tells BZ she wasn’t taking about him.
Maria’s hypothetical image of the “pretty women” who “kiss[] the pretty children goodnight” is idyllic and superficial, and it likely resembles the reality she wishes she could have with Kate. Another apparent side effect of Maria’s recent separation from Carter is her apprehension about being alone: she continues a boring conversation with BZ so that he’ll stay a little longer. Maria probably asks BZ “who is it” to ascertain which actress Carter is sleeping with these days, but BZ refuses to play along.
Active
Themes
BZ tells Maria to drop it and let Carter finish his film. He says that Carter desperately wanted her to be in his film and really isn’t out to get her. He begs her not to be like his mother, Carlotta, who is enormously rich and perpetually engaged in legal battles with her estranged second husband.
Carter and Maria’s respective careers appear to have gone in different directions since their separation. While Carter is making films, BZ insinuates that Maria is on her way to becoming an embittered, greedy ex-wife.
Active
Themes
BZ hears music coming from the Kuliks’ house and asks Maria if she’s going to their party. Maria defensively tells BZ she isn’t, since Larry Kulik is a lawyer “for gangsters.” BZ groans at Maria’s humorlessness and reminds her that Larry Kulik is a big fan of hers. Apparently, he once told Carter that what he likes Maria because “she’s not a cunt.” BZ changes the subject, inquiring after Les Goodwin. Maria tells BZ that Les and Felicia are in New York before ushering him out to get to his meeting with Tommy Loew.
Later in the week, Maria reads in the paper that BZ had attended the Kuliks’ party with Tommy Loew and an actress, which annoys Maria, though she doesn’t know why. She wonders if Tommy and the actress went back to BZ’s after the party, “who had watched whom,” and if Helene had returned from her trip to La Costa.
Active
Themes
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