Play It As It Lays

In 1960s Los Angeles, Maria Wyeth, a 31-year-old unemployed actress, recounts the events that led to her commitment to a psychiatric facility. In an internal monologue, Maria introduces herself as an uncurious woman determined not to dwell on the past. Still, because her doctors want to figure out why she had a nervous breakdown, she establishes some basic facts about herself, ruminating on her childhood growing up in the small desert town of Silver Wells, Nevada; her gambling and entrepreneurial father Harry Wyeth; her depressive mother, Francine; and Benny Austin, Harry’s business partner and her godfather. Both of Maria’s parents are now dead. Maria has a four-year-old daughter, Kate, who was born with serious disabilities. Kate lives in a medical facility and is the only reason Maria keeps on living.

Next, Maria recalls leaving Nevada for New York to pursue an acting career, and her failed, tumultuous love affair with Ivan Costello. Maria eventually married Carter Lang, a director who gave her roles in two of his films, though the marriage ultimately fell apart. In two subsequent internal monologues, Helene and Carter offer their perspectives on Maria’s current situation. Helene is angry with Maria, who has just refused to see her at the hospital, and whose “carelessness,” she believes, caused Helene’s husband, BZ’s, death. Carter recalls memories of Maria that paint her as an unstable woman. From this point forward, the narrative covers the year that preceded Maria’s institutionalization.

It’s the fall after Maria and Carter’s separation, and Maria spends her days taking long drives along the highways of southern California to avoid having anxiety dreams about Les Goodwin, or about Carter, BZ, Helene, and her herself in the desert. One day, she visits her agent Freddy Chaikin’s office to inquire about work, but she worries about appearing desperate and leaves without seeing him. When she returns home, she considers calling Les Goodwin but thinks better of it.

One evening in October, Maria chats with BZ, who is careful not to mention Carter, though BZ is a producer on one of Carter’s films. BZ asks Maria if she’s going to Larry Kulik’s party, but Maria says no and accuses Kulick of being “gangster,” prompting BZ to tell Maria she has no sense of humor. Later on, Freddy Chaikin follows up with Maria to say that he’s gotten her some television roles. He mentions Carter, which upsets Maria. On another night in October, Maria takes a long drive and realizes she’s near Carter’s filming location. She imagines him having a drink with BZ and Helene and considers stopping by, but she decides she doesn’t want to see him.

One afternoon, BZ calls Maria and convinces her to attend a party with him. Maria goes but feels alienated and doesn’t have any fun. Larry Kulick sees her there and invites her over to use his sauna. BZ goes home with a French director, and Maria returns to her empty Beverly Hills home. When Les Goodwin calls Maria the next morning, she starts to weep. Sometime later, Carter drops by at Maria’s home, and they decide to give their relationship another try, though Maria is reluctant to do so. Carter advises Maria that her unscheduled visits with Kate are starting to annoy hospital staff.

Sometime later, Maria lies on the beach outside Helene and BZ’s house with Helene, BZ, Carter, and some of Helene and BZ’s friends when she suddenly feels nauseous and runs to the bathroom. She pulls off her bathing suit and sees that she’s not bleeding. In the car heading home, Maria tells Carter that she’s pregnant. Carter states that while he knows who the father is, Felicia Goodwin might not. Carter drops Maria off and doesn’t come home that night. The next morning, he calls from his filming location in the desert to tell Maria that if she doesn’t have an abortion, he’ll take away Kate.

Maria arranges to have the abortion but starts to unravel: she starts crying for her mother, which she hasn’t done since her “bad season” in New York, in the immediate aftermath of her mother’s death in a car wreck. In those days, she couldn’t eat, since her food had begun to resemble coiled rattlesnakes. Maria ignores Les Goodwin’s numerous attempts to reach her but agrees to meet him Monday night, the evening after she’s scheduled to have the abortion, though she hides this detail from Les.

On Monday, Maria has the abortion. A mysterious man dressed in white escorts her to the house of a nameless doctor, who performs the procedure in newspaper-lined bedroom, carelessly placing the fetus in a pail. At dinner with Les that night, Maria refuses to tell him what’s wrong with her. A few weeks later, Maria starts to bleed heavily and wishes she could talk to her mother. She starts having bad dreams about the man dressed in white, the abortionist, and clogged plumbing. When the sink backs up in her Beverly Hills home, Maria moves into an apartment.

In December, Maria brings Kate home for Christmas. They go to Les and Felicia Goodwins’ house for dinner, though the visit ends early when Kate has an outburst. By January, Maria has become increasingly terrified of hearing about danger harming children—of new stories involving rattlesnakes being found in playpens, children stuck in refrigerators—so she no longer speaks to others, reads the paper, or leaves her apartment. When the shower drain becomes clogged in her apartment, she moves back into her home. Maria and Carter realize things aren’t working out and finalize their divorce, and Maria continues to unravel and grieve her aborted child. She obsesses over Les Goodwin and imagines Les, Kate, and herself living peacefully together in a seaside home.

That spring, Maria attends parties to distract herself from her unraveling psyche. She starts drinking and taking pills to ward off bad dreams. Helene reveals that Carter is dating Susannah Wood, the lead actress in a film he’s shooting in the desert. Sometime later, Maria arranges to meet Les Goodwin at a motel after the screening of Les’s film. They drive up the coast, rent a seaside room, and spend the evening together, though Les has to leave to return to Felicia the next day. Maria and Les lament the hopelessness of their situation. Sometime later, Carter travels to Paris to promote his latest film, which has been entered at Cannes. Helene calls Maria to gossip about Carter and Susannah, but Maria refuses to engage with Helene’s attempts to rile her.

Sometime later, Maria meets with an agent to discuss her role in an upcoming television show and is humiliated to discover that she hasn’t been cast as the lead. Ivan Costello calls her from New York and ridicules her unraveling life and ruined career. Maria hangs up and arranges to go to a casino with Larry Kulick, where she runs into Benny Austin. Benny is overjoyed to see Maria for the first time in many years, but Maria abandons Benny without saying goodbye after he starts talking about their past in Nevada.

Time passes. In May, Maria leaves a party with an actor named Johnny Waters. Waters takes her to his place and aggressively coerces her into sex. Afterward, Maria leaves without saying goodbye and steals Waters’s car. She speeds into the desert but is pulled over and arrested when the police officer realizes the car has been reported as being stolen.

Sometime later, Carter invites Maria to accompany him, BZ, and Helene to film in the desert. Maria accuses Carter of only inviting her because he thinks she can’t take care of herself, and he admits that this is true. Maria initially resists. Later that night, she finds Ivan Costello sitting in her living room. They have sex, but Maria kicks him out the next morning. She calls Les Goodwin crying. Les tries to cheer up Maria but is annoyed when she refuses to laugh. Out of options, Maria drives to the desert to be with Carter. Things don’t go well: Carter and Maria fight and end up sleeping in separate rooms. One night, Maria is hanging out with everyone in Susannah’s motel room. When Maria asks Susannah to turn down the music, Susannah mocks Maria. Fed up, Maria tells everyone she hates them and that they make her sick. Helene tells Maria to stop saying things that aren’t “funny.”

After their third week in the desert, Susannah is beat up in a Las Vegas hotel room. Maria fears that Carter is responsible, but BZ tells her this can’t be true since Carter was with Helene when it happened. Maria is bothered by the implication of BZ’s words, and he tells her to get out of the game if she can’t deal with Carter’s infidelities. With just over a week left in the desert shoot, Carter invites Maria to watch the shoot. Maria opts to borrow a gun from the stunt man and shoot road signs instead. Carter confronts Maria about her increasingly unhinged behavior, and Maria starts to withdraw from everyone even more.

In an internal monologue that occurs in the aftermath of the novel’s events, during Maria’s institutionalization, she ruminates on her simple plans for the future: to be released, to live alone with Kate, and to “do some canning.”

Back in the present, a forlorn BZ enters Maria’s motel room with some pills and a bottle of vodka. BZ admits that he’s no longer interested in “playing” and warns Maria that one day, she’ll tire of playing too, since the two of them know things the others do not. Maria drifts off to sleep but awakens in time to see BZ ingesting the bottle of pills. He offers some to Maria, but she refuses. Maria holds BZ in her arms and falls asleep. When she awakens, the lights are on, Carter is shaking her, and Helene is screaming.

In an internal monologue, as Maria recovers at the psychiatric facility, she reveals that although she knows that life is meaningless, she “keep[s] on playing.” She imagines BZ asking her “why,” to which she responds, “why not.”