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Mr. Martin
Mrs. Martin is Mr. Martin’s husband. She takes Mrs. Smith’s side during the debate over the meaning of the doorbell ringing, while Mr. Martin sides with Mr. Smith. This casts the issue as a contest between smug male self-assurance and female regard for actual experience. The Martins are representatives of the same bourgeois morality as the Smiths, though they do briefly try to defend Mary’s behavior with the Fire Chief. Mrs. Martin quickly revises her position, however, reasserting her class prejudices when she says that “a maid […] is never anything but a maid.”
Mrs. Martin Quotes in The Bald Soprano
The The Bald Soprano quotes below are all either spoken by Mrs. Martin or refer to Mrs. Martin. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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The Bald Soprano Quotes
How bizarre, curious, strange! Then, madam, we live in the same room and we sleep in the same bed, dear lady. It is perhaps there that we have met!
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I can therefore let you in on a secret. Elizabeth is not Elizabeth, Donald is not Donald. And here is the proof: the child that Donald spoke of is not Elizabeth's daughter, they are not the same person. Donald's daughter has one white eye and one red eye like Elizabeth's daughter. Whereas Donald's child has a white right eye and a red left eye, Elizabeth's child has a red right eye and a white left eye! Thus all of Donald's system of deduction collapses when it comes up against this last obstacle which destroys his whole theory.
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MR. MARTIN: Don't you feel well? [Silence.]
MRS. SMITH: No, he's wet his pants. [Silence.]
MRS. MARTIN: Oh, sir, at your age, you shouldn't. [Silence.]
MR. SMITH: The heart is ageless. [Silence.]
MR. MARTIN: That's true. [Silence.] MRS. SMITH: So they say. [Silence.]
MRS. MARTIN: They also say the opposite [Silence.]
MR. SMITH: The truth lies somewhere between the two [Silence.]
MR. MARTIN: That’s true. [Silence]
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FIRE CHIEF: I am going to reconcile you. You both are partly right. When the doorbell rings, sometimes there is someone, other times there is no one.
MR. MARTIN: This seems logical to me.
MRS. MARTIN: I think so too.
FIRE CHIEF: Life is very simple, really.
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MR. MARTIN: If that is the case...dear friends...these emotions are understandable, human, honorable...
MRS. MARTIN: All that is human is honorable.
MRS. SMITH: Even so, I don't like to see it... here among us...
MR. SMITH: She's not been properly brought up...
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MRS. MARTIN: Bazaar, Balzac, bazooka!
MR. MARTIN: Bizarre, beaux-arts, brassieres!
MRS. SMITH: A,e,i,o,u, a,e,i,o,u, a,e,i,o,u, i!
MRS. MARTIN: B, c, d, f g, 1, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, x, z!
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[The words cease abruptly. Again, the lights come on. Mr. and Mrs. Martin are seated like the Smiths at the beginning of the play. The play begins again with the Martins who say exactly the same lines as the Smiths in the first scene, while the curtain softly falls.]
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Mrs. Martin Character Timeline in The Bald Soprano
The timeline below shows where the character Mrs. Martin appears in The Bald Soprano. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Bald Soprano
...enters and announces that she’s been out and about all afternoon, and that Mr. and Mrs. Martin are waiting at the door, expecting to have dinner with the Smiths. The Smiths exit...
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Mr. Martin and Mrs. Martin sit and begin conversing as if they are strangers. They both feel that they have...
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...that someone must be there. Once again, she answers it, and no one is there. Mrs. Martin takes Mrs. Smith’s side against their husbands in the debate over whether a doorbell ringing...
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Mrs. Martin tells Mary to go to the kitchen and read her poems in front of the...
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...and over again. They stop abruptly, and the lights come back on, with Mr. and Mrs. Martin in the seats occupied by the Smiths at the play’s opening. They begin to say...
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