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Societal Expectations and Middle-Class Values
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The Bald Soprano Quotes
MRS. SMITH: There, it’s nine o’clock. We’ve drunk the soup, and eaten the fish and chips, and the English salad. The children have drunk English water. We’ve eaten well this evening. That’s because we live in the suburbs of London and because our name is Smith.
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The play opens on a “middle-class English interior,” where Mr. and Mrs. Smith sit comfortably after their evening meal. Suddenly, the clock tolls 17 times, triggering Mrs. Smith’s long monologue recounting the meal they’ve just eaten, which begins in this passage. From her first words, something already seems awry in the world of the play, as she takes the bizarre 17 strokes of the clock to indicate that it’s 9:00 p.m.—a perplexing deduction, considering that clocks don’t chime so many times and considering that, even if they did, 9:00 p.m. would be 19 chimes (in military time). The clock will Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia
MR. SMITH [still reading his paper]: Tsk, it says here that Bobby Watson died.
MRS. SMITH: My God, the poor man! When did he die?
MR. SMITH: Why do you pretend to be astonished? You know very well that he's been dead these past two years. Surely you remember that we attended his funeral a year and a half ago.
MRS. SMITH: Oh yes, of course I do remember. I remembered it right away, but I don't understand why you yourself were so surprised to see it in the paper.
MR. SMITH: It wasn't in the paper. It's been three years since his death was announced. I remembered it through an association of ideas.
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Mrs. Smith’s monologue proceeds through a detailed review of each course of their dinner, to which Mr. Smith only responds with intermittent clicks of his tongue. When she changes the topic to her doctor, Mr. Smith finally speaks up to challenge her, in the process revealing that he, too, seems to be operating in some loony world unlike the audience’s own. He then returns to his paper, at which point this passage occurs. The passage shows the Smiths’ apprehension of time fluctuating by whole years from one line to the next. What the unruly clanging of the clock at the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta.
It is his wife that I mean. She is called Bobby too, Bobby Watson. Since they both had the same name, you could never tell one from the other when you saw them together. It was only after his death that you could really tell which was which.
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As Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s discussion of Bobby Watson’s death continues, it branches out to cover other members of Bobby’s family. Mrs. Smith cries out, “Poor Bobby!”, and in this passage she explains that she was referring to the deceased Bobby’s wife. It soon becomes clear that absolutely everyone Bobby was related to is also named Bobby Watson. This passage exemplifies the characters’ commitment to making logical distinctions, which universally appear absurd in the context of the senseless and ludicrous world of the play. Names, of course, would have no effect on one’s ability to tell Bobby and his wife Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum
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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As the Smiths’ half-sensical conversation proceeds, they are surprised to learn that their friends, the Martins, have been waiting outside, expecting to be treated to dinner. As the Smiths excuse themselves to change clothes, the Martins sit down to wait and strike up a conversation in which it appears they’ve each forgotten who the other is. Feeling that they’ve met before, they each offer details from their lives that continue to match up exactly with one another’s. By the point this passage arrives, they’ve deduced that their lodgings and indeed their beds are exactly the same. The scene’s humor arises Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi nece
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. and Mrs. Martin’s long sequence of astonishing coincidences ends with them both declaring that they have a daughter named Alice, with one red eye and one white eye. At this point, they finally conclude that they must be Donald and Elizabeth, husband and wife. After they joyfully embrace and fall asleep in a chair, in this passage, Mary tiptoes onto the stage and breaks the “fourth wall” to directly address the audience and disprove the Martins’ conclusions. Mary’s unique ability to do this, coupled with her inexplicable knowledge of the Martins’ lives, suggests that she may possess powers of Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque erro
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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When the Smiths return downstairs, the Martins angrily chide them for keeping them waiting outside for four hours. After this brief outburst, however, the group falls silent and only gradually strikes up conversation again in the awkward and stilted manner on display in this passage. Mr. Smith’s apparent pants-wetting makes a mockery of the group’s prim bourgeois manners, foreshadowing their descent into carnal animality at the end of the play. Mr. Smith’s absurdly pseudo-philosophical defense of his actions—“The heart is ageless”—also foreshadows the avalanche of meaningless proverbs at the play’s end. Mr. Smith attempts profundity in his assessment of truth Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus v
MR. SMITH: As for me, when I go to visit someone, I ring in order to be admitted. I think that everyone does the same thing and that each time there is a ring there must be someone there.
MRS. SMITH: That is true in theory. But in reality things happen differently. You have just seen otherwise.
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The Smiths’ and Martins’ gathering continues in an awkward, halting vein, with all involved frequently losing their train of thought or embarrassing one another. Suddenly, the doorbell rings, but when Mrs. Smith answers it, no one is there. The same thing happens again, and when the bell rings a third time, Mrs. Smith refuses to get up and answer it again, sparking a debate between her and her husband, who insists that she go to answer it once again. In this passage, Mr. Smith demonstrates his smug assurance in the rational order of things, relying on the inherent logic of Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Volup
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. Smith (and Mr. Martin, who has taken his side) prevails on Mrs. Smith (whose side Mrs. Martin has taken) to open the door a third time, once again with no one there. When it rings a fourth time, she angrily refuses to answer it, but when Mr. Smith opens the door, the Fire Chief is there, seemingly vindicating the smug Mr. Smith. The group involves their new guest in the debate, and in this passage, he “reconciles” the warring parties with a “very simple” compromise that seems to satisfy everyone present. The absurdity of the scene arises from the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commo
Well, then! [He coughs again in a voice shaken by emotion:] "The Dog and the Cow," an experimental fable. Once upon a time another cow asked another dog: "Why have you not swallowed your trunk?" "Pardon me," replied the dog, "it is because I thought that I was an elephant."
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With the doorbell debate apparently settled, the Fire Chief reveals that he’s come on official business: he’s searching for fires. Disappointed on this front, he prepares to leave, but the group prevails on him to stay and regale them with some stories. Shy and reluctant, he nevertheless caves to the pressure and tells the group a series of bizarre, nonsensical animal fables, with this passage being the first of them. His description of the story he tells, “an experimental fable,” seems to apply to The Bald Soprano itself; the fable is a microcosm of the absurd and illogical drama playing Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim
Oh, charming! [He either kisses or does not kiss Mrs. Smith.]
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The Fire Chief continues to tell bizarre and meaningless stories about barnyard animals, which for some reason delight the Smiths and Martins. Mrs. Smith gets excited and eagerly tells a story of her own, in which a groom gives a bouquet to his fiancée and then swiftly retracts it. The story evidently delights Mr. Martin. In this passage, Ionesco demonstrates that even the stage directions in his play are subject to the same absurd humor and randomness that distinguishes his characters’ dialogue. By leaving open this set of two options (“He either kisses or does not kiss Mrs. Smith”), Ionesco Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatib
MRS. SMITH: We don't have the time, here.
FIRE CHIEF: But the clock?
MR. SMITH: It runs badly. It is contradictory, and always indicates the opposite of what the hour really is.
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The Fire Chief continues to delight the group with his stories. His last one, about an extremely distant relative who had a head cold, is quite a bit longer than any before it and has lots of intermediary steps. The group gets confused and pleads with him to tell the story again, but he says he may have to leave, depending on the time. In this passage, the Smiths finally acknowledge their wildly unreliable clock, which has been acting erratically throughout the play. The passage seems to show that the Smiths are surprisingly aware of the chaotic warping of time Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem a
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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Mary, the maid, reenters the scene, interrupting the Smiths’ conversation with the Fire Chief about their clock. Upon seeing one another, she and the Fire Chief recognize one another as former lovers, and Mary leaps into his arms. Their open canoodling disturbs the Smiths and Martins, who in this passage attempt to work through their powerful reaction to the amorous display. The Martins’ contention that “all that is human is honorable” recalls the mock-weightiness of Mr. Smith’s contention that the “heart is ageless” when he peed in his pants. It also ironically foreshadows the descent into madness that the Smith Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus vo
The polypoids were burning in the wood
A stone caught fire
The castle caught fire
The forest caught fire
The men caught fire
The women caught fire
The birds caught fire
The fish caught fire
The water caught fire
The sky caught fire
The ashes caught fire
The smoke caught fire
The fire caught fire
Everything caught fire,
Caught fire, caught fire.
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Upset by Mary’s conduct with the Fire Chief, Mrs. Smith asks her to excuse herself and go recite her poems quietly in front of a mirror somewhere. Mary agrees to recite a poem, but she does it loudly in front of the whole group: it is called “The Fire,” which she dedicates to the Fire Chief. The poem begins with a surreal image of “polypoids,” perhaps some kind of sea-anemone, “burning in the wood”—a physical improbability. The poem starts to sound more realistic as it proceeds, though, describing some more conventional objects catching fire, before returning to surreal impossibility as Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque
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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After Mary recites her poem about the fire and is wheeled off stage, the Fire Chief turns to go as well, leaving to attend a fire across town. As he leaves, however, he asks a question about “the bald soprano,” and this, compounded with the poem recital, seems to flip a switch in the Smiths’ and Martins’ mind and plunge them into total madness. For several lines, they exchange nonsensical, non-sequitur fake proverbs, until Mr. Smith cries, “To hell with polishing!”, which initiates an even steeper decline into vicious nonsense. The members of the group begin shouting strings of words Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error
[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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The Smiths’ and Martins’ descent into the verbal maelstrom concludes with a furious recitation of the alphabet, followed by a repeated chant in unison of the phrase, “It’s not that way, it’s over here.” The lights shut off, but the chanting continues with increasing speed, until this passage, when they suddenly stop. The passage, which concludes the play, offers a final shocking twist, in which the play is implied to continue in an infinite loop, just with the characters having switched roles. This final twist underscores the instability and even arbitrariness of identity in the play’s universe, as the same Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut
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