The Birthday Party

A young woman who visits Meg and Petey’s boarding house. Before McCann and Goldberg arrive, she tells Stanley that he ought to go outside for some air, prompting him to invite her to run away with him. When she asks where they’d go, though, he simply says, “Nowhere,” and then declines her invitation to go on a walk. Later, Lulu comes to Stanley’s birthday party and flirts with Goldberg, telling him that she has always liked older men and that he looks like the first man she ever loved. During the game of “blind man’s buff,” she and Goldberg continue flirting and fondling one another. When Stanley plays the blind man, though, the party takes a dark turn and, when the lights cut out, he approaches Lulu and attempts to rape her. Thankfully, Goldberg and McCann stop him, and Lulu and Goldberg presumably continue their romantic evening, as made evident by the conversation they have the following morning, when she accuses him of having sex with her without having any intention of starting a relationship. “You taught me things a girl shouldn’t know before she’s been married at least three times!” she laments, but Goldberg only says that now she’s “a jump ahead.” With this, McCann enters and tries to get her to confess her sins, an attempt that drives her out of the boarding house.