The Waiting Room

The play, The Waiting Room, portrays many messages throughout it's script. Though to me it had one message that stood out the most. The main message to me was that no matter how you look on the outside you are beautiful within. Throughout the play three women, Wanda, Victoria, and Forgiveness From Heaven find that no matter what they do to their bodies or how they dress that they have an inner beauty. They become friends even though they are all from different time periods and help each other throughout their journey of finding themselves. They all may have different views on different subjects but they go beyond that and all begin to understand each other in a more deeper perspective.


Lisa Loomer ties in social commentaries about today's society throughout the play. In the play she shows how gender roles are prominent through the 18th century character, Victoria. Victoria's husband, , doesn't want her to learn more about her condition and she is pretty much his personal slave. Even though she comes to find she doesn't love him she still goes back to 18th century England with him. As for health, Loomer talks about social issues from each of the three character's time periods. Wanda a character living in recent times, finds that her numerous breast implants have lead to breast cancer which is a great problem in our society today. Victoria a character living in 18th century England is having a problem with hysteria and her husband suggests taking out her uterus because of the hormones making her crazy and her tight corset is making her uterus produce more hormones. Then there is Forgiveness From Heaven a character from ancient China who has bound feet and her toes are falling off. All of these health issues were and are a problem in each of the women's time period.

Throughout the play the three women's personalities evolve. Wanda, who is a very outspoken woman from New Jersey is very blunt and has no secrets about her body. She's a very smart girl, but her character doesn't always come off that way. By the end of the play you really get to see the real side of Wanda and her intelligence shines through. A really good quote that shows Wanda's personality is, "Hey. Hold on, I'm reading an article about breasts." In this quote it shows that Wanda is very open about her body and doesn't really care what others have to say about it. Victoria, a woman from 18th century England is very proper, has a bit of hysteria and her husband controls almost every aspect of her life. Throughout the play, Victoria becomes the leader of her own life and her hysteria decreases. "But I'm afraid that.... My husband and I were discussing Freud's theories, you see, and my husband, quite accidentally of course ... dropped Freud. Into the fire." I believe that this is a great quote because it describes Victoria's proper personality and how her husband controls her life. Forgiveness From Heaven is a woman from ancient China. She is very naive but positive and has bound feet. Forgiveness From Heaven really evolves, because she first starts out with bound feet and is losing toes so she can please her husband. By the end of the play she is able to release herself from the pain of bound feet and realizes that whats on the outside doesn't really matter as much as what does on the inside. "Little problem with big toe... Fell off this morning." In this quote it shows that Forgiveness is naive and that even though her toe may have fell off she is still positive.

Ken and Larry were interesting characters. At first, it was confusing to the reader at why they were in the play, but then their roles became more prominent throughout the script. The purpose of Ken and Larry were to show how people can be deceiving and how the pharmaceutical industry can be corrupt with ways to only benefit America. In this play I believe that Loomer is trying to show that the pharmaceutical industry wants to do whats best for America but may not go about the right way while doing it.

I believe that Loomer concluding the play with Wanda telling the story was a great way to end it. I think she ended the play with Wanda's story because it really showed how of the characters evolved. Loomer tied in the ending of the play very well. The only thing that I would go about changing would be to clarify more on what happened to Forgiveness. Other than that, I believe that the end of the play was the best part and I couldn't have written it better myself.