Waiting, Waiting, Waiting… And the lights dim.

We have all experienced that wait outside the examination room at the

doctor’s office. The wait seems eternal with all the dry air, awkward eye contact, and

extreme silence. Lisa Loomer’s play The Waiting Room takes the ordinary wait and

makes a complex statement of the controversial sexual and social politics as well as

the evolving perception of beauty. The play approaches the topics by highlighting

the lengths women go to achieve the perception of beauty. Now, I use the word

perception because, as the play demonstrates, beauty evolves and is interpreted

differently across the globe.

In 1998, Lisa Loomer wrote one of her most renown plays The Waiting Room.

The play consists of three women seeking medical attention. The first

is a Chinese woman from around the 18th century. The Chinese

woman, Forgiveness From Heaven, is seeking help because one of her

toes has fallen off due to foot binding. In China around the 18th

century, foot binding became popular. It was regarded as status

symbol. Wang Lifen describes that bound feet were the

only way a woman was able to marry into money. (Wang Lifen,

Painful Memories for China’s Footbinding Survivors”) These women

would proceed to breaking their feet at the arch and bandaging the

toes back to the heel. This process was continued until

their feet reached the length of three inches. The second woman in

the play is an English woman from around the 19th century Victorian

era. The English woman, Victoria, is seeking help with her pain of

displaced internal organ and breathing difficulties caused by wearing an extremely

tight corset and several heavy layers of clothing. The practice of corsetry was done

to give woman more of an hourglass figure. “Corsets narrow the bottom ribs… which

can impair the lungs, make breathing difficult.” New York Daily News states in their

article Hundred-year-old X-rays reveal how corsets put the squeeze on Victorian

women. Along with breathing difficulties, women were subject to discomfort as far

as fainting and blackouts due to their poor air circulation. The third woman is an

American woman from modern day. The woman, Wanda, is seeking help to adjust

her breast implants. She has now had three implants. Furthermore, at this visit the

doctor finds cancer on her breast. Although breast implants haven’t been directly

linked to a cancer risk factor, the American Cancer Society claim that implants make

it more difficult to detect tumors with a typical mammogram.

Loomer’s brilliance is shown not only within this play, but also her other

plays. Loomer is very much familiar to satirical writing. In fact, Loomer was part of a

political comedy group before she decided to write her own material. An early piece

she produced was Birds. In Birds, Loomer addresses how a Mexican family with an

American lifestyle finds who they are. She utilizes humor to consider the struggles

of balance between the two. In The Waiting Room, Loomer puts into light the

perception of beauty in a way that all can relate to. Her genius has earned The

Waiting Room with two awards, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Runner-up in 1993

and the Jane Chambers Award, Winner in 1994.

My three personal criteria are a bit more basic than the assumed criteria

professional critiques may use. My first criterion when evaluating the play is the

acting element quality. Throughout the play, I found myself fully engaged by the

actors’ emotion. Wanda’s reaction to the news of cancer covered the audience in

silence. She gave me a true reaction of fear to which I momentarily forgot was all an

act. An important factor to the emotion Wanda gave was her use of tone of voice. I

could clearly hear the quiver in her voice when she asked her doctor what she

needed to do to get rid of the cancer.

My second criterion consisted of the design element quality. The space

allotted for the stage setup was very small. The tight closed space made me feel a bit

skeptical of the scene adaptability due to space limitation. However, the tight space

was extremely well made and versatile. The versatility was well shown in the scene

change from the doctor’s office to the sauna in the health club spa. The sauna

benches were cleverly built into the walls of what was the waiting room wall. The

actors’ costumes were wonderful. The elegant fabrics Forgiveness wore were good

choices to reflect the style of Chinese women in the 18th century. Victoria’s coats and

other fur layers had a vintage look to them that contributed character to her role. I

most certainly believe the design elements met the criteria.

My third criterion focused on the intentions or purpose of the play. The

message you take away makes the play significant. As I personally don’t have a

calling for theatre, I am brought into a play for the message or material that is

applicable to my lifestyle and me. The pull in the play that swept me away was

Wanda’s line,” Isn’t is worse not living while you are alive.” It comes to light that

Wanda has had an epiphany of what true beauty is. This is her turning point in

which she accepts the circumstances of her actions and accepts herself. The scene

awakens an internal voice in me. It gets me thinking about my own definition of

beauty and the guidelines I hold myself to. Society should ask themselves. Will the

true perception of “beauty” ever be achieved or be defined? Will it ever be universal,

or if it is even significant to satisfy society while you are suffering, suppressing

yourself, or putting your life at risk?

The Waiting Room is an extraordinary play for those of us still trying to find

ourselves as well as those of us that believe we already have. It allows us to see

controversy over sexual and social politics in an approachable perspective. Society

should not shape the image of “beauty”. Nevertheless, we are all subject to fall under

the pressure of society to comply with the perception. I urge everyone to break the

perception and pass along their true beauty and accept that beauty is seen from

individuals’ eyes and not through society.