There isn't a particular antagonist. Olympia must navigate her way between everyone's values and viewpoints and try to pull off the perfect evening for her daughters to remember, just as she always remembered her own debut fondly. Olympia makes her statement about the snobbery of The Arches (antagonist) by inviting her Jewish mother-in-law and her African American law partner and her husband, all of whom will share the table with her snobbish former husband Chauncey and his frivolous wife. In addition, there is her son Charlie who has a problem that his mother senses but doesn't know what it is.