Barbara Fordham

Barbara is the first of the play’s two major characters, the second being her mother, Violet. Their relationship, and Barbara’s apparent character / identity, manifest the play’s thematic exploration of mother-daughter relationships, and most specifically how daughters end up like their mothers. Barbara, much as she would hate to admit it, is very like her mother, at least as the play begins: angry, bitter, foul-mouthed, and at times quite aggressive, even vicious. Over the course of the play, as both characters are faced with more and more challenges, the similarities become more apparent: they both have a tendency towards verbal and emotional violence; they both have unhappy marriages; and they both have extremely difficult, complicated relationship with their daughters.

That said, there are a couple of immediately apparent differences between the two characters: Barbara seems to have a more immediate, more present sense of vulnerability...