Plot Structure

Quite cleverly, the structure of The Blue Room is part of its story. Originally titled Reigen, German for "round dance," the play presents a series of characters who meet, have sex, then part ways and move on to a new partner. Ultimately the play ends where it begins, with a sexual transaction between a man and a prostitute.

The larger template of the play is familiar to modern theatergoers. Rather than a single story, told in linear fashion with a handful of characters and only one or two settings, The Blue Room presents a series of ten separate, but interrelated, scenes involving many characters who meet in a variety of locations. The unique contribution this play makes to this type of plot structure is that it is not the story but the characters that carry over from one scene into the next.

The Cab Driver who meets...