Waiting room reflective essay

For the past week or so, our whole class has been reading the play The Waiting Room by Lisa Loomer. Some of the key messages in this play are that everyone one is beautiful on the inside, and that external beauty can really hurt. Lisa Loomer made many social commentaries about beauty, health, and gender roles. Loomer said that in today’s society the ideal of beauty are that women get implants and do anything to make themselves beautiful in other people’s “eyes”. For health she criticized the health industry by saying that they really don’t want us to be healthy, otherwise, they would be out of business. She also said that in the old times in England women were meant to be weak and proper at the same time for their husbands. In ancient China, she said that women were just property or items and could easily be disposed of when the husband was done with them.
There were three women in this play, Victoria who was from Victorian England, Wanda who was from modern times, and Forgiveness from Heaven who was from ancient China. Victoria starts off the play with a horrible tic whenever the word husband or sex was mentioned. She regresses throughout the play by contriving to her husbands wishes and has her uterus removed. “(Victorious) Just the uterus! I made an agreement with my husband.” Wanda is from modern day Jersey, and has fake boobs to prove it. She later learns that she has breast cancer. She finds out what it means to be truly beautiful on the inside. “… I’ve spent 6,750 hours of my life on my hair. Nine months washing off waterproof mascara… So with all this time I’m going to save from now on, going around looking like shit… But isn’t it worse - not living while you’re alive?” Forgiveness from Heaven was from ancient China, has her feet bound and is an opium addict. She progresses through the play by running away from her husband (who has many wives) and eventually unbinding her feet which symbolizes her escaping from that ideal of beauty. “Oh no, you not touch golden lotus! You not my husband-““We’ve lost four toes… We’re trying to save the foot…”
In the play, there were two men named Ken and Larry. Their role is to almost show what Loomer’s commentary on the pharmaceutical industry is. It is that they really don’t want America to be healthy because they would otherwise be out of business. Also if the government really wanted to help America’s health, they would. Lisa Loomer ended the play in the way she did to leave a cliff hanger, and also for the reader to finish the play for themselves. Wanda and her breast cancer would certainly have been wrapped up differently if I was the author. You really don’t know if she survives after her surgery.
Overall though I thought this was a deep interpretation of Loomer’s ideals of beauty. And was an excellently crafted play all around.