Spike Heels

Georgie’s attempt to seduce Edward reenacts his advances in the office, with the gender roles reversed. His sudden rejection of sex is an analog for Georgie’s disgust at his off-color joke about rape and her throwing the pencil. Similarly, Edward’s misgiving about having sex with a woman possibly in love with his friend seems to be an echo of Georgie’s realization that she is being manipulated by the men in her life. Uncharacteristically, given his promiscuity, Edward is hurt by the idea that Georgie might be using him, feigning an aversion to the careless untidiness of Georgie’s apartment and viciously lashing out by dismissing all women as disposable sex objects.

Trapped in the patriarchy, Georgie is freed by an unlikely rescuer: Lydia. Highlighting the misogyny of the play’s men, Lydia is nothing like Andrew and Edward’s insulting descriptions. Georgie, who accepted their judgment that Lydia is cold, passionless, and distant, is so thrown off by Lydia’s real life affect that doesn’t immediately identify her: “You’re very different from what I thought” (72). Lydia enters with a clichéd heteronormative agenda: When Andrew wants to postpone the wedding, Lydia is angry with the ostensible other woman rather than the man she assumes is cheating on her. But almost immediately, Lydia flips that chauvinistic script, confiding in Georgie rather than antagonizing her. Refreshingly honest, Lydia admits that she and Andrew have not had sex in months—an estrangement that makes her sad because she is genuinely in love with him: “He is my best self; he makes me my best self” (76). Georgie, who has few models for friendship that doesn’t involve power games and manipulation, doesn’t quite know how to handle Lydia’s openness, so she falls back on quasi-seduction, asking Lydia to dance. However, neither woman is trying to dominate the other. The dance is slow, gentle, and giving—a parody of Georgie’s heretofore high-stakes sex life that the stage directions describe as “hilariously erotic” (77). In their slow dance, Lydia and Georgie bodily cement their friendship and empathy—an impromptu sisterhood that defies the patriarchal control of their lives.

When Edward and Andrew orchestrate a power grab, Edward egging Andrew on to declare his love for Georgie cruelly in front of a devastated Lydia, the bond between the women provides a strategy for overcoming that emotional pain. Lydia asserts her independence from Andrew, removing his glasses in a gesture that suggests Andrew’s limited perception. Georgie, thanking Andrew for his efforts on her behalf, nevertheless breaks free of his Pygmalion game. The women exit together in solidarity.