I think this moment, followed by the moment where Fefu goes into intricate detail about the slimy and crawling worms underneath the rock show the way Fefu has internalized the view of women in society, and how she's allowed this to affect her own view towards femininity and how gender is performed for women. I think this could also be interesting if used as an analogy that opening up a rock to find the crawling worms is like looking into the private lives of these women, and seeing these lives, bodily and lived crawling beneath the performance of "womanhood". When she goes on to say it is a life "parallel to the one we manifest" it's kind of the dual nature of "being" yourself while also being what society wants you to be, and if you can't recognize yourself in this it plagues you. I agree with what KMT483 writes in regards to Fefu's longer statement. The women are these worms, and it is both Fefu facing in a way her own internalized misogyny and viewing of women as these loathsome things, and her acknowledging that inside her is something that is hidden and separate from others. Much of this play is about the hidden and the public, and how these differ and how much of womanhood is a performance, as Emma brings up.

I'm not sure if this is a good example of the delicate balance/ balancing, but throughout the play the family fights very intensely then goes back go being normal/ kind or loving. I think by calling themselves a happy family and moving in this balance of chaotic arguments to polite conversation and catching up we can see this "delicate balance" taking place. I think that meaning of the title is that the weight of keeping neutral is easily tipped, and to keep it all in line they must make an effort to not add too much weight to one side, eve slightly, and this is a metaphor for their conversation/ actions/ and rude behavior vs their desire to be perceived as classy and intelligent.

The distinction here between aphorism and epigram is a moment where the characters are very specific about their word choice, and making sure that they are saying exactly what they mean to the point of constantly correcting themselves. I think this is different than the dumb waiter, since that was a condescending moment, making someone feel dumb for the literalism of the expression they said, but here I feel it is part of the style of the play. The characters appear to be trying to seem formal and classy with this language, using specific, elevated diction to speak to one another. It may be a moment also of convincing the other that they are not spiraling/ having issues, after all, they are so intelligent and specific with their language, how can they not be so put together?

This is one of the more direct hidden spaces- a place to hide before the man comes down and they close him/her in. I think that this is more comedic considering the repetition that follows between ben and gus of "He won't know you're there/ he won't know ~you're there." Gus repeats everything that Ben states and we the audience can experience their dynamic and watch as they semi block out the events that they think will unfold. I think the addition of "what if it's a girl" is very comedic because Gus would wnat to shift things up, maybe not pull out the gun, if she were someone he was attracted to. This shows power in the sense of the power Ben tries to impose over Gus, and the lack of power they have over the person upstairs as they have to trick and hide to confront him, thus showing that they don't have any immediate leverage over him.

this part is interesting as the old man and the woman are looking at one another, but there is, in their world, someone blocking them. This is an interesting visual to bring to life the separation between them. The audience only sees an empty chair between them, so it's like only we can see from the outside how they have a type of barrier between them. I think as an audience member I would find this funny at first, but then a bit sad. it shows their loneliness, especially earlier when we think that someone is coming over, and we expect another actor/ character to enter the stage, and the old man and woman return speaking to the air. After suspending disbelief and finding the absurdity fun, the audience begins to take in the actual impact of two people speaking to each other as though someone else is there.

In this scene, we see the frustration Clov has with the way they are existing, and how nature has died- or forgotten them- leaving them without the ability to grow food. Hamm is trying to look on the bright side and be optimistic, suggesting that the world might be better, maybe if he just scratches the soil to check, but Clov is not so optimistic about their future, as he said before "no more nature". I think showing the realist contrasted with the character who is kind of in denial makes an interesting piece of drama. They understand nature as no longer serving them in this way- for producing food, and that it's something they maybe shouldn't rely on for making their seeds sprout. They see nature as something that they can engage with and are frustrated when it doesn't bend to their needs, nature possibly has forgotten them.

this piece struck me as tragic as Lucky seems to be this man's personal workhorse, and Lucky is desperate to do anything to gain his approval, to keep a job or to just have Pozzo want to keep him around. I think this moment is ironic, considering one would think "why would a slave want to gain the approval of his master" similar to griffin's point. I think this as a whole reminds me of this idea of working our whole lives for someone else, 40 hr work week in the hopes of getting some illusive "American dream" or in other countries, this idea that if you give all of yourself to someone to prove how far you'll go, they'll certainly somehow find respect in you through that and want to keep you around. People are bound to system in the hopes it will serve them when the time comes, but mostly they just bare the brute of it. Even when Pozzo notices Lucky is tired he makes the other men leave him be, but he still bosses Lucky around. This is tragic in terms of how I perceive it's overall message of working for approval for a boss or someone who doesn't value you at all, and that life is inevitable in this manner.

These lines show that Sabina is aware of her role in a production. She knows her lines and when the other characters don't respond to their "cues" she starts to show us that she isn't just "Sabina the maid" She's Sabina the actress playing a maid, and that this world we're seeing is in fact a production of someone else's orchestration.The set pieces coming down around her are not just funny bits for the audience, they exist in a world where Sabina is aware of them as well as shabby and poorly constructed. We can imagine she knows a stagehand who painted them, maybe they're friends, as we know Sabina exists outside of this maid story. Her world is a stage when she's the maid. She's in a play inside of the play.

This show's us that Harper before this moment was trying to gaslight Joan into believing that she hadn't seen what she thought she had seen. This space is not what it appears- it's not a party, dog dying, or anything of that nature, but someone screaming and people being beaten by her uncle. Everything in this scene after this has Harper change her tone.