Getting Out by Marsha Norman

First published: 1979

First produced: 1977, at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky

Type of plot: Psychological

Time of work: The late 1970’s, with flashbacks to the previous twenty years

Locale: Louisville, Kentucky, and places in Arlene’s memory

Principal Characters:

• Arlene, a recent parolee in her late twenties
• Arlie, Arlene at various times earlier in her life
• Bennie, a prison guard
• Mother, Arlene’s mother
• Carl, Arlene’s former pimp
• Ruby, Arlene’s upstairs neighbor, an ex-convict

The Play

After serving an eight-year prison sentence for second-degree murder, Arlene enters a dingy apartment in Louisville, Kentucky, to begin her first twenty-four hours on parole. In the course of her first day home, she is visited by four people: Bennie, her sentimental former jailer, who tries to convince Arlene that she needs his help to adjust to life outside prison; her mother, blind to her daughter’s struggle to put the past behind her; Carl, a pimp and former partner in numerous crimes, who tries to entice Arlene back to the streets; and Ruby, an ex-convict, who helps Arlene cope with her new life without demanding anything in return.

Arlene’s most persistent visitor is her memory of Arlie, her raging younger self, played by a different actor. Arlie’s appearance is triggered by the people who come to visit and remind Arlene of the person she once was. The past and the present move forward on two simultaneous tracks: Arlene’s struggle through her first day home and Arlie’s transformation from a young hellion to a desperate inmate praying for a way out of confinement.

When act 1 begins, Bennie has driven Arlene from the Alabama prison to Louisville, and he plans to settle in town. As Arlene’s jailer, he has watched her for eight years, and now he tries to convince her that she needs his help. Arlene, however, distances herself from Bennie, because he is a reminder of the past she is trying to forget. Bennie’s visit triggers Arlene’s first memory of Arlie, who appears in a series of short interwoven scenes. The audience witnesses Arlie picking up a soldier in a bar, defying a policeman after an apparent burglary, demanding that a prison guard clean up the dinner she threw on the floor, and setting her blouse on fire in her prison cell.

When her mother comes to visit, Arlene reluctantly admits her. As her mother begins to clean the apartment, Arlene presses her for information about her son Joey, asks if she can come for Sunday dinner, and repeatedly has to remind her mother that she is “Arlene,” not Arlie, now. The mother recoils from her daughter’s attempts to reach out to her and blames her for the trouble she has caused. When the mother finds a man’s hat under the bed, she accuses Arlene of returning to prostitution and walks out on her. Her mother spurs Arlene’s memory, and Arlie appears. She defends her abusive father and pleads with her mother to believe that it was really a fall from her bike that hurt her.

Carl is the next visitor. When Arlene refuses to open the door for him, he breaks it down. Carl tries to entice Arlene into resuming their former alliance, and she struggles to resist him. Bennie returns with dinner and forces Carl to retreat. Carl leaves with a warning that he will return. Arlene tells Bennie of her hopes for her son, Joey. This triggers the appearance of Arlie, alone in her cell, where she talks to an imaginary child and promises to protect him. Bennie offers to stay the night. When Arlene resists his advances, he attempts to overpower her. She forces him to confront the fact that he is trying to rape her. Denying that he is a rapist, Bennie backs down. Arlene tells Bennie that Arlie would have killed him.

Act 2 begins the next morning, in Arlene’s apartment; she is asleep. Simultaneously, the lights come up on Arlie in a maximum security cell, venting her rage at an unseen officer. Back in the apartment, a loud siren wakes Arlene with a start. She begins her morning activities and struggles to put the past behind her. Ruby, the upstairs neighbor, bangs on the door and demands money owed her by the previous tenant. Arlene explains that her sister vacated the apartment and left nothing behind. Ruby, herself an ex-con, understands Arlene’s predicament. She tells a story of her first days of freedom. In frustration, she heaved a gallon of milk out the window. When it bounced, it gave her hope.

Ruby encourages Arlene to apply for a job as a dishwasher and invites her upstairs for a game of cards. After Arlene resists both ideas, Ruby returns to her apartment and Arlene leaves for the grocery store. Ruby’s show of kindness triggers Arlene’s memory of Doris Creech, an inmate who tried to molest her. In a short scene Arlie threatens Doris and attacks an unseen authority for not seeing what Doris was trying to do to her.

Arlene returns from the store and spills all the groceries. Upset, she throws the pickle loaf to the floor; it does not bounce. Her frustration ignites the memory of Arlie in maximum security. Arlie reads the Bible that the prison chaplain gave her and cries out in desperation. When no one responds, her spirit breaks.

Carl returns to Arlene’s apartment. He promises easy money, leisure, and Joey’s respect. (Carl does not know that Joey is his son.) Arlene tries to make him see that she has changed, but he denigrates her efforts to improve herself. She tells Carl that she does not want to return to prison. Throughout this scene, Arlie is seen praying in her cell—a memory that gives Arlene strength. When Ruby enters, Carl backs off. He leaves after handing Arlene a matchbox with the name of a bar written on it, expecting her to meet him there. She tries to resist the pull that Carl still has on her. Ruby points out to her that in a straight job, “when you make your two nickels, you can keep both of ’em.”

Arlene is overcome with the memory of her final period of time in prison, and Arlie appears. When she learns that the chaplain will not be coming back, she cries out for his return. Arlene explains to Ruby that the chaplain was an inspiration to her. He helped her to believe that she could be freed of the vicious part of herself and be loved by God. Arlene describes her attempted suicide. She implores Ruby to understand that in her desperation it was the only way that she could be free of the hateful part of herself still raging within. Arlene breaks down and begs forgiveness. Ruby, understanding Arlene’s need to reconcile herself with the person she was, comforts her.

Bennie, bearing plants as a peace offering, returns to the apartment. He restates his desire to help Arlene and leaves a phone number scratched on a piece of paper. When he leaves, Arlene tries to decide between Carl’s matchbook and Bennie’s piece of paper. She throws the matchbook away. Before Ruby leaves, Arlene accepts her offer of a game of cards.

Arlene is left alone in the apartment. Arlie appears, telling a story of revenge on her mother. In a shared moment of delight, Arlie and Arlene imitate their mother, and Arlene smiles at the memory. The stage goes black except for a light on Arlene’s face. Arlie laughs once again.

Dramatic Devices

Getting Out incorporates a variety of dramatic devices to dramatize the interior struggle of a woman trying to reconcile her past and present. Arlene’s past life is enacted by a second actor who appears in a chain of flashbacks throughout the play. Arlie is “the violent kid Arlene was until her last stretch in prison.” Arlie makes it possible to move the play forward and backward in time to reveal the sources of Arlie’s rage and her desperate need for change.

The author’s specifications for the setting create a present permanently surrounded by the past. A prison cell, a catwalk, and other playing areas that represent the past surround Arlene’s “dingy one-room apartment.” As the author notes, “the apartment must seem imprisoned.” The bars in Arlene’s apartment window and the bars in Arlie’s prison cell visually link past to present. The set never changes. Arlie’s movement throughout the set allows the audience to see the ease with which the past intrudes upon the present. The specifications for lighting in the script suggest that the simultaneous existence of Arlie and Arlene should be sharply focused.

Sometimes the past follows the present sequentially. At the beginning of the play Bennie is carrying Arlene’s luggage up the steps to her apartment. He shouts “Arlie!” to Arlene on the stairs above, and in an instant the light comes up on Arlie as a violent kid telling the story of her revenge on the boy next door. In other scenes, past and present are interwoven. In a moment when Arlene is trying to convince Carl of her commitment to get “real work,” Arlie appears again and revives Arlene’s fears of a life of prostitution.

The language of Getting Out draws the audience into the world of the play. Set in the playwright’s own hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, the play is written with an authoritative sense of color and authenticity. The regional dialect is subtly suggested in the dialogue, and it is specified that both Arlie and Arlene speak with a country twang. The playwright’s use of dark humor not only helps support the characters and the setting but also helps to relieve the harsh brutality that surrounds them.

The use of disembodied sound effectively creates a mood of isolation and terror. Both acts open with a prison loudspeaker droning announcements of the day’s activities; the loudspeaker depicts the depersonalization and the relentless regimentation of prison life. The siren that awakens Arlene in act 2 and the loud knocking of the people who come to see her heighten the sense that the world outside is threatening. The climax of the play is Arlie’s attempted suicide, which is not shown but told. Telling the story encourages the audience to focus less on the event itself than on its impact on Arlene now that she is out on parole.

The denouement brings past and present together. Only the faces of Arlie and Arlene are seen. When Arlie tells the story of her revenge on her mother and Arlene smiles at the memory, the audience sees that Arlene is now able to gain strength from the rebellious spirit that she was not able to kill. Arlene can at last make peace with Arlie, if only on a moment-by-moment basis.

Critical Context

Getting Out anticipated many of the themes that would characterize Marsha Norman’s later plays. In the years immediately following the success of Getting Out, she wrote Third and Oak (pr. 1978, pb. 1985), about two women in a Laundromat and two men in the pool hall next door who are forced to shed their illusions about the people they love, and The Hold-up (pr. 1980, pb. 1987), which charts the liberation of a young farmworker who finds a way to break free of his northern New Mexico home.

’night, Mother is Marsha Norman’s best-known play. It was her first to be performed on Broadway (in 1982), and it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1983. Like Arlene in Getting Out, Jessie in ’night, Mother must sever her ties with the past in order to assert her right to self-determination. Unlike Arlene, Jessie can only take control of her life by ending it. Getting Out reflects the growing influence of women playwrights as they tackle controversial subjects. The support of regional theaters, national and private foundations, and the feminist movement did much to nurture women writers in the late 1970’s and the 1980’s, both in New York and in regional theaters around the country.

Getting Out received national recognition rare for a first play. It was co-winner of the Actors Theatre of Louisville Great American Play contest for 1977 and won the Oppenheimer/Newsday Award. It also won the Outer Critics Circle’s John Gassner Playwriting Medallion, and the American Theatre Critics Association cited it as the outstanding new play produced outside New York during the 1977-1978 season. In 1979, The Burns Mantle Theatre Yearbook featured it as one of the best plays of the New York season.

Sources for Further Study

Brown, Linda Ginter, ed. Marsha Norman: A Casebook. New York: Garland, 1996.

Chinoy, Helen Krich, and Linda Walsh Jenkins. “Where Are the Women Playwrights?” In Women in American Theater, edited by Helen Krich Chinoy and Linda Walsh Jenkins. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1987.

Gussow, Mel. “Women Playwrights: New Voices in the Theatre.” New York Times Magazine, May 1, 1983, pp. 22-34.

Murray, Timothy. “Patriarchal Panopticism: Or, The Seduction of a Bad Joke— Getting Out in Theory.” Theatre Journal 35 (October, 1983): 376-388.

Rubik, Margaret. “A Sisterhood of Women: Marsha Norman’s Getting Out and The Laundromat.” Gramma: Journal of Theory and Criticism, 1994, 141-147.

Savran, Bruce. “Marsha Norman.” In In Their Own Words: Contemporary American Playwrights. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1988.

Schroeder, Patricia R. “Locked Behind the Proscenium: Feminist Strategies in Getting Out and My Sister in This House.” Feminist Theatre and Theory. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

Weales, Gerald. “Getting Out: A New American Playwright.” Commonweal 106 (October 12, 1979): 559-560.