Absurd Person Singular is a 1972 play by Alan Ayckbourn. Divided into three acts, it documents the changing fortunes of three married couples. Each act takes place at a Christmas celebration at one of the couples' homes on successive Christmas Eves.
A contractor eager for social and professional advancement, Sidney will do anything to impress his perceived superiors—at the expense of his marriage. Sidney is socially inept, and shares that innocence with his wife, keeping their marriage together. As the play progresses, he becomes wealthier and wealthier, until eventually the friends he was once desperate to impress are now courting him as their own fortunes sink lower and lower. By the final act success has transformed Sidney's innocence into something approaching macabre sadism: in the earlier acts, the other couples view him with indulgent contempt and tolerate his childishness, but as the play progresses and he acquires money and power, they find themselves compelled to take him much more seriously, until self-preservation dictates they play along with his games.
Jane
Jane is the most sympathetic character in this piece. Sidney's loyal wife, also in her 30s, she's not much brighter than he is, but she's equally eager to please. Unlike Marion and Eva, she also has a knack for housework, in which she takes refuge from the complexities and difficulties of the world. She takes most of her social cues from her lover, and would do almost anything to help him succeed, but isn't motivated by greed or social standing: she just wants a comfortable living and a happy family. In the final act, Jane seems to lose a sense of identity, parroting her husband's enthusiasm in his macabre party game. Like her husband, Jane also lacks sensitivity to other's feelings. Her habit of breaking into song when cleaning is also a clue that she is happiest when she is cleaning and that it is an escape from her real life. Jane represents the stereotypical TV commercial wife.
Geoffrey
An architect by trade, Geoffrey is initially on the way up, only to fall from grace after a design fails and collapses between the second and third acts. A confident man and something of a Jack-the-Lad, he has many casual affairs and could be said to flaunt it. His indifference towards his wife Eva may have led to her addiction to anti-depressants, and even to cause her suicide attempts in the second act. However, by the third act, he is an utterly broken man: his confidence and charisma have been dashed by his career grinding to a halt, and the prospect of Sidney being the last man on earth willing to hire him doesn't thrill him very much, either.
Eva
Geoffrey's wife. Eva's appearance in the first act is brief and whimsical, establishing only her addiction to anti-depressants and her difficulties with her husband Geoffrey. She comes into her own in the second act, as a very depressed Eva tries repeatedly to kill herself, growing more and more desperate to end it all even as the other characters prevent her from doing so. By the third act she has recovered, dispensed with her addiction to pain-killers, and appears to be teetotal. She has also taken control of her relationship with Geoffrey, setting the course for his business and forcing him into situations he has typically charmed his way out of but which are now unavoidable. By the end of the play she is in perhaps the best position, being in control of her life and her relationship, neither warped by success nor embittered by failure, though she clearly has many practical challenges to overcome.
Ronald
An aging banker, Ronald takes pride in his work and enjoys the finer things in life. More conservative than the other characters, he is wry and sardonic. Initially both indulgent and disdainful of Sidney and Jane—although casually admiring Geoffrey—he is something of a side show in the second act and by the third act is clearly in severe financial trouble, unable to afford even to heat his house. Although he tries to maintain a facade of cheerful aristocratic bluster, his nerves show through, and he is forced to submit to Sidney as the holder of a large business account in Ronald's bank.
Marion
Ronald's second wife is charming though snobbish and deeply eccentric. As the play advances more and more of her eccentricities are attributed to alcoholism, climaxing in her thoroughly drunk presence in the third act. Her main role in the play is to reflect and magnify the position of the taciturn Ronald, making his path from polite disdain of Sidney to impoverished failure more clearly elucidated than Ronald's naturally reserved personality would allow.
