Starting with the title itself, there’s quite a bit of wordplay in this play. List as many examples as you can find. How does this use of language contribute to the tone and spirit of the play?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Some of the more ingenious (and/or egregious) instances include:
476 DRAMA

“The sphinx in our Oedipal basement was my mother’s Maypole. The old Ocean IT-40. It sat there like a mystical monolith. An ivory soap tower” (Repairman, page 1144);
“In my experience, everything is a cycle. . . . We run hot and cold” (Washing Machine, page 1146);
“I was awash in confused feelings. But I sensed that this machine and I were locked in permanent press. And if it was love—it was unclean” (Repairman, page 1147);
“Do you think I don’t see you polishing its knobs when I’m not looking?” (Mabel, page 1149);
“And so we folded” (Repairman, on his marriage to Mabel, page 1149).
The frequently outrageous punning helps to establish the play’s atmosphere of zany farce. By highlighting the multiple meanings that words and statements can carry, by showing how dissimilar things can be related to one another, it also subtly conveys the sense of a world in which anything can mean anything else, and anything can happen—including a man’s romantic obsession with an appliance.