Analysis of “tender offer” by Wendy Wasserstein
Tender offer is a one act play with two main characters; Paul and Lisa. Paul is Lisa’s father. The play’s setting is the dance studio where Lisa who is only nine years old was performing earlier before her father’s arrival.
The play starts off with Lisa singing “Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina” (Wasserstein, 26) while performing a dance routine. She does this while waiting for her father Paul, a 35 year old man to come and pick her up. Lisa stops singing as soon as she notices her father. Paul encourages her to continue but she refuses.
It is apparent from the onset of the play that Lisa is annoyed that Paul was not present during her dance recital. Lisa does not seem to be content with Paul’s apologies and continues attacking him indirectly by answering his questions in a very flat tone. “How’d it go? “Just good?” “You don’t want to be sexy? “I don’t care” (Wasserstein, 12). She even refuses to go home claiming that she could not find her leg warmers. This ordeal is what escalates the tension between the father and the daughter.
The tension escalates to a climax when Lisa goes ahead and collects her trophy but then throws it away to show her disgust. She tells her father that the trophy is just stupid. She even directly confronts her father directly telling him that she hated him. This is the climax of the play. Paul apologizes sincerely instead of getting defensive. This seems to tone down the tension that was between them. The climax is toned down completely when Paul introduces the story of the black and white knight. She offers Lisa a tender offer better than the white knight’s offer. This seems to cool down Lisa as they now converse on a much lighter note.
The resolution of this anticlimax comes when Paul stands and begins to sing “Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina,” (Wasserstein, 24) the same song Lisa was singing at the beginning of the play. This brings about the resolution of the conflict inherent at the beginning.
Work cited
Wasserstein, Wendy. Tender offer and other stories.
USA: St. James press, 1996. Print
