Play It As It Lays

Carter Lang is the novel’s antagonist and Maria’s husband, whom she divorces for abuse. Carter is an acclaimed Hollywood director who launched Maria’s acting career by casting her in his first films—or from another perspective, his career was launched by her success. Carter keeps their four-year-old daughter, Kate, in a medical facility, and he uses Kate to control Maria. He forces Maria to have an abortion by threatening to divorce her and take custody Kate if she decides to have the baby (54). Carter frequently sleeps with the actresses in his films and eventually has an affair with Helene.

Carter sees life through the lens of filmmaking. Describing his relationship with Maria, he says, “I played and replayed these scenes and others like them, composed them as if for the camera, trying to find some order, some pattern. I found none” (13-14). Filmmaking is a way for Carter to exert control, which is why he applies that framework to the rest of his life.

Carter is abusive and manipulative toward Maria. When Maria tries to express her grief over the abortion, he becomes angry: “Why don’t you just on in that bathroom and take every pill in it. Why don’t you die” (31). They repeatedly fight and separate, and Carter’s abuse is stated plainly in their divorce proceedings—ironically, by Helene.

When Maria returns from Las Vegas in the second half of the novel, Carter makes it seem like he is willing to salvage their relationship and help Maria put her life back together. Maria repeatedly refuses his help because she knows that it will end in violence, but Maria cannot let Carter go because he is her only link to Kate.

Kate Lang is the four-year-old daughter of Maria and Carter Lang. Kate has an unspecified neurological condition, for which Carter has confined her to a psychiatric institution. The text hints at the nature of Kate’s condition when Maria says Kate has “an aberrant chemical in her brain” (4), and Kate’s treatment includes doctors inserting needles into her spine and treating her with methylphenidate hydrochloride. Kate’s behavioral outbursts alternate with emotional detachment, and she never speaks. The hospital staff disapproves of Maria’s visits because they seem to agitate Kate.

Kate appears to sense the emotions of those around her; at the Christmas Eve dinner, “Kate’s eyes darted from Maria to Les to Felicia […] and then, preternaturally attuned to the threat of voices not even raised, she began to scream” (99). Because Kate does not act predictably, it is difficult to know how she feels about Maria. After the Christmas Eve incident, “All night the two of them held each other with a dumb protective ferocity but the next day at the hospital, parting, only Maria cried” (99).

Throughout the narrative Maria feels severe inner turmoil, but she is cannot express it. When Kate is agitated, she screams, a cathartic, primal response that contrasts with Maria’s unexpressed suffering. Maria has an intense desire to reunite with her daughter because Kate is one of the missing parts of Maria’s emotional self. The unlikelihood of their reunion leaves the reader uncertain whether Maria will ever attain full closure from the novel’s traumatic events.

Helene, whose last name is never specified, is a Hollywood socialite in her mid-30s and one of Maria’s closest friends. Helene is in a contract marriage with the producer BZ, who is assumed to be gay. Helene is the kind of socialite everyone wants Maria to be. Helene’s friends are

the women with whom she shopped and planned restorative weeks at Palm Springs and La Costa, the women with the silk Pucci shirts and the periodically tightened eye lines […] They were always in their mid-40s […] about 10 years older than Helene herself (43).

Helene is insecure about aging. While she tells Maria about her previous divorces, she is looking in the mirror: “[Helene] was intent upon her reflection in the mirror behind the table, tracing a line with on finger from her chin to her temple. ‘You can really tell,’ she said finally” (107). When Maria asks what she is talking about, Helene replies: “Tell that I haven’t had my Laszlo in three days” (107). In Chapter 49, Helene says she feels “frightened” when her hairdresser is out of town.

Helene’s focus on appearance contrasts with Maria, whose appearance worsens as her mental and physical health deteriorate. Unlike Maria, Helene expresses her fears, rather than keeping them to herself. These conversations make Helene sound superficial, but within them is encoded her assumption that women’s looks keep women relevant.

BZ is a film producer and Carter’s close friend. Maria describes BZ as “perpetually tanned, oiled, gleaming” (45). BZ’s age is never mentioned, but he is likely around the same age as Carter, Maria, and Helene. BZ is gay, but his mother Carlotta, a wealthy socialite, pays Helene to remain married to him to hide his sexual orientation. The narrative alludes to BZ’s sexual encounters outside of marriage: “The sulky young men BZ met in places like Acapulco and Kitzbühel and Tangier” (43).

Though BZ seems content to be at the center of Hollywood social life, he becomes increasingly disillusioned, which eventually leads to his suicide. BZ sees Maria as a kindred spirit and may be the only one within their circle who takes her seriously. Still, BZ and Maria cannot help one another overcome the other’s isolation. When BZ is about to commit suicide, Maria says, “Tell me why you’re sad” (211), but BZ avoids the question. As BZ dies, he tells Maria to hold his hand, and when Carter and Helene wake her in the morning, screaming that BZ is dead, Maria is still holding his hand tightly.

BZ’s character development parallels Maria’s because they both feel despair and isolation, but they ultimately differ on how they resolve their feelings. Though Maria often seems suicidal, true to her philosophy that life is a craps shoot, she keeps “playing,” whereas, having come to the same conclusion, BZ decides to end his life. Didion presents the contrasting choices as an existential paradox, leaving the reader to wonder whether Maria or BZ made the right choice.

Harry Wyeth is Maria’s father, present only in the novel’s flashbacks. Harry is married to Maria’s mother Francine. Maria says that she inherited optimism from her father, who believed that “what came in on the next roll would always be better than what went out on the last” (5). A lifelong gambler, Harry moved his family to Silver Wells, Nevada, after losing their home in Reno in a bet. Harry believed he could turn Silver Wells, which had a population of 28 and was built on a missile testing range, into a tourist attraction. Harry’s failure to develop Silver Wells reflects the novel’s theme that life is a gamble.

Harry is Maria’s mentor. He encourages Maria pursue acting, and he uses gambling as a metaphor for life. He persuades Maria to return to New York saying, “She can’t win if she’s not at the table” (87). After his wife dies, Harry writes to Maria saying, “Don’t let them bluff you […] because you are holding all the aces” (9). Maria takes her father’s worldview wholesale, applying the metaphor of life as a dice roll to everything she experiences. 

Based on the trials Maria suffers while believing that she cannot control her life, Didion poses the question of whether Harry has taken his gambling metaphor too far. Didion posits that Harry made a mistake by passing on such an inflexible life philosophy to his daughter.

Francine Wyeth is Maria’s mother. Maria notes that she inherited her looks “and a tendency to migraine” from her mother (5). Unlike Harry, who was content and optimistic about his family’s life in Silver Wells, Francine dreamed of faraway, exotic places. When Maria recalls her childhood in Silver Wells, she says, “my mother’s yearnings suffused our life like nerve gas” (6). Maria remembers her mother wearing a “wilted gardenia in her dark hair” (6), symbolizing her romantic, faded dreams. She says: “My mother thought being an actress was a nice idea” (6). It seems that Francine, too, wanted her daughter to live the adventurous life that she could not.

Francine became depressed after Maria left home, which Maria noticed on her first visit back from New York. Although never directly stated, the narrative implies that Francine may have committed suicide. Francine is a tragic character, and in her death, she severs the mother-daughter bond that Maria longs for. Francine’s worsening depression after Maria leaves mirrors Maria’s worsening depression after Carter institutionalizes Kate.