Character Analysis
Playwright? Or Playwrong?
Lloyd, Karen's husband and a playwright, doesn't spend too much time in front of the camera. Why would he? He's the writer. He mainly exists to provide professional conflict for Margo. She's getting too old to play the parts he writes. Why doesn't Lloyd just write a character that's Margo's age? That question is never even asked. Like with Bill, Lloyd's career is never called into question. It's the woman's job to adapt.
However, Lloyd's a little bit insecure, despite his superior position in society merely by being born with a Y-chromosome. He wants his plays to be read exactly as written. What, is his work too perfect to be improved? He sure thinks so, telling Margo,
LLOYD: You've got to admit it would be a novelty. For once, to write something and have it realized completely. For once, not to compromise.
Lloyd, being a man, wants the woman to compromise, not him.
This conflict causes a huge blow-up between Lloyd and Margo when Eve reads her part as understudy. Margo lashes out at Lloyd when it's Eve she should be mad at, but Lloyd is asking for it when he shouts,
LLOYD: I shall never understand the weird process by which a body with a voice suddenly fancies itself as a mind! Just when exactly does an actress decide they're her words she's saying and her thoughts she's expressing?
Ouch. In other words, ladies, let the man think for you. Margo, who can out think anyone, man or woman, has a snazzy retort: "Usually at the point when she has to rewrite and rethink them to keep the audience from leaving the theater!" Lloyd can't let it go, though:
LLOYD: t's about time the piano realized it has not written the concerto!
Writers. Oy.
Eve is appealing to Lloyd as an alternative to Margo for two reasons. The most obvious is her age. The other is Eve's willingness to read Lloyd's plays as written, the way he wants Margo to. Lloyd thinks Eve does this because she respects his work. He's right, to a point. Eve has ulterior motives, though; she always does. Eve reads Lloyd's work as written because she knows it's what he wants. Also, unlike Margo, Eve's willing to put aside her own agency and autonomy to get ahead in her career.