What an incredible play! I read this in high school. The absurdity of the play appealed to me. It was truly hilarious. Now, many, many years later, I begin to see much more depth contained within the play.
Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad by Arthur Kopit opened on Broadway in 1963. It is considered a fine example of absurdist theater. As I read the play this time, the humor was stronger. Yet, the absurd aspects of the play's action took on a much different meaning for me. There was a purpose and a meaning behind the absurd elements written into the play. However, whenever one gets into the realm of "interpretation" one enters into subjective suppositions. Therefore, what I gathered from reading the play is purely my own interpretation. I know of no one else that has suggested these interpretations.
For twenty-five years I have been reading the works of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung. Their approach to understanding literature in terms of myth has opened interpretive paths for me that I never saw before. This, then, is from where I got my ideas concerning the interpretation of the absurd elements in Oh Dad.
For me, Madame Rosepettle represents the Church. Her heavy-handed way of dealing with her son's contact with the material (secular) world I found to be an absurd exaggeration of the dogmatic blindness associated with organized religion. The rule is more important than the person for whom the rule was created.
Jonathan, Madame Rosepettle's son, represents Adam before the Fall. Jonathan struggles with his desire to be the obedient son while, at the same time, fighting with himself over his own desires. Jonathan's mother never refers to him by his real name. Instead she uses the various names of his father: Albert, Edward, Robinson. Jonathan does not exist as an individual for Madame Rosepettle just as the individual does not exist for the church. The individual must conform to the rules defined by the Mother Church. Port Royale, a city on an island in the Caribbean where the play takes place, represents the Garden of Eden.
Rosalie enters the play as an Eve figure, presenting temptation and a natural sense of human companionship, something not allowed by Jonathan's mother. Jonathan, fearful of turning away from his mother's demands, rejects Rosalie's advances in the most permanent of ways. He chokes the life out of her, not realizing that he is also condemning himself to the death sentence given to him by Madame Rosepettle with her restricting demands on his behavior.
I found it interesting that three of the play's characters' names referenced the rose: Madame Rosepettle, Commodore Roseabove and Rosalie. The rose is an ancient symbol of Christ.
In a play that seems to make no sense, in an attempt to find meaning, this is what I found. This is all subjective interpretation of a speculative nature. I do not contend I am right. I share this interpretation only as proof that whatever the relationship one has with the text being read, some effort at understanding must occur.