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Grandma

The ironic commentator of the play, Grandma stands in for the figure of the "absurdist" dramaturge: indeed she even ultimately exits the frame of the action to become its director. 

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Mommy

An archetypal "bad mother," Mommy is the household's sadistic disciplinarian, dismissing Grandma and infantilizing Daddy. 

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Daddy

Under Mommy's reign of terror, Daddy is a negative entity—indeed, early in the play Mommy reduces his speech to the echo of hers. Bent to Mommy's will, he relies on her entirely for the confirmation of his masculinity. Like Mommy, Daddy also displays a disturbing propensity for childish behavior. Whereas Mommy becomes the tyrannical sadist in her regression, however, Daddy characteristically becomes the child needing punishment.

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The Young Man

A blond, Midwestern beauty, the Young Man describes himself as a "type"; upon their introduction, Grandma dubs him the "American Dream." 

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Mrs. Barker

A caricature of the socially responsible American housewife, Mrs. Barker is the flighty and ingenuous volunteer from the Bye-Bye Adoption Service who delivered the "bumble" to Mommy and Daddy twenty years ago and has returned, upon their request, to provide them with the "satisfaction" they deserve. Of course, she remains steadfastly ignorant of the purpose of her visit even as she remains fully aware of her shared history with the household, thereby underscoring that history's traumatic nature. In many respects she plays a role similar to Honey's in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf—that of an outsider who cannot easily always follow the household's conversational games. Indeed, she almost faints as a result.

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