Charlotte reminds me much of the Maureen Stapleton character, Pearl, from Allen’s Interiors, right down to her garish red dress, which clearly shows that she is vibrant and faces life, and to the motto she claims came from her lover, Leonardo: "A sense of reality is a matter of talent. Most people lack that talent and maybe it’s just as well."
This is right in synch with Interiors, again, and the middle sister Joey, who has yearnings to be expressive, but no real talent. But where Charlotte takes life on, Eva cravenly hides from it, like a dog rapped on the snout once too often with a newspaper, and she clearly resents her mother’s strengths as much as her perceived flaws. Yes, Charlotte’s self-absorbed, but the more we learn of her the more we understand her. For example, her ignorance over the fact Helena lives with Eva, and not at the asylum she was put into, can be seen more sympathetically once we know that Helena cuckolded her mother with her lover. Charlotte’s disgust with her daughters isn’t merely knowing that two cripples, one emotional, one physical, poured out of her womb, but that both eventually betrayed her.
This disgust is no more manifest than in a scene where the mother and daughter play a Chopin Prelude. It’s a simple scene, and Chopin is a passionate, but formally restrained and highly strung artist, just as Charlotte is. Eva plays the piece rather dully, and cannot accept her mother’s attempts at being nice, and snaps at her. Thus, hurt by the rebuff of her kindness, Charlotte responds with sarcasm and condescension:
"Chopin was rich in feeling Eva, but not gushy. They’re not the same. There’s a great difference between emotions and sentiment. The prelude you just played tells of anguish that’s suppressed. It’s not about grievance. Take the opening for instance: it hurts but he never shows it. And then a short release but it’s very fleeting and it hardly lasts, and the pain is the same, neither heightened nor diminished. Chopin was proud, sarcastic, passionate, tormented and very male. In other words, he wasn’t a sentimental old woman. This second prelude must be made to sound almost ugly. Never allow it to become ingratiating, it should sound wrong. You battle through the piece and finally manage to end up triumphant."
Yet, even after wounding her daughter, after Eva acts self-pitying, she shows some humor by stating, "Well, I have been playing these Chopin pieces for thirty-seven years."
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