In the first scene of the play, Doris is sat in her arm-chair. We begin to get hints about Doris’ injury. We find out that Doris has a cleaner called Zulema. As Doris is house-proud we find out that Zulema isn’t up to Doris’ standards, she comments that ‘Zulema doesn’t dust she half dusts’. We also find out a bit about Doris’ fear of going into Stafford House. We know that Doris was married to a man named Wilfred from her looking at her wedding photo. Doris is very organised but Wilfred wasn’t because he never did anything he said he would. Leaves, Leaves are not one of Doris’ favourite things. She wouldn’t mind if they were from the bush that Wilfred planted but they weren’t hers.
In Scene two Doris is sat on the floor with her back against the wall. This is where Doris discovers the cream cracker under the settee (hence the name of the play) Doris is really disgusted and angry at such an unhygienic thing. Doris is determined to show this to Social Services if Zulema starts lecturing about Stafford House again. Doris then heads for the window and looks out at the house opposite. She used to know the people there but they went away. This is why Doris does not want to go to a home because these four walls hold many memories, some terrible, some happy but her memories all the same and no-one is going to take them from her. Wilfred did want a dog but Doris found the thought of all the dirt and hair most unhygienic. He didn’t get one anyway. Then ‘Hello-somebody coming salvation’ but she doesn’t get any. The only thing she gets is a chance to watch her saviour ‘spending a penny’ in her garden, which I am sure she would rather not do.
In scene three Doris is sat on the floor on the floor of her hall with her back against the door. This is where we find out about Doris’s child that died, I know this because she states that she is sat where she used to keep the pram. She goes on to say about some missionaries which came to her house and left her gate open wide, which annoyed Doris because she believes that you should ‘love God and close all gates’. She then talks in depth about what happened with her child. Doris states that the child was born at home, but then sadly died. The midwife, who was present, requested some newspaper to wrap up the dead child with, this deeply affected Doris who thought it as the baby being dirty, who now has a phobia about things being ‘dirty’ and an obsession with cleanliness. This scene ends with Doris talking to her leg asking it to ‘wake up’.
Scene four. Doris is now sat with her back against her settee under which she found the cream cracker. This is the scene in which we find out that Doris is not gregarious. She says that she doesn’t want to be surrounded by people who ‘smell of wee.’ The writer then breaks the rules of a monologue by having the voice of another person, in this case a policeman, who asks if Doris is ok. In the play this is Doris’s last chance of being helped, but Doris being Doris doesn’t accept the help and dies.
Quite a lot of the lines in the play have more than one meaning. They are ironic. One of these lines is ‘let the dirt wait. It won’t kill you.’ This is ironic because in the end it does – she got badly injured whilst trying to get rid of dirt. Another good example is ‘Graves, gardens everything’s to follow.’ This, for Doris, is true because she decides to die because she can’t change it, and it will happen because ‘everything’s to follow’ however I think that the best example of irony in this play is not so obvious. It is when the policeman visits Doris. I think that this ironic because Doris is a prisoner in her own house (because of her broken leg) and of course you get policemen in prisons!
Overall I think that given the limitations its form imposes ‘A Cream Cracker Under The Settee’ works very well as a piece of drama. I think this is because even though the action is limited (because it is a monologue) the fact that Doris is in a difficult situation, the way the writer uses this to manipulate our feelings is very effective at keeping people interested in what he writes.