whole, the structure of The Birthday Party seems very traditional. There are three acts, arranged in chronological order, and the first and third acts parallel one another. Both Act I and Act III begin with Meg and Petey's morning routine, although Act III reflects the play's descent into depravity. Meg does not have breakfast to serve in Act III, and she is frantic to remedy the oversight. As an interesting side detail, she does remember to pour Petey's tea, whereas she forgot in Act I. Because of what she has gone through since Act I, Meg is ungrounded, not so easily submerged into the superficial routine of the beginning.
In many ways, Petey is the central character of Act III, since he changes during it. At the beginning, when Meg realizes that the drum has broken but does not remember how it happened, Petey simply tells her she can get another one. There is a bit of dramatic irony since the audience realizes that the drum represents Stanley - much as it is broken, so is he mentally unstable. Petey's growth in the Act is realizing that while Meg could conceivably get a new boarder like Stanley, his particular absence will likely shatter her fragile world. The play ends with his lie to her, a lie intended to prolong her eventual breakdown. Considering the implications that Petey might have a sense of the strange Meg/Stanley relationship, his desire to maintain her illusion reveals his discovery of Stanley's importance. If she falls apart, then their pleasant, comfortable life might also fall apart.
Petey is also central because we realize he might always have had some intuition his world's sinister nature. He has largely been absent from the play thus far, and in many ways is pitiable for being a potentially willing cuckold (something Goldberg and McCann suggest to Stanley during their Act II interrogation). Yet Petey reveals an astuteness in Act III through his conversation about Stanley's mental breakdown. The fact that he is not surprised to hear Goldberg suggest it gives us reason to suspect he had seen indications of mental problems before.
When we learn that Petey is an accomplished chess player, the symbol helps us to understand him. He seems to know more than any other single character. He knows that Goldberg and McCann are not what they seem; he knows that Stanley might have mental problems; he knows that his wife's mental problems might be exacerbated if he were to end her affair with Stanley; and he realizes when he cannot win the battle to keep Stanley around. And yet he chooses to live in a pleasant stupor, to not address any of these problems. Certainly, this can be interpreted as cowardice, but it is not accidental. Like a chess player, he knows how to strategize, and has chosen a life of pleasant comfort over potential difficulties. He chooses not to live, in the sense that Goldberg accuses Stanley of in Act II, but it is a choice. When he yells to Stanley, "don't let them tell you what to do," he is in many ways describing his own life, one in which he engages nobody and hence has little responsibility. He is cowardly safe in his domestic delusion, but it is his own choice.
The Act is full of sinister images and situations. Meg's discovery of the black car brings a theatrical mystery to the fore, and she immediately interprets it as a sign of her own breakdown. She remembers Stanley's threat to have her taken away in a wheelbarrow, and worries this car is intended for that purpose. As a vehicle intended to remove debris from place to place, the wheelbarrow represents motion of unworthy objects. Meg's fear of the wheelbarrow reflects not only her fear of her own irrelevance, but also her fear of movement, of change from the comfort wherein she can maintain her delusions of importance. What is ironic is that Stanley's threat has come true not for her, but for himself. And yet her fear over the black car is not misplaced - as we can intuit from the earlier Acts, Stanley's absence might in fact compromise her own sanity.
Goldberg also reveals the depth of his sinister potential in Act III. He is able to maintain some air of charm, apparent when he assuages Meg's concerns about the car, but he refuses to answer any questions about it. His silence about certain details only deepens the aura of dread that permeates the play, both in terms of the car and in terms of other details, like the briefcase or his purpose for Stanley.
Most sinister is Goldberg's own breakdown. His world is clearly coming undone, most likely as a result of whatever sexual behaviour he forced upon Lulu. Whereas he has shown nothing but suave detachment in Acts I and II, he is a wreck in Act III, "knocked out" and undone. He is unnerved by such feelings, since he has never been sick before. He lacks his characteristic control, even lashing out at McCann for calling him "Simey." Is this sickness perhaps a sign of a guilty conscience? Or has his liaison with Lulu submerged some childhood neuroses? As he mentioned the name "Simey" as a name from his past, this latter interpretation could certainly be defended.
What Goldberg's breakdown reveals is that every person is reliant upon his own delusion, and hence subject to pain and difficulty when that delusion falters. Though he has presented himself as strong and untouchable, Goldberg centres his world around a pretence of family morals, of a nostalgia for the “old days” which were better, bigger, and more respectful. Considering the way he speaks of his mother in Act II, it is possible to interpret this delusion as an expression of childhood and control. Indeed, he shows a desire to be something of a parent both to Stanley, whom he forces into an infantile state of confusion and fear, and to Lulu, who he treated as a daughter in Act II and then as a prostitute in Act III. Lulu's confrontation leads Goldberg into further lies about her compliance, a situation he does not handle well until McCann finally chases her away. Interestingly, his final tactic is to elicit a confession from her. In a world where we are guilty of our own delusions and sins, forced confession becomes a threat.
Stanley's situation also reveals the sinister nature of the play. Ironically, he is most frightening because he is suddenly so presentable. The reprise of their Act II interrogation now has the sense less of attack and more of a bedside vigil. All of his delusions shattered, Stanley can only receive these promises silently. With repeated readings or viewings of the play, an audience might realize how Stanley's breakdown could be any person's fate if he or she were forced to confront his or her past sins and delusions too forcibly. From this perspective, the scene is even more horrifying. At the end, Meg remains blissfully unaware of the situation. It is telling that the play ends with a confirmation of her delusion. The final exchange is full of dramatic irony - she has constructed a reality that we know to be false, both because Meg was not the belle of the ball, and because Petey was not there to know it. The play ends with a scenario of ambiguity and delusion, which falls perfectly in line with the themes it explores throughout.
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