Our Loves

In The Artificial Woman, we are asked to reflect on our relationships and how we view love. Each character in this story experiences different shades of it. Some characters bask in the light warm colors, while others shiver in the cool stark shades. We watch them stumble and fight for what their heart desires, but question if it’s what they need. The Doll, known as The Artificial Woman in this play, guides us through these displays of love, as we try and decipher what it is. 

She directs us to Alma and Oskar. Alma’s marriage forced her previous passions (such as music and public outings) and molded them to fit the restrictions and needs of her late husband, Gustav Mahler. Recently widowed Alma seemed to be looking for something new and exciting. Oskar brought that excitement: he was young, accomplished, and was making a name for himself. Their love is described as “hungry”, seeming like – to them – close will never be enough. We see Oskar and Alma spend days upon days together swept up into each other, creating their realities. “The miracle [they] make together turns mystical, a private paradise no one else can enter.” Many new romantic relationships go through this phase of infatuation. It is intense and undeniable, and most crucial. Does your infatuation shift and grow into something more, changing as you change? Or will your infatuation become rigid and restrictive?

In the eyes of artists, love inspires creation. Oskar’s love for Alma was his muse, she was the subject of his passions. His love for Alma-the-woman intertwined with Alma-the-muse. We become possessive over the things we love, and artists become possessive over their creations. Oskar was no exception. His love for Alma became twisted, which enhanced his feelings of ownership, becoming like “a kind of bondage”. He loved the Alma in his mind but failed to realize that for love to grow it must adapt to change. Oskar’s love was stagnant, forcing Alma into a box she didn’t want to be in, preventing her growth. When love can not grow, it wilts and dies.

After experiencing multiple traumatic experiences in War World 1, Oskar searches for familiarity and comfort. We find comfort in those we love, and artists find comfort in their artwork. With Alma gone, Oskar decides to create the Artificial Woman as a way to fuse Alma-the-woman with Alma-the-muse. But once love has died, it can not be recreated. The Artificial Woman may have provided temporary comfort for Oskar, but she represented “a spent love”.  Her beauty wounded and healed Oskar, causing him to realize that love can not be made. Love is a cycle of growth and change. When that cycle has ended “we need to grieve and move on with our lives”. 

Oskar and Alma are just one depiction of these themes. The relationship between mother and daughter is just as complex. A mother struggles to recognize her child as an adult, and children struggle to see their parents as people. Anna and Alma are constantly trying to adapt to each other. Learning to be patient as they both try to accept the metamorphosis they go through. Love is not easy and it demands work, change, and patience. These characters teach us that we can’t base our love on certain aspects of a person. We can not hold images of them that are fixed and immoveable. Our love needs to be able to grow and we must continue when it dies. 

The Lives of Objects 

The Artificial Woman covers intense topics about not only the objectification of women and the objectification of love but how that desire of perfect visualization can even be put onto a physical object to relive what once was. Our lives are filled with objects, ones that have a personal connection to us and even help us to describe our ways of life. Think of a generational necklace or a painting that sparked imagination, or even a sweatshirt that a loved one wore- these types of objects are filled to the brim with importance. The Artificial Woman utilizes these ideas from a real-world example of Alma Mahler and Oskar Kokoschka, two artists that had a short-lived flaming relationship.

Oskar, in a way to preserve his relationship with Alma, commissions another artist to create a doll depiction of his past lover, hopeful that it will recreate the memories he once had with her. The play dives deeper into this relationship between Alma and Oskar and how this doll came into existence, as well as the meaningful connections that came about from each person about the doll. Although the doll is simply an object, the meaning that this object had created in the lives of these people is profound. For Alma, this doll represents an objectified and sexualized version of herself that Oskar had the audacity to commission; it’s frankly embarrassing for her to know that it exists. Meanwhile, for Oskar, it is a representation of his love and eternal dedication to Alma, no matter what form she exists in. Of course, Oskar struggles with the doll initially, since it doesn’t look exactly like Alma, it simply exists as a depiction of her.

The doll is portrayed as much more than merely an inanimate object, as the significance placed onto the doll is the essence/entirety of a person. Suddenly, there are expectations, there are assumptions, and… there is a person. She becomes her own identity, separates yet still connected to Alma. Oskar soon began to love the doll simply on its own, dressing it up and parading her around to art shows and other daily activities, as he now had a physical representation of objectification of Alma that he could essentially make do whatever he wished. Unfortunately, no matter how much meaning and personhood he pushed onto the doll he still experienced frustration with the doll because of its “inescapable thingness.” Objects often inspire self-reflection, making one think about why that object exists or why they hang onto the object. They represent the humanitarian investment with things and how they affect our lives as well as the people around us.