Paul is a young black man who talks his way into the Kittredges home and lives by pretending to be a friend of their children who has been mugged. When the audience first encounters him, he is described as “very handsome, very preppy” (14) and is wearing a “white Brooks Brothers shirt” (14). He impresses Ouisa and Flan with his cooking and his theories on the imagination. However, Paul is actually homeless and his “preppy” appearance is something he learned from an ex-lover, Trent Conway, in order to gain access to rich, upper-class social circles.

Paul’s decision to create a new identity is driven by a desire to make a better a life for himself. He believes that “the imagination is the passport we create to take us into the real world” (34) and something that allows you “to transform your nightmares into dreams” (63). He imagines himself as not only part of Ouisa’s and Flan’s sophisticated, privileged world but also part of their family. The need for a family is an important motivation for Paul. He initially “imagines” himself as the son of the actor Sidney Poitier, who himself takes on various roles and “conjure[s] up” (22) worlds and identities. However, later on, Paul begins claiming to be Flan’s estranged son and, by the end of the play, is imagining himself living and working with Ouisa and Flan once he gets out of prison.

It is not only the themes of family and the imagination that revolve around Paul. The play’s concern with racism centers on him, too. Paul’s relationship with race and racism is complex. In an effort to reinforce his imagined identity, he tells Ouisa and Flan that he doesn’t“even feel black” (30), claiming that his supposed privileged background has spared him from racism and even racial awareness to some extent. However, when he is about to turn himself in to the police, he is forced to admit the reality of race and racism when he says, “Mrs. Louisa Kittredge, I am black” (110) and therefore subject to a far greater risk of police violence. This concern turns out to be prescient, as he is violently arrested towards the end of the play.

Ouisa is a rich, “very attractive” (3) middle-aged woman. She is gregarious, charming, and talkative but also shallow, at least at the beginning of the play. When she first meets Paul, she is surprised by his cooking skills, “amazed” (39) when he does the washing up, and deeply impressed with his thesis. She even admits thatshe“just loved the kid so much. I wanted to reach out to him” (31). However, when she finds him in bed with a “hustler,” she is outraged and reveals a latent prejudice when she refers to the man as “this thing” (48) and kicks him and Paul out of her home.

If Paul is the catalyst for action then Ouisa is the both the principle observer of this action and, in some respects, the most affected. Unhappy with her own family, she comes to look on Paul as a sort of surrogate son, observing that, “He did more for us in a few hours than our children ever did (117). Her encounter with Paul helps her to reevaluate her life, forcing her to conclude that Flan is “a terrible match” (119) and that she needs a life that is, like one side of the Kandinsky painting, more “wild and vivid” (3).

Like his wife, Ouisa, Flan is middle-aged and “very attractive” (3).Also like Ouisa, he appears to be somewhat liberal in his attitudes but repeatedly reveals latent prejudices through racial slurs and a disgusted response to the “hustler.” Flan became an art dealer because he was once deeply passionate about art. However, by the time the audience encounters him, this interest has transformed into an obsession with the price of artworks and how much money he can make selling them. While Ouisa is transformed by her encounter with Paul, Flan remains far more reserved, refusing to question his life and values and simply asking Ouisa, “Are you drunk?” (118) when she pushes him to reflect on their encounter with Paul.