John Guare's Six Degrees Of Separation

In John Guare’s play Six Degrees of Separation, Paul Poitier, a young black con artist, infiltrates the lives of several Upper East Side families. The play centers around three upper class families whose children all attended the same elite boarding school and who are now connected by Paul’s elaborate scam. To gain access into these parents’ lives, Paul uses the same made-up story which includes that he is the recently mugged son of Sidney Poitier, a famous actor, and that he goes to college with their children. The play focuses on Paul’s stay at the Kittredge’s apartment and the impact that his night there has on who he wants to be: a Kittredge. Paul exposes the differences between various characters’ outer appearance and inner self by fulfilling

The Kittredges invite Geoffrey, who is in New York on business, out to dinner, planning to ask him to lend them two million dollars for an art auction. During the dinner, there is a sharp contrast between what is going through the Kittredges’ heads—“two million dollars two million dollars” (15)—and how hospitably they treat Geoffrey; this disparity demonstrates their aptitude in creating masks for themselves, and the ulterior motives that often accompany their social interactions. Likewise, during Geoffrey’s visit, Louisa mentions the difference between the appearance of helping people and actually helping them. She criticizes herself and their milieu by saying that if she and Flan visited Geoffrey in South Africa, they would demand to see the “poorest of the poor” and say, “are you sure they’re the worst off? I mean, we’ve come all this way. We don’t want to see people just mildly victimized by apartheid. We demand shock” (14). She recognizes that for many people, helping the less fortunate has a self-centered aspect to it, and that in trying to boost their own self-esteem, volunteers can ultimately victimize the people who they are trying to help. This is the first realization of many that gradually push Louisa to realize the inherent falseness of embellishing her outer image. In the long run, this awareness guides her from associating herself with Paul for solely selfish reasons to genuinely wanting to help