In conventional drama, circularity is a positive thing, a return to the beginning, a symbol of the cyclical, generative nature of life. Part of John Guare's intent in his post-Absurdist play, "The House of Blue Leaves," is to help establish a new theatrical aesthetic by violating theatrical convention. For Guare, circularity is not a symbol of regeneration but of stasis. His major characters are all trapped in orbits around an absent or feeble star (an appropriate metaphor because the two people these main characters flutter around are public figures, or "stars"). In Guare's vision, the dilemma of all the grotesque characters is the dilemma of all Americans, caught in a culture that "lures people to pursue dazzling dreams frantically." In Guare's new theatrical aesthetic, it is linearity, the ability to break the circle and continue along one's own independent path, that represents new hope and regeneration. (RS)