Poquette has a bachelor's degree in English, and specializes in writing drama and film. In the following essay, he explores Guare's use of a duality motif in Six Degrees of Separation.

Guare has long been recognized as a playwright who can successfully blend the two genres of farce, a type of outrageous comedy, and tragedy. In Guare's Six Degrees of Separation, this farce/tragedy duality is used as a structural springboard to introduce other contrasting Ideas and elements, which collectively disorient the audience members.

From the first stage direction, Guare sets up the viewer for a play full of contrasts. Guare calls for a two-sided Kandinsky painting to revolve above the set before the play begins. On one side, the painting is chaotic; on the other, it is ordered into somber, geometric shapes. Before the play starts, "the painting stops Its slow revolve and opts for the...