There are a few different themes in The House of Blue Leaves; the most important theme to be that of the preoccupation with fame. All of the main characters in the play were obsessed either with becoming famous themselves or linke in Bananas' case wanting celebrities to acknowledge her. Artie wanted to become a Hollywood songwriter for his school pal Billy, before he was too old to be a young talent. Bunny just wanted to go with Artie to Hollywood to be around famouse people, so she didn't tell him he really stunk as a writer. Bananas dreamed of famous people not acknowledging her offering them a ride. Ronnie wanted his fifteen-minutes of fame by blowing up the Pope, because Billy didn't cast him as Huck Finn when he was a child. Billy wanted Corrina to have an operation on her ears so that she could get back the drive she had for acting before she went deaf. And lastly Corrina didn't want Artie or Bananas to know that she was deaf because they would think less of her as a celebrity.
Another theme found in the play was that of religion. Bunny wanted the Pope to bless Arties music that he had wrote, so that one day Artie would be famous and she wanted him to bles her marriage to Artie after Bananas was put into the Asylum. The Nuns were so obsessed with seeing the Pope that they were hanging outside on Arties window and he let them in to watch the Pope on TV. .
This play also was about humiliation and family dysfunction. Ronnie was humiliated by Billy when he was a kid because Billy asked Artie "I didn't know you had a retarded son", once when Ronnie was trying for the part of huck Finn. Artie himself was humiliated several times in the play, once when Bananas told him his song sounded like "Silent Night" and another time at the end of the play when Billy told him that he neededd him to stay in Queens because he produced his movies on the basis of what Artie would think of it as being just an audience member and a nobody.
