Family Voices
Encyclopedia
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
written in 1980 and first broadcast on BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
on 22 January 1981.
Summary
Family Voices exposes the story of a mother, son, and dead husband and father through a series of letters that the mother and son have written to one another and that each speaks aloud. The son has moved off to the city and is surrounded by odd characters and circumstances. The mother, who apparently never receives her son's letters, questions angrily why her son never responds to her letters, and brings news of his father's death. Towards the end of the play, the father speaks as it were from the grave, "Just to keep in touch" (81).A series of interlocking monologues spoken by three Voices (One, Two, and Three), Family Voices exposes themes involving difficulties of communication, the vicissitudes of memory and the past, and family dysfunction familiar from Pinter's other dramatic works, employing some of Pinter's well-known stylistic traits
Characteristics of Harold Pinter's work
Characteristics of Harold Pinter's work identifies distinctive aspects of the works of the British playwright Harold Pinter and gives an indication of their influence on Anglo-American culture.-Pinteresque:...
. The peculiar circumstances of the characters evoke the Theatre of the Absurd
Theatre of the Absurd
The Theatre of the Absurd is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction, written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as well as to the style of theatre which has evolved from their work...
. The mother and son continually have trouble communicating with each other, resulting in more intense attempts at communication that only serve to make the situation more absurd.
Productions
PremièreIt was first broadcast as a radio play directed by Sir Peter Hall and performed by Michael Kitchen
Michael Kitchen
Michael Kitchen is an English actor and television producer, best known for his starring role as DCS Foyle in the British TV series Foyle's War.-Early life:...
(Voice One), Peggy Ashcroft
Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Peggy Ashcroft, DBE was an English actress.-Early years:Born as Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft in Croydon, Ashcroft attended the Woodford School, Croydon and the Central School of Speech and Drama...
(Voice Two), and Mark Dignam
Mark Dignam
Mark Dignam was a prolific English actor.Born in London, the son of salesman in the steel industry, Dignam grew up in Sheffield and was educated at the Jesuit College where he appeared in numerous Shakespearean plays....
(Voice Three) on BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
on 22 January 1981.
Subsequently, it was presented in a "platform performance" directed by Hall at London's Cottesloe Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
with the same director and cast.
In October 1982, it was presented again as part of Other Places, along with two of Pinter's other works, a one-act play A Kind of Alaska
A Kind of Alaska
A Kind of Alaska is a one-act play written in 1982 by Harold Pinter , the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature.-Summary:A middle-aged woman named Deborah, who has been in a comatose state for thirty years as a result of contracting sleeping sickness, awakes with a mind still that of a sixteen-year-old...
and a shorter play Victoria Station
Victoria Station (play)
Victoria Station is a short play for two actors by the English playwright Harold Pinter.-Summary:Victoria Station consists of a radio dialogue between a minicab controller and a driver who is stopped by the side of "a dark park" in Crystal Palace, supposedly waiting further instructions. The...
, also directed by Hall. For this production, the cast included:
- Nigel HaversNigel HaversNigel Allan Havers is an English actor. He is probably best known for his BAFTA-nominated role as Lord Andrew Lindsay in the 1981 British film Chariots of Fire, and for his role as Dr. Tom Latimer in the British TV comedy series Don't Wait Up...
– Voice One - Anna MasseyAnna MasseyAnna Raymond Massey, CBE was an English actress. She won a BAFTA Award for the role of Edith Hope in the 1986 TV adaptation of Anita Brookner’s novel Hotel du Lac.-Early life:...
– Voice Two - Paul RogersPaul Rogers (actor)Paul Rogers is an English actor of film, stage and television.Rogers was born in Plympton, Devon, England, and later trained at the Michael Chekhov Theatre Studio at Dartington Hall and made his film debut in 1932...
– Voice Three
Other theatre personnel were:
- John BuryJohn Bury (theatre designer)John Bury was a British set designer, costume designer and lighting designer who designed in theatre in the UK, West End and Broadway and international opera. He had a long creative relationship with director Peter Hall...
, Design and Lighting - John Caulfield, Stage Manager
- Kenneth Mackintosh, Staff Director
- Jason Barnes, Production Manager
It was given lunchtime stage performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
at the Barbican Theatre in February and April 1987, with Mark Dignam
Mark Dignam
Mark Dignam was a prolific English actor.Born in London, the son of salesman in the steel industry, Dignam grew up in Sheffield and was educated at the Jesuit College where he appeared in numerous Shakespearean plays....
repeating his role of Voice Three, but with Anton Lesser
Anton Lesser
Anton Lesser is a British actor. He attended Moseley Grammar School and the University of Liverpool before going to RADA in 1977 where he was awarded the Bancroft Gold Medal as the most promising actor of his year....
as Voice One and Ruby Head as Voice Two.
Another theatrical trilogy entitled Other Places, with Pinter's then-newer play One for the Road (1984) instead of Family Voices, was directed by Alan Schneider
Alan Schneider
Alan Schneider was an American theatre director and mentor responsible for more than 100 theatre productions. In 1984 he was honored with a Drama Desk Special Award for serving a wide range of playwrights...
, in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. (This production is not listed on Pinter's official website.)
Publication
The play was first published in the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in a spiral binding by Next Editions in 1981, with illustrations by artist Guy Vaesen, a family friend of Harold Pinter and Vivien Merchant
Vivien Merchant
Vivien Merchant was a British actress.-Career:Merchant performed in many stage productions and several films, including Alfie and Frenzy...
, Pinter's first wife (Baker and Ross 85; Billingon, Harold Pinter 134–35).
Later, in 1983, it was published in a volume entitled Other Places, along with A Kind of Alaska
A Kind of Alaska
A Kind of Alaska is a one-act play written in 1982 by Harold Pinter , the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature.-Summary:A middle-aged woman named Deborah, who has been in a comatose state for thirty years as a result of contracting sleeping sickness, awakes with a mind still that of a sixteen-year-old...
and Victoria Station
Victoria Station (play)
Victoria Station is a short play for two actors by the English playwright Harold Pinter.-Summary:Victoria Station consists of a radio dialogue between a minicab controller and a driver who is stopped by the side of "a dark park" in Crystal Palace, supposedly waiting further instructions. The...
, by Grove Press
Grove Press
Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1951. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United States. The Atlantic Monthly Press, under the aegis of its...
, Pinter's American publisher, in both hardback and paperback editions (Baker and Ross 85–90).
External links
- Family Voices – 1982 platform performances at the Cottesloe TheatreRoyal National TheatreThe Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
(NT). - Family Voices – 1987 stage performances at the Barbican Theatre (Royal Shakespeare CompanyRoyal Shakespeare CompanyThe Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
). - Other Places – Listed in "Plays" section of haroldpinter.org. [Includes photograph of programme cover of Other Places (Cottesloe), details of that London première, and the retyped text of "The Withering of Love", a production review by Alan Jenkins originally published in the Times Literary Supplement (29 Oct. 1982) and reproduced with permission.]
- Other Places: Four Plays by Harold Pinter (Dramatists Play Service). Google Books.