The Birthday Party (play)
Encyclopedia
The Birthday Party is the first full-length play by Harold Pinter
and one of Pinter's best-known and most-frequently performed plays. After its hostile London reception almost ended Pinter's playwriting career, it went on to be considered "a classic".
Produced by Michael Codron
and David Hall, the play had its world première at the Arts Theatre
, in Cambridge
, England
, on 28 April 1958, where the play was "warmly received" on its pre-London tour, in Oxford
and Wolverhampton
, where it also met with a "positive reception" as "the most enthralling experience the Grand Theatre has given us in many months."
On 19 May 1958, the production moved to the Lyric Opera House, Hammersmith
(now the Lyric Hammersmith
), for its début in London, where it was a commercial and mostly critical failure, instigating "bewildered hysteria" and closing after only eight performances. The weekend after it had already closed, Harold Hobson
's belated rave review, "The Screw Turns Again", appeared in The Sunday Times
, rescuing its critical reputation and enabling it to become one of the classics of the modern stage.
The Lyric celebrated the play's 50th anniversary with a revival, directed by artistic director David Farr, and related events from 8 to 24 May 2008, including a gala performance and reception hosted by Harold Pinter on 19 May 2008, exactly fifty years after its London première.
seaside town, "probably on the south coast, not too far from London
". Two sinister strangers, Goldberg and McCann, who arrive supposedly on his birthday and who appear to have come looking for him, turn Stanley's apparently innocuous birthday party organized by Meg into a nightmare.
and later critics as a "Comedy of menace
" and by Martin Esslin
as an example of the Theatre of the Absurd
. It includes such features as the fluidity and ambiguity
of time, place, and identity and the disintegration of language.
While the title and the dialogue refer to Meg's planning a party to celebrate Stanley's birthday: "It's your birthday, Stan. I was going to keep it a secret until tonight," even that "fact" is dubious, as Stanley denies that it is his birthday: "This isn't my birthday, Meg" (48), telling Goldberg and McCann: "Anyway, this isn't my birthday. [...] No, it's not until next month," adding, in response to McCann's saying "Not according to the lady [Meg]," "Her? She's crazy. Round the bend" (53).
Although Meg claims that her house is a "boarding house
," her husband, Petey, who was confronted by "two men" who "wanted to know if we could put them up for a couple of nights" is surprised that Meg already has "got a room ready" (23), and, Stanley (being the only supposed boarder), also responds to what appears to him to be the sudden appearance of Goldberg and McCann as prospective guests on a supposed "short holiday," flat out denies that it is a boarding house: "This is a ridiculous house to pick on. [...] Because it's not a boarding house. It never was" (53).
McCann claims to have no knowledge of Stanley or Maidenhead
when Stanley asks him "Ever been anywhere near Maidenhead? [...] There's a Fuller's teashop. I used to have my tea there. [...] and a Boots Library. I seem to connect you with the High Street. [...] A charming town, don't you think? [...] A quiet, thriving community. I was born and brought up there. I lived well away from the main road" (51); yet Goldberg later names both businesses that Stanley used to frequent connecting Goldberg and possibly also McCann to Maidenhead: "A little Austin, tea in Fuller's a library book from Boots, and I'm satisfied" (70). Of course, both Stanley and Goldberg could just be inventing these apparent "reminiscences" as they both appear to have invented other details about their lives earlier, and here Goldberg could conveniently be lifting details from Stanley's earlier own mention of them, which he has heard; as Merritt observes, the factual basis for such apparent correspondences in the dialogue uttered by Pinter's characters remains ambiguous and subject to multiple interpretations.
Shifting identities (cf.
"the theme of identity") makes the past ambiguous: Goldberg is called "Nat," but in his stories of the past he says that he was called "Simey" (73) and also "Benny" (92), and he refers to McCann as both "Dermot" (in talking to Petey [87]) and "Seamus" (in talking to McCann [93]). Given such contradictions, these characters' actual names and thus identities remain unclear. According to John Russell Brown (94), "Falsehoods are important for Pinter's dialogue, not least when they can be detected only by careful reference from one scene to another.... Some of the more blatant lies are so casually delivered that the audience is encouraged to look for more than is going to be disclosed. This is a part of Pinter's two-pronged tactic of awakening the audience's desire for verification and repeatedly disappointing this desire" (Brown 94).
Although Stanley, just before the lights go out during the birthday party, "begins to strangle Meg (78), she has no memory of that the next morning, quite possibly because she had drank too much and gotten tipsy (71–74); oblivious to the fact that Goldberg and McCann have removed Stanley from the house — Petey keeps that information from her when she inquires, "Is he still in bed?" by answering "Yes, he's ... still asleep"––she ends the play focusing on herself and romanticising her role in the party, "I was the belle of the ball. [...] I know I was" (102).
(The Birthday Party [Grove Press ed.] 8)
, Pinter found himself in Eastbourne
without a place to stay. He met a stranger in a pub who said "I can take you to some digs but I wouldn't recommend them exactly," and then led Pinter to the house where he stayed. Pinter told his official biographer, Michael Billington
,
According to Billington, "The lonely lodger, the ravenous landlady, the quiescent husband: these figures, eventually to become Stanley, Meg, and Petey, sound like figures in a Donald McGill
seaside postcard" (Harold Pinter 76).
Goldberg goes by many names sometimes Nat but when talking about his past he mentions that he was called by the names "Simey" and also "Benny". He seems to idolise his Uncle Barney as he mentions him many times during the play. It is thought that Goldberg is a Jewish man.
McCann is an unfrocked priest and has two names. Petey refers to him as Dermot but Goldberg calls him Seamus. McCann seems to think that Goldberg is a Christian man but this seems not to be the case as Goldberg is a typically Jewish name.
McCANN: You've always been a true Christian
GOLDBERG: In a way.
" (Billington, Harold Pinter 112) during the birthday party in Act II.
, in Harold Pinter, echoing Pinter's own retrospective view of it, The Birthday Party is "a deeply political play about the individual's imperative need for resistance," yet, according to Billington, though he "doubts whether this was conscious on Pinter's part," it is also "a private, obsessive work about time past; about some vanished world, either real or idealised, into which all but one of the characters readily escapes. ... From the very outset, the defining quality of a Pinter play is not so much fear and menace –– though they are undoubtedly present –– as a yearning for some lost Eden
as a refuge from the uncertain, miasmic
present" (82).
As quoted by Arnold P. Hinchliffe, Polish critic Grzegorz Sinko points out that in The Birthday Party "we see the destruction of the victim from the victim's own point of view:
In an interview with Mel Gussow
, which is about the 1988 Classic Stage Company
production of The Birthday Party, later paired with Mountain Language
in a 1989 CSC production, in both of which David Strathairn
played Stanley, Gussow asked Pinter: "The Birthday Party has the same story as One for the Road?"
In the original interview first published in The New York Times
, on December 30, 1988, Gussow quotes Pinter as stating: "The character of the old man, Petey, says one of the most important lines I've ever written. As Stanley is taken away, Petey says, 'Stan, don't let them tell you what to do.' I've lived that line all my damn life. Never more than now."
In responding to Gussow's question, Pinter refers to all three plays when he replies: "It's the destruction of an individual, the independent voice of an individual. I believe that is precisely what the United States
is doing to Nicaragua
. It's a horrifying act. If you see child abuse, you recognize it and you're horrified. If you do it yourself, you apparently don't know what you're doing."
As Bob Bows observes in his review of the 2008 Germinal Stage Denver production, whereas at first " 'The Birthday Party' appears to be a straightforward story of a former working pianist now holed up in a decrepit boarding house," in this play as in his other plays, "behind the surface symbolism ... in the silence between the characters and their words, Pinter opens the door to another world, cogent and familiar: the part we hide from ourselves"; ultimately, "Whether we take Goldberg and McCann to be the devil and his agent or simply their earthly emissaries, the puppeteers of the church-state apparatus, or some variation thereof, Pinter's metaphor of a bizarre party bookended by birth and death is a compelling take on this blink-of-an-eye we call life."
, London
, UK, directed by Peter Wood
, May 1958.
Cast
(The Birthday Party [Grove Press ed.] 8)
, New York
, U.S.
, directed by Alan Schneider
, October 1967.
Cast
(The Birthday Party [Grove Press ed.] 8)
, London
, UK
, directed by David Farr
, from 8 May to 24 May 2008 (Lee); "Cast include[d]: Sian Brooke
; Sheila Hancock
; Lloyd Hutchinson; Justin Salinger; Alan Williams; Nicholas Woodeson
" (revival website).
(CSC Repertory Theatre), New York City
, directed by Carey Perloff
; first production from 12 April to 22 May 1988; second production in a double bill with the American première of Mountain Language
, from 31 October to 23 December 1989).
, Cambridge, Massachusetts
, directed by Joanne Akalaitis
, from 6 to 27 March 2004.
, Ft. Worth, Texas, directed by Alva Hascall, fall 2005
, directed by Ed Baierlein, from 4 April to 4 May 2008.
, through 26 March 2009.
Cast:
Books
Audio-visual resources
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...
and one of Pinter's best-known and most-frequently performed plays. After its hostile London reception almost ended Pinter's playwriting career, it went on to be considered "a classic".
Produced by Michael Codron
Michael Codron
Michael Victor Codron is a British film and theatre producer, known for his productions of the early work of Harold Pinter, Christopher Hampton, David Hare, Simon Gray and Tom Stoppard...
and David Hall, the play had its world première at the Arts Theatre
Cambridge Arts Theatre
Cambridge Arts Theatre is a 666-seat theatre on Peas Hill in central Cambridge, England. The theatre presents a varied mix of drama, dance, opera and pantomime. It attracts some of the highest-quality touring productions in the country, as well as many shows direct from, or prior to, seasons in the...
, in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, on 28 April 1958, where the play was "warmly received" on its pre-London tour, in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
and Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...
, where it also met with a "positive reception" as "the most enthralling experience the Grand Theatre has given us in many months."
On 19 May 1958, the production moved to the Lyric Opera House, Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...
(now the Lyric Hammersmith
Lyric Hammersmith
The Lyric Theatre, also known as the Lyric Hammersmith, is a theatre on King Street, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which takes pride in its original, "groundbreaking" productions....
), for its début in London, where it was a commercial and mostly critical failure, instigating "bewildered hysteria" and closing after only eight performances. The weekend after it had already closed, Harold Hobson
Harold Hobson
Sir Harold Hobson was an influential English drama critic and author.He was born in Thorpe Hesley near Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England and read History at Oxford University. He was an assistant literary editor for the Sunday Times from 1944 and later became its drama critic...
's belated rave review, "The Screw Turns Again", appeared in The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
, rescuing its critical reputation and enabling it to become one of the classics of the modern stage.
The Lyric celebrated the play's 50th anniversary with a revival, directed by artistic director David Farr, and related events from 8 to 24 May 2008, including a gala performance and reception hosted by Harold Pinter on 19 May 2008, exactly fifty years after its London première.
Summary
The Birthday Party is about Stanley Webber, an erstwhile piano player in his 30s, who lives in a rundown boarding house, run by Meg and Petey Boles, in an EnglishEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
seaside town, "probably on the south coast, not too far from London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
". Two sinister strangers, Goldberg and McCann, who arrive supposedly on his birthday and who appear to have come looking for him, turn Stanley's apparently innocuous birthday party organized by Meg into a nightmare.
Act 1
While Meg prepares to serve her husband Petey breakfast, Stanley, described as a man "in his late thirties" (23), who is disheveled and unshaven, enters from upstairs. Alternating between maternal and flirtatious affectation toward Stanley, Meg tells him that "two gentlemen", two new "visitors", will be arriving (30–31). At this information, Stanley appears concerned, suspicious, and disbelieving; there is "A sudden knock on the front door" and Meg goes offstage, while Stanley "listens" at a voice coming "through the letter box," but it is just Lulu carrying in a package delivered for Meg. Right after Meg and Lulu exit, Goldberg and McCann arrive, but Stanley immediately "sidles through the kitchen door and out of the back door" before they can see him to eavesdrop (38), but they speak only vaguely about "this job" they have to do with bureaucratic clichés (41), nevertheless rendering McCann "satisfied" (41). After Meg's new "guests" go up to their room, Stanley enters, and Meg gives him the package brought by Lulu containing his birthday present, which he opens, revealing, inappropriately for a man his age, a toy drum.Act 2
Stanley ecounters McCann and the two talk. McCann is intent on preventing Stanley from leaving the house and Stanley's behaviour and speech start to become erratic. He denies the fact that it is his birthday and insists that Meg is mad for saying so, and asks McCann if Goldberg has told him why he has been brought to the house. Goldberg enters and sends McCann out to collect some Whiskey that he has ordered for the party. When McCann returns, he and Goldberg interrogate Stanley with a series of ambiguous, rhetorical questions, tormenting him to complete collapse. Meg then enters in her party dress, Lulu arrives, and the party proceeds with a series of toasts in Stanley's honour. The party culminates with a game of blind man's buff, during which McCann further taunts Stanley by breaking his glasses and trapping his foot in the toy drum. Stanley then attacks Meg, and then in the black out that immediately follows attacks Lulu. The act ends with Goldberg and McCann restraining a maniacally giggling Stanley.Act 3
Paralleling the first scene of the play, Petey is having breakfast, and Meg asks him innocuous questions, with important differences revealing the aftermath of the party. After Meg leaves to do some shopping, Petey begins to express concern to Goldberg about Stanley's condition and about Goldberg's intention to take him to an unseen character called Monty. There then follows an exchange between Goldberg and McCann during which Goldberg's usual confident style temporarily abandons him, though he seems to recover after asking McCann to blow in his mouth. Lulu then confronts Goldberg about the way he treated the previous night (during unseen events that occurred after the party) but is driven from the house by McCann making unsavoury comments about her character and demanding that she confess her sins to him. McCann then brings in Stanley, with his broken glasses, and he and Goldberg bombard him with a list of his faults and of all the benefits he will obtain by submitting to their influence. When asked for his opinion of what he has to gain, Stanley is unable to answer. They begin to lead him out of the house toward the car waiting to take him to Monty. Petey confronts them one last time but passively backs down as they take Stanley away, "broken", calling out "Stan, don't let them tell you what to do!" (101). After Meg returns from shopping, she notices that "The car's gone" and as Petey remains silent, he continues to withhold his knowledge of Stanley's departure, allowing her to end the play without knowing the truth about Stanley.Genre
The Birthday Party has been described (some say "pigeonholed") by Irving WardleIrving Wardle
John Irving Wardle is an English writer and theatre critic.He was born on 20 July 1929 in Manchester, Lancashire, the son of John Wardle and his wife Nellie . His father was drama critic on the Bolton Evening News, and a regular performer at the Bolton Little Theatre...
and later critics as a "Comedy of menace
Comedy of menace
Comedy of menace is a term used to describe the plays of David Campton, Nigel Dennis, N. F. Simpson, and Harold Pinter by drama critic Irving Wardle, borrowed from the subtitle of Campton's play The Lunatic View: A Comedy of Menace, in reviewing Pinter's and Campton's plays in Encore in 1958...
" and by Martin Esslin
Martin Esslin
Martin Julius Esslin OBE was a Hungarian-born English producer and playwright dramatist, journalist, adaptor and translator, critic, academic scholar and professor of drama best known for coining the term "Theatre of the Absurd" in his work of that name...
as an example of 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...
. It includes such features as the fluidity and ambiguity
Ambiguity
Ambiguity of words or phrases is the ability to express more than one interpretation. It is distinct from vagueness, which is a statement about the lack of precision contained or available in the information.Context may play a role in resolving ambiguity...
of time, place, and identity and the disintegration of language.
Interpretation
Like many of Pinter's other plays, very little of the expository information in The Birthday Party is verifiable; it is often contradicted by the characters and otherwise ambiguous, and, therefore, one cannot take what they say at face value. For example, in Act One, Stanley describes his career, saying "I've played the piano all over the world," reduces that immediately to "All over the country," and then, after a "pause", undercuts both hyperbolic self-representations in stating "I once gave a concert."While the title and the dialogue refer to Meg's planning a party to celebrate Stanley's birthday: "It's your birthday, Stan. I was going to keep it a secret until tonight," even that "fact" is dubious, as Stanley denies that it is his birthday: "This isn't my birthday, Meg" (48), telling Goldberg and McCann: "Anyway, this isn't my birthday. [...] No, it's not until next month," adding, in response to McCann's saying "Not according to the lady [Meg]," "Her? She's crazy. Round the bend" (53).
Although Meg claims that her house is a "boarding house
Boarding house
A boarding house, is a house in which lodgers rent one or more rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months and years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. They normally provide "bed...
," her husband, Petey, who was confronted by "two men" who "wanted to know if we could put them up for a couple of nights" is surprised that Meg already has "got a room ready" (23), and, Stanley (being the only supposed boarder), also responds to what appears to him to be the sudden appearance of Goldberg and McCann as prospective guests on a supposed "short holiday," flat out denies that it is a boarding house: "This is a ridiculous house to pick on. [...] Because it's not a boarding house. It never was" (53).
McCann claims to have no knowledge of Stanley or Maidenhead
Maidenhead
Maidenhead is a town and unparished area within the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, in Berkshire, England. It lies on the River Thames and is situated west of Charing Cross in London.-History:...
when Stanley asks him "Ever been anywhere near Maidenhead? [...] There's a Fuller's teashop. I used to have my tea there. [...] and a Boots Library. I seem to connect you with the High Street. [...] A charming town, don't you think? [...] A quiet, thriving community. I was born and brought up there. I lived well away from the main road" (51); yet Goldberg later names both businesses that Stanley used to frequent connecting Goldberg and possibly also McCann to Maidenhead: "A little Austin, tea in Fuller's a library book from Boots, and I'm satisfied" (70). Of course, both Stanley and Goldberg could just be inventing these apparent "reminiscences" as they both appear to have invented other details about their lives earlier, and here Goldberg could conveniently be lifting details from Stanley's earlier own mention of them, which he has heard; as Merritt observes, the factual basis for such apparent correspondences in the dialogue uttered by Pinter's characters remains ambiguous and subject to multiple interpretations.
Shifting identities (cf.
Cf.
cf., an abbreviation for the Latin word confer , literally meaning "bring together", is used to refer to other material or ideas which may provide similar or different information or arguments. It is mainly used in scholarly contexts, such as in academic or legal texts...
"the theme of identity") makes the past ambiguous: Goldberg is called "Nat," but in his stories of the past he says that he was called "Simey" (73) and also "Benny" (92), and he refers to McCann as both "Dermot" (in talking to Petey [87]) and "Seamus" (in talking to McCann [93]). Given such contradictions, these characters' actual names and thus identities remain unclear. According to John Russell Brown (94), "Falsehoods are important for Pinter's dialogue, not least when they can be detected only by careful reference from one scene to another.... Some of the more blatant lies are so casually delivered that the audience is encouraged to look for more than is going to be disclosed. This is a part of Pinter's two-pronged tactic of awakening the audience's desire for verification and repeatedly disappointing this desire" (Brown 94).
Although Stanley, just before the lights go out during the birthday party, "begins to strangle Meg (78), she has no memory of that the next morning, quite possibly because she had drank too much and gotten tipsy (71–74); oblivious to the fact that Goldberg and McCann have removed Stanley from the house — Petey keeps that information from her when she inquires, "Is he still in bed?" by answering "Yes, he's ... still asleep"––she ends the play focusing on herself and romanticising her role in the party, "I was the belle of the ball. [...] I know I was" (102).
Characters
- Petey, a man in his sixties
- Meg, a woman in her sixties
- Stanley, a man in his late thirties
- Lulu, a girl in her twenties
- Goldberg, a man in his fifties
- McCann, a man of thirty
(The Birthday Party [Grove Press ed.] 8)
Meg and Petey Boles
While on tour with L. du Garde's A Horse! A Horse!Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
, Pinter found himself in Eastbourne
Eastbourne
Eastbourne is a large town and borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England between Brighton and Hastings. The town is situated at the eastern end of the chalk South Downs alongside the high cliff at Beachy Head...
without a place to stay. He met a stranger in a pub who said "I can take you to some digs but I wouldn't recommend them exactly," and then led Pinter to the house where he stayed. Pinter told his official biographer, Michael Billington
Michael Billington (critic)
Michael Keith Billington is a British author and arts critic. Drama critic of The Guardian since October 1971, he is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts; most notably, he is the authorised...
,
I went to these digs and found, in short, a very big woman who was the landlady and a little man, the landlord. There was no one else there, apart from a solitary lodger, and the digs were really quite filthy ... I slept in the attic with this man I'd met in the pub ... we shared the attic and there was a sofa over my bed ... propped up so I was looking at this sofa from which hairs and dust fell continuously. And I said to the man, "What are you doing here?" And he said, "Oh well I used to be...I'm a pianist. I used to play in the concert-party here and I gave that up." ... The woman was really quite a voracious character, always tousled his head and tickled him and goosed him and wouldn't leave him alone at all. And when I asked him why he stayed, he said, "There's nowhere else to go."
According to Billington, "The lonely lodger, the ravenous landlady, the quiescent husband: these figures, eventually to become Stanley, Meg, and Petey, sound like figures in a Donald McGill
Donald McGill
Donald Fraser Gould McGill, was an English graphic artist whose name has become synonymous with a whole genre of saucy seaside postcards that were sold mostly in small shops in British coastal towns...
seaside postcard" (Harold Pinter 76).
Goldberg and McCann
Goldberg and McCann "represent not only the West's most autocratic religions, but its two most persecuted races" (Billington, Harold Pinter 80).Goldberg goes by many names sometimes Nat but when talking about his past he mentions that he was called by the names "Simey" and also "Benny". He seems to idolise his Uncle Barney as he mentions him many times during the play. It is thought that Goldberg is a Jewish man.
McCann is an unfrocked priest and has two names. Petey refers to him as Dermot but Goldberg calls him Seamus. McCann seems to think that Goldberg is a Christian man but this seems not to be the case as Goldberg is a typically Jewish name.
McCANN: You've always been a true Christian
GOLDBERG: In a way.
Stanley Webber
Stanley Webber is "a palpably Jewish name, incidentally—is a man who shores up his precarious sense of self through fantasy, bluff, violence and his own manipulative form of power-play. His treatment of Meg initially is rough, playful, teasing, ... but once she makes the fateful, mood-changing revelation —'I've got to get things ready for the two gentlemen'—he's as dangerous as a cornered animal" (Billington, Harold Pinter 78).Lulu
Lulu is a woman in her twenties "whom Stanley tries vainly to rapeRape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
" (Billington, Harold Pinter 112) during the birthday party in Act II.
Themes
According to Pinter's official biographer, Michael BillingtonMichael Billington (critic)
Michael Keith Billington is a British author and arts critic. Drama critic of The Guardian since October 1971, he is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts; most notably, he is the authorised...
, in Harold Pinter, echoing Pinter's own retrospective view of it, The Birthday Party is "a deeply political play about the individual's imperative need for resistance," yet, according to Billington, though he "doubts whether this was conscious on Pinter's part," it is also "a private, obsessive work about time past; about some vanished world, either real or idealised, into which all but one of the characters readily escapes. ... From the very outset, the defining quality of a Pinter play is not so much fear and menace –– though they are undoubtedly present –– as a yearning for some lost Eden
Garden of Eden
The Garden of Eden is in the Bible's Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...
as a refuge from the uncertain, miasmic
Miasma theory of disease
The miasma theory held that diseases such as cholera, chlamydia or the Black Death were caused by a miasma , a noxious form of "bad air"....
present" (82).
As quoted by Arnold P. Hinchliffe, Polish critic Grzegorz Sinko points out that in The Birthday Party "we see the destruction of the victim from the victim's own point of view:
"One feels like saying that the two executioners, Goldberg and McCann, stand for all the principles of the state and social conformism. Goldberg refers to his 'job' in a typically Kafka-esque official language which deprives the crimes of all sense and reality." ... [Of Stanley's removal, Sinko adds:] "Maybe Stanley will meet his death there or maybe he will only receive a conformist brainwashing after which he is promised ... many other gifts of civilization...."
In an interview with Mel Gussow
Mel Gussow
Melvyn H. Gussow was an American theater critic, movie critic, and author who wrote for The New York Times for 35 years.-Biography:...
, which is about the 1988 Classic Stage Company
Classic Stage Company
Classic Stage Company, or CSC, is a classical Off-Broadway theater dedicated to reimagining the classical repertory for a contemporary American audience, presenting plays from the past that speak directly to today's issues. Founded in 1967, Classic Stage Company is one of Off-Broadway's...
production of The Birthday Party, later paired with Mountain Language
Mountain Language
Mountain Language is a one-act play written by Harold Pinter, first published in The Times Literary Supplement on 7–13 October 1988. It was first performed at the Royal National Theatre in London on 20 October 1988 with Michael Gambon and Miranda Richardson. Subsequently, it was published by...
in a 1989 CSC production, in both of which David Strathairn
David Strathairn
David Russell Strathairn is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck...
played Stanley, Gussow asked Pinter: "The Birthday Party has the same story as One for the Road?"
In the original interview first published in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, on December 30, 1988, Gussow quotes Pinter as stating: "The character of the old man, Petey, says one of the most important lines I've ever written. As Stanley is taken away, Petey says, 'Stan, don't let them tell you what to do.' I've lived that line all my damn life. Never more than now."
In responding to Gussow's question, Pinter refers to all three plays when he replies: "It's the destruction of an individual, the independent voice of an individual. I believe that is precisely what the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
is doing to Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
. It's a horrifying act. If you see child abuse, you recognize it and you're horrified. If you do it yourself, you apparently don't know what you're doing."
As Bob Bows observes in his review of the 2008 Germinal Stage Denver production, whereas at first " 'The Birthday Party' appears to be a straightforward story of a former working pianist now holed up in a decrepit boarding house," in this play as in his other plays, "behind the surface symbolism ... in the silence between the characters and their words, Pinter opens the door to another world, cogent and familiar: the part we hide from ourselves"; ultimately, "Whether we take Goldberg and McCann to be the devil and his agent or simply their earthly emissaries, the puppeteers of the church-state apparatus, or some variation thereof, Pinter's metaphor of a bizarre party bookended by birth and death is a compelling take on this blink-of-an-eye we call life."
London première
Lyric HammersmithLyric Hammersmith
The Lyric Theatre, also known as the Lyric Hammersmith, is a theatre on King Street, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which takes pride in its original, "groundbreaking" productions....
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, UK, directed by Peter Wood
Peter Wood (director)
Peter Wood is an English award-winning theatre and film director.-External links:...
, May 1958.
Cast
- Willoughby GrayWilloughby GrayWilloughby Gray was an English actor of stage and screen born in London ....
, as Petey - Beatrix LehmannBeatrix LehmannBeatrix Alice Lehmann was a British actress, theatre director and author.She trained at the RADA and made her stage debut as Peggy in a 1924 production The Way of the World at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. As well as her extensive theatrical career she appeared in films and on television...
, as Meg - Richard PearsonRichard Pearson (actor)Richard de Pearsall Pearson was a Welsh actor. Notable films of his career included Brian Desmond Hurst's Scrooge as well as a brief appearance in John Schlesinger's Sunday Bloody Sunday and cameo roles in three films by Roman Polanski: Macbeth , Tess and Pirates...
, as Stanley - Wendy Hutchinson, as Lulu
- John SlaterJohn Slater (actor)John Slater was a British character actor usually seen as lugubrious, amiable cockney types.His father was an antiques dealer. After attending St. Clement Danes School, Slater began acting in farce at the Whitehall Theatre. He first appeared on film in 1938, remaining active in the industry up to...
, as Goldberg - John Stratton, as McCann
(The Birthday Party [Grove Press ed.] 8)
New York City première
Booth TheatreBooth Theatre
The Booth Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 222 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan, New York City.Architect Henry B. Herts designed the Booth and its companion Shubert Theatre as a back-to-back pair sharing a Venetian Renaissance-style façade...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, 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...
, October 1967.
Cast
- Henderson ForsytheHenderson ForsytheHenderson Forsythe was an American actor. Forsythe was known for his role as Dr. David Stewart #2 on the soap opera As the World Turns, a role he played for 32 years, and for his work on the New York stage....
, as Petey - Ruth WhiteRuth White (actress)Ruth Patricia White was an American Emmy Award-winning and movie actress.-Early career:A lifelong resident of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, White graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Literature from Rutgers University in 1935. While pursuing her acting career in nearby New York City, she taught acting...
, as Meg - James PattersonJames Patterson (actor)James Patterson was an American Tony Award winning actor for his role in the 1968 Harold Pinter play, The Birthday Party . His best known film role was in Lilith , and he had numerous guest appearances on television through the early 1970s...
, as Stanley - Alexandra Berlin, as Lulu
- Ed FlandersEd FlandersEdward Paul Flanders was an American actor best known for his role as Dr. Donald Westphall in the television series St. Elsewhere.- Biography :...
, as Goldberg - Edward Winter, as McCann
(The Birthday Party [Grove Press ed.] 8)
50th anniversary revival and related celebratory events
Lyric HammersmithLyric Hammersmith
The Lyric Theatre, also known as the Lyric Hammersmith, is a theatre on King Street, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which takes pride in its original, "groundbreaking" productions....
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, UK
United 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...
, directed by David Farr
David Farr (theatre director)
David Farr is a writer, theatrical director and Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.-Background:Farr was brought up in Surrey and educated in Guildford and the University of Cambridge .- Career :...
, from 8 May to 24 May 2008 (Lee); "Cast include[d]: Sian Brooke
Sian Brooke
Sian Brooke is an English actress, known for portraying Laura in All About George and Lori in Cape Wrath.-Background:...
; Sheila Hancock
Sheila Hancock
Sheila Cameron Hancock, CBE is an English actress and author.-Early life:Sheila Hancock was born in Blackgang on the Isle of Wight, the daughter of Ivy Louise and Enrico Cameron Hancock, who was a publican. Her sister Billie is seven years older...
; Lloyd Hutchinson; Justin Salinger; Alan Williams; Nicholas Woodeson
Nicholas Woodeson
Nicholas Woodeson is an English film and television actor.-Education:Woodeson attended Marlborough College and studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.-Film:...
" (revival website).
1988–1989 and 1989–1990
Classic Stage CompanyClassic Stage Company
Classic Stage Company, or CSC, is a classical Off-Broadway theater dedicated to reimagining the classical repertory for a contemporary American audience, presenting plays from the past that speak directly to today's issues. Founded in 1967, Classic Stage Company is one of Off-Broadway's...
(CSC Repertory Theatre), 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...
, directed by Carey Perloff
Carey Perloff
Carey Elizabeth Perloff is an American theater director and playwright. She has been the artistic director of American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco since 1992.- Biography :...
; first production from 12 April to 22 May 1988; second production in a double bill with the American première of Mountain Language
Mountain Language
Mountain Language is a one-act play written by Harold Pinter, first published in The Times Literary Supplement on 7–13 October 1988. It was first performed at the Royal National Theatre in London on 20 October 1988 with Michael Gambon and Miranda Richardson. Subsequently, it was published by...
, from 31 October to 23 December 1989).
2003–2004
American Repertory Theater (ART), Loeb Drama Center, Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
, directed by Joanne Akalaitis
JoAnne Akalaitis
JoAnne Akalaitis is an American theatre director and a writer and the winner of five Obie Awards for direction and founder of the critically acclaimed Mabou Mines in New York, from which she resigned after twenty years in June 1990.Akalaitis was pre-med and studied philosophy in college...
, from 6 to 27 March 2004.
2005
Northwest High School Theatre Department, Vernon Solomon Performing Arts Center, Northwest High SchoolNorthwest High School (Texas)
Northwest High School is located in Fort Worth, Texas , near Justin.. It is a part of Northwest Independent School District.The school is located off Texas State Highway 114 and Texas Farm to Market Road 156, about 3 miles west of the Texas Motor Speedway, and 2 miles north of Fort Worth Alliance...
, Ft. Worth, Texas, directed by Alva Hascall, fall 2005
2006–2007
- Ethel M. Barber Theater, of the Theater & Interpretation Center, School of Communication, at Northwestern UniversityNorthwestern UniversityNorthwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, Evanston, IllinoisEvanston, IllinoisEvanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
, directed by Jason Tyne, in November 2006. - Irish Classical Theatre Company at the Andrews Theatre, Buffalo, New YorkBuffalo, New YorkBuffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
, directed by Greg Natale, from January to February 2007. - Bruka TheatreBrüka TheatreBrüka Theatre is a Reno-based theater group which was founded in 1992, and is one of the main live theaters in Northern Nevada.Most plays by Bruka are produced on their Main Stage, but several other productions are held in Sub-Brüka, their venue for less traditional fare, and other special events...
, 99 North Virginia Street, Reno, NevadaReno, NevadaReno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
, directed by Tom Plunkett, in July 2007. - Stage Center Theatre, at Northeastern Illinois UniversityNortheastern Illinois UniversityNortheastern Illinois University is a public state university located in Chicago, Illinois. The main campus is located in the community area of North Park with three additional campuses in the metropolitan area. Tracing its founding to 1867, it was first established as a separate branch of a...
, Chicago, Illinois, directed by Dan Wirth, from November to December 2006.
2007–2008
Germinal Stage Denver, Denver, ColoradoDenver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
, directed by Ed Baierlein, from 4 April to 4 May 2008.
2009
Melbourne Theatre Company presents 'The Birthday Party' at the Fairfax Theatre, The Arts CentreNotable subsequent French revival, March 2009
L'Anniversaire (The Birthday Party), adapted and directed by Michel Fagadau, at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, through 26 March 2009.
Cast:
- Lorant Deutsch
- Jean-François Stévenin
- Andréa Ferréol
- Nicolas Vaude
- Jacques Boudet
- Émilie Chesnais
2011
Kansas City Actors Theatre (KCAT) presents The Birthday Party, directed by Bruce Roach, in repertory with three Pinter one-acts, The Collection, The Lover and Night, Aug. 16-Sept. 11, 2011.See also
- The Birthday PartyThe Birthday Party (film)The Birthday Party is a 1968 British drama film directed by William Friedkin, based on an unpublished screenplay by 2005 Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter, which he adapted from his own play The Birthday Party, considered an example of Pinter's "comedy of menace".-Plot:The protagonist is a lodger in his...
(1968 film directed by William FriedkinWilliam FriedkinWilliam Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director...
) - Comedy of menaceComedy of menaceComedy of menace is a term used to describe the plays of David Campton, Nigel Dennis, N. F. Simpson, and Harold Pinter by drama critic Irving Wardle, borrowed from the subtitle of Campton's play The Lunatic View: A Comedy of Menace, in reviewing Pinter's and Campton's plays in Encore in 1958...
- Theatre of the AbsurdTheatre of the AbsurdThe 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...
Selected bibliography
Articles and reviews- Andrews, Jamie. "L'anniversaire". (The Birthday Party). Harold Pinter ArchiveThe Harold Pinter Archive in the British LibraryThe Harold Pinter Archive in the British Library is the literary archive of Harold Pinter, which Pinter had first placed "on permanent loan" in the British Library in September 1993 and which became a permanent acquisition in December 2007.-Acquisition:...
Blog, British LibraryBritish LibraryThe British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
(BL), 3 Mar. 2009. (Performance rev. of a French revival staged after Pinter's death written by the BL Curator of Modern Literary Manuscripts, who is the custodian of Pinter's Archive.) - Lee, Veronica. "Sheila Hancock: Harold Pinter Wasn't Like Us – He Never Went to the Pub". The TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
. Telegraph Media GroupTelegraph Media GroupThe Telegraph Media Group is the proprietor of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph. It is a subsidiary of Press Holdings. David and Frederick Barclay acquired the group in July 2004, after months of intense bidding and lawsuits, from Hollinger Inc...
, 5 May 2005. WebWorld Wide WebThe World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
. 7 May 2008. (Leader: "As she prepares to star in the 50th anniversary production of 'The Birthday Party', Sheila HancockSheila HancockSheila Cameron Hancock, CBE is an English actress and author.-Early life:Sheila Hancock was born in Blackgang on the Isle of Wight, the daughter of Ivy Louise and Enrico Cameron Hancock, who was a publican. Her sister Billie is seven years older...
recalls the shock of seeing it for the first time and what its author was like as a young actor called Dave [David Baron]....")
Books
- Billington, MichaelMichael Billington (critic)Michael Keith Billington is a British author and arts critic. Drama critic of The Guardian since October 1971, he is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts; most notably, he is the authorised...
. Harold Pinter. Rev. and exp. ed. of The Life and Work of Harold Pinter. 1996; London: Faber and Faber, 2007. ISBN 0-571-19065-0 (1996 ed.). ISBN 978-0-571-23476-9 (13) (2007 paperback ed.). - Gussow, MelMel GussowMelvyn H. Gussow was an American theater critic, movie critic, and author who wrote for The New York Times for 35 years.-Biography:...
. Conversations with Harold Pinter. London: Nick Hern Books, 1994. ISBN 1-85459-201-7. New York: Limelight, 1994. ISBN 0-8791-0179-2 (10). ISBN 978-0-8791-0179-4 (13). New York: Grove P, 1996. ISBN ISBN 0-8021-3467-X (10). ISBN 978-0-8021-3467-7 (13). - Harold Pinter: The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming: A Casebook. Ed. Michael Scott. Casebook Ser. General Ed. A. E. Dyson. New York: Macmillan, 1986. ISBN 0-333-35269-6 (10).
- Hinchliffe, Arnold P. Harold Pinter. The Griffin Authors Ser. New York: St. Martin's P, 1967. LCCCN 74-80242. Twayne's English Authors Ser. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1967. LCCCN 67-12264. Rev. ed. 1967; New York: Twayne Publishers, 1981. ISBN 0-8057-6784-3 (10). ISBN 978-0-8057-6784-1 (13).
- Merritt, Susan Hollis. Pinter in Play: Critical Strategies and the Plays of Harold Pinter. 1990; Durham and London: Duke UP, 1995. ISBN 0-8223-1674-9 (10). ISBN 978-0-8223-1674-9 (13).
- Naismith, Bill. Harold Pinter. Faber Critical Guides. London: Faber and Faber, 2000. ISBN 0-571-19781-7 (10). ISBN 978-0-5711-9781-1 (13).
- Pinter, HaroldHarold PinterHarold 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...
. The Birthday Party. 15-102 in The Essential Pinter. New York: Grove P, 2006. ISBN 0-8021-4269-9 (10). ISBN 978-0-8021-4269-6 (13). - –––. Various Voices: Prose, Poetry, Politics 1948-2005. Rev. ed. 1998; London: Faber and Faber, 2005. ISBN 0-5712-3009-1 (10). ISBN 978-0-5712-3009-9 (13). (Includes "Letter to Peter Wood ... (1958)" in "On The Birthday Party I" 11–15; "Letter to the Editor of The Play's the Thing, October 1958" in "On The Birthday Party II" 16–19 and "A View of the Party" (1958) 149–50.)
Audio-visual resources
- Jones, Rebecca, and Harold PinterHarold PinterHarold 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...
. Interview. TodayToday programmeToday is BBC Radio 4's long-running early morning news and current affairs programme, now broadcast from 6.00 am to 9.00 am Monday to Friday, and 7.00 am to 9.00 am on Saturdays. It is also the most popular programme on Radio 4 and one of the BBC's most popular programmes across its radio networks...
. BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, 12 May 2008. WebWorld Wide WebThe World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
. 7 Apr. 2009. (Streaming audioMP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
[excerpts], BBC Radio Player; "extended interview" audio RealAudio MediaRealAudioRealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is...
[.ram] clip ["PINTER20080513"]. Duration of shorter, broadcast version: 3 mins., 56 secs.; duration of the extended interview: 10 mins., 19 secs. Interview with Pinter conducted by Jones on the occasion of the 50th anniversary revival at the Lyric HammersmithLyric HammersmithThe Lyric Theatre, also known as the Lyric Hammersmith, is a theatre on King Street, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which takes pride in its original, "groundbreaking" productions....
, LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
; BBC Radio Player version was accessible for a week after first broadcast in "Listen again" on the Today website.)
External links
- L'Anniversaire (The Birthday Party) at the Théàtre des Champs Elysées, ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, through 26 Mar. 2009. (In FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
.) - The Birthday Party at haroldpinter.org. (Selected UK and foreign productions of the play with excerpts from selected performance reviews posted in the section on "Plays" in Pinter's official website.)
- The Birthday Party. 50th anniversary revival at the Lyric HammersmithLyric HammersmithThe Lyric Theatre, also known as the Lyric Hammersmith, is a theatre on King Street, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which takes pride in its original, "groundbreaking" productions....
, LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, 8–24 May 2008. (Menu linking to related events; some links updated subsequently.) - "The Birthday Party" – Photographs from the Irish Classical Theatre Company's 2007 production, dir. Greg Natale. ("All photos by Lawrence Rowswell"; also includes production details.)
- "The Explosion of New Writing" (Drama Guided Tour). PeoplePlayUK: Theatre History Online, formerly the Theatre MuseumTheatre MuseumThe Theatre Museum in the Covent Garden district of London, England, was the United Kingdom's national museum of the performing arts. It was a branch of the UK's national museum of applied arts, the Victoria and Albert Museum...
, National Theatre of the Performing Arts, LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
(until 1 Jan. 2007); updated and hosted by Theatre Collections Online. (Features introductory consideration of Pinter, production photographs of The Birthday Party, and links to more information.)