Word: pinter
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Pinter's The Dumb shares the bill with Days in the Loeb's repertory, and I find it to resist making a few between the plays. only two characters, is physically constricted Days takes place in a the Dumb Waiter in a Happy Days oozes philosophy, but it dull. Yet while of Pinter's play are no of profound than . The Dumb Waiter is entertaining...
...first full-length play, Birthday Party. Pinter dwelt of his pet themes, the being dragged from the one's familiar the outside world. Two apparently hired killers, a boarding house, one of its occupants, him away. In The Dumb Pinter focuses on these seemed so all-power-. The Birthday Party, and they too must face the such an alienation...
...killers, Ben and Gus, basement room on from the Organization, for a nameless victim to their only contact with world is a dumb this presumably deuilding, which them messages -- food. This is Pinter's man's isolation of genuine communication the outside world. Only conversation can fill up while Ben and Gus wait. of the play. Ben message from upstairs dumb waiter, and pulls to kill Gus. has traded roles with be victim, has been the security of the the Outside...
...modern plays depend on banter between the on sustain the interest -- and Pinter is writing such dialogue. a play depends solely burlesque interchanges, some boring -- and even like Waiting for to drag in the second the amusement of this to wane. All of however, contain element of suspense, sheer terror which attention even when actual action is at a standstill...
...Lype O'Dell, is a perfect buffoon throughout the play. Ben(David Meneghel) is more the prototype of the cool, calm professional killer, but he eventually is caught up in volatile arguments with Gus about absolutely trivial subjects. If The Dumb Waiter were only a funny play, if Pinter were capable of nothing more than writing funny dialogue, one could scarcely have found fault with O'dell's or Meneghel's performances, or with Chapman's direction...