The Birthday Party – Harold Pinter

 

Harold Pinter, one of the most influential modern British dramatists, is a Nobel prize winner. He was born in 1930 in Hackney, a London borough. At the age of sixteen, he wrote an essay on James Joyce. In the following years, he acted in Macbeth and in Romeo and Juliet in leading roles. In 1956 he married the famous actress Vivien Merchant. ‘The Room’ was his first play. His second play, ‘The Birthday Party,’ was staged in 1958.

As all his plays ‘The Birthday Party has scenes of violence, anger and entering menace from outside to maintain uncertainty and unpredictability in the play till the end. The play opens with a brief conversation between Meg and Patey, who are in their sixties. They talk about Stanley Webber, a man in his late thirties, who has been staying in their boarding house for about a year. Meg is in charge of the boarding house that is close to the sea, whereas Petey works as a deck-chair attendant on the sea beach. Though Meg looks after Stanley with motherly concern, she behaves in the absence of others as if she were his mistress.

Stanley used to play on the piano to entertain the sea-bathers. But now, he hardly goes out of doors when Meg urges Stanley to start playing the Piano again, he tells her how he was once considered a great pianist and why he left that place and stays there. When they talk, she mentions about two visitors who are expected to come to that boarding house. As it disturbs Stanley, he says to Meg that some people may come on that very day with a wheelbarrow in a van in which they will take away a dead body from that place. Meg is greatly shocked to hear about this. Then Lulu, the next-door neighbour of Meg comes with a parcel. That is actually a toy drum, a birthday present of Meg to Stanley. Meg goes out for shopping after asking Lulu not to reveal anything about the parcel to Stanley. Lulu wants to go out with Stanley, but Stanley doesn’t show any interest towards her. So, Lulu leaves the place angrily. Actually, many of the women characters of Pinter are talkative and both mother figures and tarts. So, Meg and Lulu are also presented here with the same nature.

The two expected visitors named, Goldberg and McCann, arrive at the boarding house. Goldberg, a Jew who is in his fifties and McCann, an Irish man aged about thirty. On their coming to know about Stanley’s birthday from Meg, Goldberg suggests a party to Stanley and promises Meg to make all the necessary arrangements. However, before the Party, Meg gives the present of toy drum to Stanley. Stanley begins to bang the drum sticks with great force in a savage manner as if he were under the influence of some evil spirit.

Stanley meets McCann and Goldberg in the evening. Petey says that as he has to go to his club, he can’t attend the birthday party. After the departure of Petey, Goldberg and McCann begin to question Stanley.  Irrelevant questions and irrelevant answers are exchanged between them. Repeatedly they ask Stanley why he betrayed the organization. They confuse him by asking whether the chicken came first or the egg. However, Meg’s arrival saves Stanley from their harassment. Then the birthday party begins. The bottles of whiskey are opened and served to everyone. Meg delivers a brief but sentimental speech. Then Lulu joins the party. Goldberg delivers a speech and congratulates Stanley. Meg kisses Stanley and wishes him. All are under the influence of drink and in reminiscent moods. Lulu encourages Goldberg to flirt with her. Then they decide to play Blind man’s Buff. When they play Stanley tries to strangle Meg. However, she is saved by others. Then the electric lights go off. In the darkness Stanley attempts to rape Lulu. There the second act ends. Then how Stanley is handled by Goldberg and McCann is not shown.

In the next morning Meg is shocked to see a black car outside when she goes out for shopping. Petey says it belongs to Goldberg. Then Goldberg comes down from upstairs and says to Petey that the celebration has brought a nervous break down to Stanley. Then Lulu appears and complains that Goldberg had seduced her last night. As Goldberg and McCann ridicule and threaten her she goes back. Then a totally changed Stanley, who is well dressed and clean shaven comes downstairs. When Goldberg and McCann promise him a golden future, he doesn’t say anything. His mental faculty seems to be paralysed. When Petey asks them where they take Stanley, they reply that they are taking him to Monty for special treatment. When Petey tries to stop them, they threaten him. So, Petey helplessly stares at them, as they leave with Stanley in their black car. Then Meg arrives and asks Petey whether Stanley has got up. Petey says, “Let him sleep”. Meg, who is actually ignorant of what had happened to Stanley, says that it was a lovely party and she was the most admired lady at the party. Thus, the play ends as it began with Meg and Petey talking in the room.

As far as plot, characterisation, dialogues and theme are concerned, Pinter is a great inventor in the field of drama. As all his plays, The Birthday Party is a thriller and full of mysteries. It lacks the background information, and the relationship between Meg and Stanley leads to ambiguity and mystery. So, the play can be interpreted in different ways. When it deals with the difficulty of communication between individuals, it also reveals the emptiness of the relationship between meg and Petey. Pinter is indifferent towards the less essential aspects of life and the personality of the characters. So, the readers are never told what is behind the action of Goldberg and McCann against Stanley. Mystery, uncertainty, unpredictability, ambiguity and unanswered questions are inevitable in Pinter’s plays. So, a Pinteresque play won’t have a well-defined theme or clear-cut plot. Moreover, the blackout in the 'Blindman’s Buff' scene has a great visual impact. That creates an atmosphere of confusion, uncertainty and terror in the play. These are all the peculiarities and theatrical frauds of Pinter that label his plays as Pinteresque plays.

The Birthday Party – a theatrical fraud, a Pinteresque Play

 

Harold Pinter’s ‘The Birthday Party’ proved a complete failure when it was performed first.  The performance lasted only for a week. But, over the course of time, Pinter’s work received more and more recognition.  Now he is regarded as one of the greatest British playwrights.  He belongs to the group of dramatists of whom Samuel Beckett was the leading spirit.  As for as the plot, characterisation, dialogues and themes are concerned, Pinter is a great inventor in the field of drama.  Uncertainty, ambiguity and unanswered questions are inevitable in Pinter’s plays.  So a Painteresque play doesn’t have a well-defined or clear-cut plot.  There is always an atmosphere of mystery till the end.

In ‘The Birthday Party’, actually, we do not know who Goldberg and McCann really are.  Similarly, we don’t know what Stanley has done to bring their wrath.  However, they seem to be the agents of some organization which has sent them to bring Stanley back.  What is the meaning of the brain-washing sessions which are held by the two outsiders? Where do the two men finally take Stanley and what will happen to Stanley next? No explicit answers to these questions are available.  The author leaves it all to the audiences and the readers to answer these questions themselves.

What exactly is the relationship between Stanley and Meg? Is she already his mistress, apart from being a mother to him, or is it only a mere flirtation? The mystery and the ambiguity in the play are typical of Pinter.  They produce an impression in our minds that the play is very obscure and hard to understand or appreciate.  Actually we don’t have much reliable information about Stanley, Goldberg and Mccann, the three major characters in the play. But, the conventional drama may give the readers and the audiences enough background information which is lacking in the play of Pinter.

In this play, comedy is accompanied or mingled with a feeling of menace which is produced through direct or indirect means by the author in the minds of the readers or audiences. Stanley’s sarcastic comments on the coffee and the cornflakes are amusing.  Meg amuses as when she gets frightened by Stanley’s referring a van and a wheel-borrow.  Her miss-applying the word ‘succulent’ is also amusing us.  There are other menacing situations too in the play.  Stanley beating the drum wildly and savagely.  Stanley’s kicking Goldberg in the stomach and McCann’s picking up a chair to hit Stanley.  Stanley’s attempts to strangle Meg and rape Lulu.  These all have both comical elements as well as the elements of menace.  They are the peculiar features of the plays of Pinter.  Thus the comedy of menace also becomes one of the Pinteresque qualities.

If we ask a question, ‘what does Pinter really wish to convey through the play?’ we don’t get a reply that can be treated as the theme of the play.  But this play is no doubt a thriller and a comedy.  Till the end, we wait almost breathlessly to know what will happen to Stanley.  So, ‘The Birthday Party’ can be labelled as a mystery-cum-thriller-cum-comedy.  At the same time, the play can be interpreted in different ways.  It deals with the difficulty of communication between individuals and deals with the feelings of loneliness that affects the characters of individuals.  It also deals with the life of an artist.  Thus the play has a lot in it of social significance and a lot to our intellect. Thus having not a well-defined theme of its own is also a quality of the Pinteresque play.

The Birthday Party is a typical Pinteresque play concerning its technique and dialogue.  There are silences and pauses in the course of dialogue that are used to convey more meanings in the play.  The dialogues are colloquial in nature and realistic and repetitious too.  In the opening scene, the repetition of the word ‘nice’ in the dialogue between Meg and Petey reveals the emptiness of the relationship between them.  Similarly, there is a blackout in the Blind man’s Bluff scene when the lights go out. No doubt this black-out has a great visual impact.  That creates an atmosphere of confusion, uncertainty and terror in the play.  These are all the peculiarities of Pinter that labels his plays as Pinteresque plays and plays with Theatrical frauds.

------Thulasidharan