The Birthday Party – Pinter in Fourteen Tweets
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2016 (20 to 27 October)
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19 February
The Birthday Party – Pinter in Fourteen Tweets
To Roland Clare
(for publishing abroad ‘The Macbeth Murder Mystery’¹, and thus Thurber's wider delights)
(for publishing abroad ‘The Macbeth Murder Mystery’¹, and thus Thurber's wider delights)
If one adopts the mindset of Prosecuting Counsel with Pinter :— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 19, 2017
1. Meg's having an affair with Stanley, keen to establish when Petey is home
4. With Petey gone, Stanley calls Meg 'a bad wife', but resists playfulness— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 19, 2017
5. He tells a menacing story, starting 'They're coming today'
8. When Goldberg and McCann come, Stanley says 'I didn't think they'd come', and (again) wants to know names— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 19, 2017
9. He tries to dissuade McCann
10. He claims that 'It's my chess night', apologizes to Stanley, and says that he'll 'try and get back early'— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 19, 2017
11. *He is not back in time*
12. She asks, 'Well... I mean... is there... a wheelbarrow in it ?'— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 19, 2017
13. With Stanley being taken to the car, Petey says 'Leave him alone !'
Actuated by Stanley / the affair, Petey - using an intermediary - commissioned Goldberg and McCann to remove Stanley :— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 19, 2017
He tries to back out
More likely 'an insurance policy', wanting Stanley to see him as distanced from what happened— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 19, 2017
Petey pretends to Meg that Stanley is asleep
He has Meg at the close, content that she believes, 'I was the belle of the ball'— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 19, 2017
Stanley's mum is 'In the sanatorium'
Now he is, too
QED
Postlude :
In The Caretaker, Davies' victimhood / psychiatric background are more evident - the intent of the brothers, Mick and Aston, rather less so. https://t.co/TVIK9OUa71— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 19, 2017
As to The Homecoming, where, at the end of the play, Teddy goes back to the States just with the injunction Don't become a stranger, from his wife Ruth : we are first surprised with the proposition (after Teddy's brother Lenny has said Why don't I take her up with me to Greek Street ?) from Max, her father-in-law, We'll put her on the game. That's a stroke of genius, that's a marvellous idea.
Except that Ruth, given that Teddy has not seemed very interested (or even surprised) that Lenny, and then Joey, go to bed with her, is then freely bargaining, with Max and her brothers-in-law, in such terms as You would have to regard your original outlay simply as a capital investment [sc. setting Ruth up in a flat with three rooms and a bathroom]... :
At night ('They haven't changed the lock'), Teddy arrives at his father's house with his wife Ruth - indifferent to what happens, at least ? https://t.co/TVIK9OUa71— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 19, 2017
In ‘Different Viewpoints in the Play’ (1982), an extract from his monograph Harold Pinter², Bernard F. Dekore suggests, on this point, Perhaps the devious Teddy did not introduce her to his family when they married but does so now because he expects to happen later when did not happen then.
Dekore goes on to say, If this is the reason for his homecoming, […] it could underlie Pinter’s statement (to John Lahr³) that ‘if ever there was a villain in the play, Teddy was it’ […]
End-notes :
¹ The piece first appeared in The New Yorker (p. 16 of the edition dated 2 October 1937), as linked here.
² In the Modern Dramatists series [Macmillan, London (1982)], and collected in the selection of critical essays Harold Pinter : The Birthday Party, The Caretaker and The Homecoming (ed. Michael Scott) (Macmillan, London (1986)).
³ ‘A Director’s Approach’ by Peter Hall, in A Casebook on Harold Pinter’s ‘The Homecoming’, p. 20 (ed. John Lahr) (New York, 1971).
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
