BEHAVIOUR IS BASED IN THE SOCIAL CONTEX:

This is a study about three plays of Harold Pinter (1930-):

“The Collection” ,“Ashes to Ashes” and “Party Time”.

I´ m going to describe the evolution of these three plays according to the historical context of Harold Pinter and his style of writing.

Theatre was a good way to denounce the social situation of the country of Pinter.

These Pinter ´s plays are examples of it. Generally, his plays has been described like “menace comedies”. He is included in the group of authors of the absurd theatre and we can see it because his plays seems obscure and absurd and they capture the everyday life and his dialogues reflects the difficulty of the communication.

In the play “The Collection” dialogues reflects the difficulty of communication in the following examples: “Bill: … Who is your wife?; James: You know her; Bill: I don ´t think so; James: No?; Bill: No, I don ´t think so at all; James: I see.”

In “Ashes to Ashes” is found this example of an absurd conversation: “Devlin: Do you fell you ´re being hypnotised?; Rebecca: When?; Devlin: Now; Rebecca: No; Devlin: Why not?; Rebecca: Who by?; Devlin: By me; Rebecca: You?; Devlin: What do you think?” (…)

In “Party time” we found the following quote: “Terry: (…) then they give you this fantastic hot towel; Gavin: Hot? Terry: Wonderful. An I mean hot. I ´m not joking; Gavin: Like the barber; Terry: Barber?; Gavin: In the barber shop. When I was a boy; Terry: Oh yes? (Pause) What do you mean?”

The evolution in these three plays is the following:

The three plays are based in the absurd theatre, but one of them more than the others.

“The Collection” ( 1961) is the most influenced play in the absurd theatre because is written in the sixties and the absurd theatre is a movement, specially, of the fifties and sixties. Then, “Party Time” (1991) and, finally, “ Ashes to Ashes”( 1996) are, also, plays of the absurd theatre which follow the same structure than “ The Collection”, because the behaviour of the characters doesn´t change between one play and another.

Pinter wrote “ Party Time” and “The Collection” influenced by the society of his time, that is, a society reflected in the absurd theatre.

All them are based in the contemporary time, the same time that the author : the first half of the 20th century; the author uses the same expressions in each play, for example: “ I mean”, “ Clenches his fist”( in “Ashes to Ashes” and “Party Time”), etc; the evolution in the three plays is the same: the characters talk between them about a lot of things and the most are absurd conversations (like the examples we have seen ) in the three plays is established a human relationship and violence; the ends have the same structure: they are odd and are found in situations as absurd as rare; between the characters is established as love (in the three plays there are a love story) as hate, also, there are a lot of discussions as between friends as between marriages, but also, there are pleasant conversations. Finally, I think these three plays are very entertaining because the absurd conversations are odd but , also, funny.