Harold
Pinter: “The Dumb Waiter”, tragedy in an act, ed. Faber and Faber,London,1960
The basic aspect in which we, as readers or spectators, must analyse “The Dumb Waiter” is the enclosed space, a rented basement in which two characters, Gus and Ben, keep in an only act, a long and sometimes absurd conversation while they’re waiting for a called to do a job (pag.131: Gus: “I hope it won’t be a long job, this one”.; pag.135: Ben: “We’re not staying long....We’ll be on the job in a minute”.)
The play begins with the specific description of this place (pag.129: A basement room. Two beds, flat against the back wall. A serving hatch ,closed, between the beds...”.)
So, we are, from the beginning of the play, guided to
feel claustrophobia, uncomfortable and oppressive
sensations in a similar way as GUS when he says in pags.133-134: “I
wouldn’t like to live in this dump. I wouldn’t mind if you had a window,
you could see what it looked like outside...; Well, I like to have a bit of a view, Ben. It whiles away the
time”; in pag.134: “Don’t you ever get a bit fed up?”; in pag.135: “...this
place. It’s worse than the last one”; in pag.153: “the sooner we’re out of this place the
better”; or when he makes a
comparison or similarity and connects the “bright sheets” of his bed
with the “liberty” as a way to can feel oneself well
(pag.136).
I would say that the dump
means the oppressive life
that the characters are living and the window
and the view mean the liberty
that they need to go out of this kind of life.
BEN adopts a tense, exasperating, furious and angry attitude in this enclosed space.
He’s a character with a strong and irritable personality (pag.141: Slapping his hand;
powerfully; “If I say go and light the kettle I mean go and light the kettle”;
menacing;
pag.142: “senior
partner”.
pag.162: “We’ve got nothing left! Nothing! Do you understand?”) while GUS is a character without
interests (pag.134: Ben: “...Tell
me one of your interests”. Gus: “I don’t know”) and with a dim and insecure personality because he’s always
asking something to Ben( pags.138, 141, 142...) well as a kind of tag or as a
custom. (pag.143: Ben: “You never
used to ask me so many damn questions...”)
The relationship between Ben and Gus is a job’s
relationship. They’re mates, but they have always a especial job because they are
waiting for a called to do a murder (pag.140: ...revolver from under the
pillow..).
The dialogue between them is sometimes unpredictable because of the characters don’t have another thing to do and they’re talking about everything without links between it (pags.131-132: when they’re talking about the events in a newspaper; pag133: when they’re talking about football; pag141: when they discuss about “light the kettle”). This kind of dialogues produce absurd situations.
Another interesting aspect is the way how they’re communicating
with the exterior. It’s through a serving
hatch which, in a moment of the play, it’s compared with a “dumb waiter”, two words that are the tittle
of the play. It’s a absurd way of communicate oneself that
keep the intrigue. It’s also because of the word “dumb”.
The intrigue is kept
from the beginning to the end of the play. Ben and Gus are talking always doing reference to
someone who has to call them.
When
the call is done, however, the author doesn’t solve the argument. The person
who enters finally by the door, supposedly to be assasinated, is one of them,
Gus. The
play finishes with the two characters looking at each other. (pags.132 and 138: Gus: “What time is he
getting in touch?”; pag.135: Gus: “He doesn’t seem to bother
much...”) and when “The whistle in the speaking-tube blows”
(pag.164) , “The door right opens sharply”(pag.165), Gus “stumbles
in” and “They stare each other”.
OPINION
This play of theatre has been a little difficult to understand for me.
At first I have had to read slowly several times some of the different situations because I didn’t understand the scene, however, later, I think that they’re precisely the absurd situations which we don’t need to understand.
I have also felt some of oppression reading how the characters go and come in the described enclosed space.