Author: Harold Pinter
Title: The dumb waiter
Editorial: Faber and Faber
Year and place published:1957, London
The Dumb Waiter, the theatre’s play of the dramaturge Harold Pinter, was
represented by the first time in the
Hampstead Theatre Club in January of 1960. it was driected by James
Roose-Evans.
In this play there are only two characters: Ben and Gus. Two impacient
and paranoiac murderers who are waiting for making a crime in a room of a hotel
in Birmingham. Ben seems the boss of the operation, as he leads Gus’ movements.
Moreover, Ben considers Gus as a lazyboy, without occupations and without
distractions. However, Ben considers himself as a busy man. Gus is always
asking all and he is a bit repetitive. His way of answering, of acting,...
denotes a lower level of professionality.
There is other character who doesn’t appear in the play. He is the boss
of Gus and Ben, Wilson.
Gus and Ben are two killers that are in a room of a house waiting to
kill their next victim.
They try to pass the time speaking, trying to comunicate each other, but
this comunication is not possible. They are bored, the ambient becomes tense by
moments, despite the short duration that the characters are playing, the closed
room without natural lights, the noise of the elevator, the continuous
questions of Gus... cause a dark ambient and closed.
Suddenly the dumb waiter that is in the room starts and inside it there
are notes with orders. They try to answer it, but they can’t.
In the end Gus left the room, and Ben has the order to killing the first
person who enters in the room, and this one is Gus.
The space in this play is a closed space, a claustrophobic space. The
play happens in a basement room, with two beds and a serving hatch, closed,
between the beds. In the right there is a door which communicates with the
corridor. In the room there is a elevator which communicates with the kitchen.
All the play happens in the same space, there isno change in the space,
as usual in Harold Pinters plays.
The play is not divided in acts, it’s a short play.
We don’t know when the play is placed but we can deduce that in the
present, more or less.
There are no hops in the time, and the time represented has correspondence
with the real time.
There are very important in this play the silences, the long silences.
The play is written in prose, and the language is very colloquial and simple,
because the characters belong to the low class.
I like this play very much. Is the only one of Pinter’s plays that I
liked. This play has something in common with ‘Waiting for Godot’ of Samuel
Beckett. The characters, with their character, seem to be the same and in both
plays they are waiting for something or someone which/who give them a
sign. This Beckett play I love it, so
this play I like too, but I prefer Waiting for Godot, in my opinion, it is more
interesting, and the characters are more worked than Pinter’ play.
It’s easy to understand, something strange in Pinter’s plays.