In
‘Party Time’ was first performed in 1991, the play is set during a dinner
party, with a bourgeois crowd. Yet Pinter juxtaposes civil conversation,
‘Are
you enjoying the Party…Best Party I’ve been to in years’
with coarse and inappropriate prose;
‘We
could suffocate every single one of you at a given signal or we could shove a
broomstick up each individual arse at another’.
Such violent outbursts are ignored as the bourgeois discuss their privileged existence.
As the shocking is ignored it is often what isn’t said, the pauses and the use of silences that become important to create an atmosphere;
Fred ( To Charlotte): ‘You married someone. I’ve forgotten who it was.’
Silence.
Silence.
In this play silence can also act as a subtle commentary of what has just been said, often it is more poignant than actual speech;
Terry: ‘The only thing she doesn’t like on boats is being fucked on boats. That’s what she doesn’t like.
Melissa: ‘That’s funny I thought everyone liked that’
Silence
The contrast between how people should act in that social situation and how they do is evident,
‘You come to a lovely party like this all you have to do is shut up and enjoy the hospitality and mind your own fucking business…You keep hearing all these things spread by pricks about pricks. What’s it got to do with you?’
The play circles around conversation instead of plot, and therefore the audience appreciate the conversation which is at once superficial and mundane and then vulgar and uncomfortable;
Liz: I think this is such a gorgeous party. Don’t you? I mean I just think its such a gorgeous party…I think it’s such fun…
‘I could have cut her throat that nymphomaniac slut’