The
Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter- An Analysis
I believe that The Dumb Waiter, first performed in 1960, is a tragedy presented in a very modern absurd way. In The Dumb Waiter, nothing is ever accomplished through dialogue. This shows up in the pointless conversation and bickering that makes up the play. Free will is not used, except in unimportant decisions, that not only do not affect others, but also rarely have a significant effect on us. Most human interaction in day-to-day life accomplishes nothing more than passing time. Therefore when reading, or indeed watching the play we are overwhelmed by the futility of existence.Most conversation that occurs between Ben and Gus is pointless, and each character has trouble dealing with each other, and therefore, society. Thus the audience are forced to ponder society’s role in this.
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’
Phaedra’s Love By Sarah Kane- An Analysis
Sarah Kane’s play ‘Phaedra’s Love’ (1996) begins with detailed stage directions,
‘He sniffs…He feels a sneeze coming on and rubs his nose to stop it…It still irritates him’
The audience expects the mundane when the protagonist Hippolytus examines his socks,
He picks up another sock, examines it and discards it…He picks up another, examines it and decides it’s fine.’
Then we are shocked and slightly appalled when,
‘He puts his penis into his sock and masturbates until he comes without a flicker of pleasure’
We can tell that one of the plays purpose is to shock when soon after this outrageous start to the play, another taboo is brought up soon after, the subject of incest;
Doctor: ‘Does he have sex with you?’
Phaedra: ‘I’m his stepmother. We are royal.’
Doctor: ‘Are you in love with him?’
Phaedra: ‘We’re very close.’
The fast paced script gets more graphic as it continues,
Phaedra: There’s a thing between us, an awesome fucking thing, can you feel it? It burns…(I) Want to climb inside him work him out’
The play has six main characters, and most of the play examines the interaction between them, one of the most interesting is the contrast of Phaedras’s adoration and desire for Hippolytus and his indifference and dislike towards her,
Phaedra: ‘I love you’
Hippolytus: ‘ No’
Phaedra: ‘So much’
Hippolytus: ‘ Don’t even know me’
The protagonist is decribed as a, ‘heartless bastard’ several times yet we are intrigued by his savage yet apathetic response to everything, similar to the other characters in the play, we are repulsed by him but want to understand him. He is uncompromisingly immoral and this is thought provoking for the audience,
‘If there is a God, I’d like to look him in the face knowing I’d died as I’ve lived. In conscious sin’
His immoral and shocking attitude seems to spread to the other characters, characters that are expected to carry out a duty to uphold his morality, his step mother, and a priest who after trying to teach him to seek salvation, then performs oral sex on him.
As well as being shocking to the audience it seems to deliver the message that corruption is everywhere and morality is dying out and is futile. The play is littered with blasphemy and expletives,
‘Die, scum’
‘Royal Raping Bastard’
The dénouement is bitter and violent describing violently, first Theseus raping and killing his daughter and then Hippolytus’ death,
‘He cuts Hippolytus from groin to chest
Hippolytus’ bowels are torn out and thrown onto the fire
He is kicked and stoned and spat on’
The end when Hippolytus manages a smile at his own death is disturbing and vile and again makes us question the characters in the play and also ourselves.
If you’re glad I’ll be Frank by Tom Stoppard- An
Analysis
Tom Stoppard’s play (1969) has short concise scenes making the play itself fast paced. It is set in dull, everyday situations and focuses on the mundane and lonely aspects, the speaking clock and the telephone services,
‘UMP-dial the Test score
SUN- dial the weather
POP- dial a pop’
Yet this focus on pettiness is instantly lost in Gladys’ monologue,
‘They think that time is something they invented…
So that they’d know
how long they lasted,
And pretend that it matters’
Her monologue adopts an air of sadness and despair,
‘Dizziness spirals up between
my stomach and my head
corkscrewing out the stopper
But I’m empty anyway
I was emptied long ago’
Gladys’s lilting melancholic monologues make a great contrast with Frank’s anxious, almost farcical search to find his wife, the speaking clock. Then almost as if the hysteria is catching, Gladys’ monologues change from serene and wistful to nervous and nonsensical,
‘Gentlemen, the jig is up-I have given you tears…
And now the First Lord!-
Don’t lose your heads while all about you on the burning deck…
Oh-Frank! Help me!...
The play becomes more farcical as it seems that Gladys is kept being the speaking clock against her will,
‘Then they’ll have to let me go
They’ll have to
Because Frank knows I’m here’
At the end of the play Frank’s quest seems futile, as we are told that the speaking clock is a machine not his wife, something that the audience could accept as it seems the most logical explanation.
However, the play does not end logically, and the audience again question reality as it is comfirmed that Gladys is the speaking clock, surely a metaphor for society being trapped, rigid with no freedom to move, grow and certainly not to stop time.
Saved- By Edward Bond- An Analysis
In Edward’s Bond’s play ‘Saved’ (1965) the imaginary fourth wall has indeed been lifted and the character’s Len and Pam instantly are the centre of attention against the purposely, ‘bare’ and ‘empty’ stage.
Edward Bond’s
created character’s who are not instantly likeable, with their broad south
Len: O Yer all right?Come over ‘ ere.
Pam: In a minit.
Len: Wass yer name?
Pam: Yer ain’ arf nosey.
Considering Pam has invited Len over for what we assume is sex, this line is comical for the audience.
As the characters indulge in crude jokes and sexual banter, we see a relationship of some kind developing. In Scene Two it appears that the couple are living together;
Len: She ever let on?
Pam: ‘Bout us?
Len: Yeh
Pam: No
Len: She don’ mind?
Pam: Don’t ave to. Your money comes in ‘andy.
In the third scene we follow Len with his workmates and find out that Pam is pregnant and that they’re going to get married,
Len: Getting’ ready
Barry: ‘Oo with?
Len: We’re waiting-
Colin: Pull the other one!
Mike: What for?
Pete: Till she drops ‘er nipper.
Colin: Else it looks bad goin’ up the aisle.
The play is mostly a commentary on working class domestic life, the scenes are mostly set in the living room, where the characters eat, chat and bicker;
Pam: ‘Is last servant died a over-work.
Len: I ain’ finished this, nosey.
Mary: Why don’t yer shut that kid up.
Pam: I can’t.
Mary: Yer don’t try.
The play is naturalistic, we can understand and emphasise with the characters and their situations. However, Edward Bond also shows us the sides of life and people that is disturbing, when Barry, Colin and Mike taunt and torture a baby,
Pete: Smother ‘em
Barry: Yeh. That’d be somethin’
Colin: Looks like a yeller- nigger
After this unsettling violence, the play ends silently, almost apologetically,
‘Mary sits. Pam Sits.
Harry licks the flap on the envelope and closes it quietly
The curtain falls quickly’
Waiting for Godot- An Analysis
Although Beckett’s existentialist play ‘Waiting for Godot’ (1952) superficially appears to lack plot and therefore perhaps purpose, it is in fact challenging and thought provoking, encouraging the audience to question the purpose of struggle and perhaps existence. Various political and religious interpretations of this seemingly bleak and desolate play indicate the importance of the individual in interpreting this complex play. In my opinion the play’s main theme is the juxtaposition between the acceptance of the seemingly hopeless struggle of existence, ‘Nothing can be done…One is what one is…No use wriggling…the essential doesn’t change’[1]; and the quest for hope represented in the quest to wait for Godot, ‘What do we do now that we're happy . . . go on waiting’. The message of the play is that 'there are no answers, and even the questions are pointless'
Act one is spent
with the two tramps Estragon and
ESTRAGON: He should be here.
ESTRAGON: And if he doesn't come?
ESTRAGON: And then the day after tomorrow.
ESTRAGON: And so on.
ESTRAGON: Until he comes.
Then the action changes slightly when two new characters arrive, Pozzo a fearful master and Lucky his servant who he treats like an animal,
POZZO:
You're being spoken to, pig! Reply! (To Estragon.) Try him again.
Lucky who is treated as a subhuman savage then, towards the end of Act one recites a lyrical, absurd monologue with no punctuation and a nonsensical content;
LUCKY:
Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire….
This shocks us, but at the same time ultimately has no meaning, similar to the play. The play does not seem to want to instruct, it does not teach us anything, it entertains but is thought provoking rather than humourous or dramatic. A play about waiting for something unknown is challenging and intriguing, so perhaps it is not necessary to know its true purpose.
Look Back in Anger- by John Osbourne- An Analysis
Osbournes main theme in ‘Look back in Anger’( 1957) seems to be disillusionment at the state of society. The press release for the play called the twenty-six-year-old Osborne "an angry young man"; when the play became a hit, the phrase stuck as a label for an under-thirty, post-war generation which felt cynical and disenfranchised.
The play takes place over a stretch of time encompassing several month, we therefore follow the life of Jimmy Porter as it develops. As the play starts we are given detailed stage directions,
‘Down R. below the bed is a heavy chest of drawers, covered with books,neckties and odds and ends, including a large, tattered toy teddy bear and soft woolly squirrel’
This attention to detail is important as we can see that this is a naturalistic play, where the fourth wall is removed for the audience to be let into the action. The play starts with tension between two characters, Cliff and Jimmy,
Jimmy: You’re too ignorant
Cliff: Yes, and uneducated. Now shut up, will you?...(Kicking out at him from behind his paper)Leave her alone, I said
Jimmy: Do that again, you Welsh ruffian, and I’ll pull your ears off. ( He bangs Cliff’s paper out of his hands)
Jimmy is described in the stage directions as, ‘alienating love’ and he has strong opinions and speaks fervently,
‘Besides he’s a patriot and an Englishman and he doesn’t like the idea that he may have been selling out his countryman all these years, so what does he do? The only thing he can do-seek sanctuary in his own stupidity’
We see that even Alison, his wife is scared of him, scared to tell him she is pregnant,
‘ He’d feel hoaxed, as if I were trying to kill him in the worst way of all. He’d watch me growing bigger every day, and I wouldn’t dare to look at him’
Act two is set two weeks later, and as Alison is talking to Helena, we see another theme in the play of love slipping away, seen in the analogy of the games the couple used to play when they were in love with toy bears and squirrels,
‘ And now, even they are dead, poor little silly animals. They were all love and no brains.’
Another issue highlighted in the play is the difference in class and the problems caused by it, Jimmy was thought of as lower class with his dinner suit covered in oil and unsuitable for Alison by her parents. This tension and feeling of inadequacy is clear in the play. It seems that the separation in class ultimately ended in the separation of the pair as Alison packs to leave to go back home
The presence of
‘ She slaps his
face savagely. An expression of horror and disbelief floods his face. But it
drains away, and all that is left is pain. His hand goes up to his head, and a
muffled cry of despair escapes him.
In Act three, it
appears
‘Helena is standing down L leaning over the ironing board, a small pile of clothes beside her…she wears an old shirt of jimmy’s’
After Helena and
Jimmy seem to be happy together,
As Jimmy says it seems like everyone,
‘ want(s) to escape from the pain of being alive. And, most of all, from love’
Yet Jimmy himself seems to be fighting everyone and not saving himself,
‘The injustice of it is almost perfect! The wrong people going hungry, the wrong people being loved, the wrong people dying!’
Yet the dénouement of the play is hopeful, with Alison and Jimmy together, and comforted in their own world of the fantastical, where one can be squirrels and bears and not worry about the world,
Jimmy: And you’ll keep those big eyes on my fur, and help me keep my claws in order, because I’m a bit of a soppy, scruffy sort of bear’
Alison: Oh poor, poor bears!
The Kitchen by
In this
essay I will analyse, Wesker’s ‘The Kitchen’(1959) I believe that although it
features the frustrations of life, is also about dreams for a better life. Wesker
refused catergorisation in his work; he purposefully went against what the
audience or society expected of him. Wesker despite refusing to be pigeonholed
as a advocate of the genre, was a
respected artist of kitchen-sink drama. The expression “kitchen-sink drama” was
coined to describe those new plays which had qualities of vivid, raw
authenticity presented in a more or less working-class setting. In this
theatrical setting, people lived lives on stage which were recognisble to the
way that many members of their audience lived their lives at home, therefore
making the theatre more accessible and not, as in the past, mainly for the
elite of society.
As a
prelude to the start of the play, Wesker, although he apologises for it,
provided a long in depth character study and description of his idea of the
play for the producer. The amount of detail and description shows that Wesker
has a clear vision of how he wants his play to be.
We are
introduced to the character Peter, by the gossip that surrounds him,
Raymond:
‘Now he’s a silly boy, eh?’
Anne:
‘Ah the boy’s in love’
Peter,
the protagonist in the play is described in the stage directions as,
‘boisterous, aggressive…living on his nerves’. Throughout the play we see
conflict bubbling between the characters,
Peter:
Hey Gaston, I’m sorry-your black eye, I’m sorry about it
Gaston…You
sorry because half a dozen Cypriot boys make you feel sorry-but we not finished
yet!
In the
play we see the contrast between Peter, who creates problems between the staff,
with hints of violent and, the Peter who has strong feelings for Monique, which
also creates tension and an uncomfortable atmosphere,
Peter:
(following her like the pathetic, jealous lover) And remember you’re hostess
today, I can see you in the glass. No flirting, do you hear? (Grips her arm)No
flirting.
As his
obsessive behaviour increases, the kitchen, usually a hive of chaos becomes
unbearable for the characters, and uncomfortable for the audience. The tense
atmosphere is emphasized by the fast pace of the script when, the characters
shout orders at each other, hurriedly and anxiously, creating a frenzied
atmosphere;
Daphne (To
Anne): Two coffees.
Peter:
Three cod, four cod.
Jackie
( To Anne) Three coffees.
Violet:
Oh God, God, God, I can’t, I can’t.
There
are lots of pointed remarks about the differences between the staff’s
nationalities, creating a disharmonious atmosphere,
Peter:
‘Hey Irishman, I thought you didn’t like this place. Why don’t you go home and
sleep?’
…Violet:
‘You Boche you. You bloody German bastard!’
Yet
despite the overwrought atmosphere, there is still hope in the play, reflected
in the characters dreams and aspirations,
Paul:
‘So that’s what I dream. I dream of a friend’
However
dreams in the play also have sinister undertones, when Monica dreams of splattered
blood it is ominous, as having enough of not having his love returned, despite
the fact a baby might be involved, Peter transforms into a mad man, destroying
the kitchen, his life, his base as he could not have his love.
The
play ends with distressed questioning, ‘What is there more?. Peter’s actions
have shattered the world of the others and this perhaps is also a question
concerning the meaning of life; what
more is there to life than work, money and food? Yet it seems, for Peter and
perhaps Wesker is showing, the kitchen of life, contains more than that, it
contains distrust, hatred, love, obsession, fear, hope and dreams.
Ashes to Ashes- By Harold Pinter
– Analysis
The play Ashes to Ashes (1996) seems to centre around duality, there are
only two characters in the play, Devlin and Rebecca, the stage directions,
‘Two armchairs. Two lamps’
seem to suggest the idea that the stage action exists solely around these
two characters, however this proves to be false as the conversation centres
around a mysterious man who seems to turn an innocent conversation into
something much more sinister.
The play starts in silence, I think this is significant as there is no
immediate drama, it is important therefore to take in the setting and the
atmosphere created. I believe this also indicates that what is unspoken is
important and significant in this play. Then a conversation is started, a
conversation that consists of the play, which rises in tension until Rebecca is
left, her companion as such an echo to speak to.
The subject matter of the play, is Rebecca describing an man with whom
she had an erotic, but dangerous and disturbing relationship with,
Rebecca: ‘I said, ‘Put your hand round my throat’…He did…He adored me,
you see. He put a little…pressure…on my
throat, yes’.
Yet it is obvious that this violence is still sexually exciting for
Rebecca, and perhapsDevlin,
Devlin: You legs were opening?
Rebecca: Yes
The play consists of lots of questions as well as repetition, which has
the effect of almost searching for something but returning unanswered when the
question is repeated,
Devlin: Me a fuckpig? Me! You must be joking.
Rebecca: Me joking? You must be joking.
As Devlin desires to have his questions answered, wants to know more
information, we also emphasise with him, Devlin’s questions are a tool to find
out more about this unexplained man. When Rebecca forgets the question that
Devlin asks concerning her lover’s job it creates more urgency as Devlin
repeats himself more fervently,
Rebecca: ‘His job took him away. He had a job’
Devlin: ‘ What was it?
Rebecca: ‘What?’
Devlin: ‘What kind of job was it? What job?’
As Devlin’s questions become more precise,
‘What do you mean, a kind of factory? Was it a factory or wasn’t it? And
if it was a factory, what kind of factory was it?
Rebecca becomes more wistful and vague, as if she is drifting away from
reality. Her answers become more and more separated from the questions, and
more nonsensical and absurd,
‘This pen, this perfectly innocent pen…A pen has no parents’
As Rebecca makes less sense, Devlin’s questions seem more laced with
menace,
‘I’m letting you off the hook. Have you noticed? I’m letting you slip. Or
perhaps it’s me who’s slipping. It’s dangerous. Do you notice? I’m in
quicksand.’
The word ‘hook’ is harsh and cutting and the fact he mentions he is
sinking into dangerousness is ominous of the fate that is in store for Rebecca.
After Devlin, mimics the threatening and alarming behaviour of her
lover, this creates shock and disgust for the audience, although perhaps Pinter
had put suggestions in our mind that this fate was not completely surprising.
After the enigmatic yet unsettling,
‘They are still’, Rebecca continues her conversation with an echo,
either herself or perhaps Devlin echoing her words. During this absurd
monologue, Rebecca deteriorates into confusion and fearfulness. As the audience
we are left with more questions, about a mysterious baby, a lover, and the
character of Devlin.
The Real Inspector Hound- By Tom
Stoppard- Analysis
‘The Real Inspector Hound’ was first performed in 1968. The play is a comic spoof of the whodunits popularized by Agatha Christie, with the clichéd plot of a secluded English country manor house, ominous radio reports of a criminal on the loose, visitors behaving suspiciously, a relative with a shady past and an unidentified dead body. Constructed as a play-within-a-play, ‘The Real Inspector Hound’ opens with two competing theatre critics, Moon and Birdboot, ready to review the latest mystery. In time, both find themselves literally drawn into the comedy, playing roles leading to the climax of the plot when the murderer’s identity is revealed to all.
In this play there is a relationship between the ‘reader’ and the text’, as well as the audience being a reader, characters in the play Moon and Birdboot are also readers. Therefore the intertextuality and the fact that the play is a parody of another genre of theatre, is an important aspect of the play. Due to the fact that the play is a play- within a play, a constructed reality, it is farcical and has aspects of the absurd in its action.
As Moon and Birdboot, are critics, Stoppard encourages the audience to be critics as well, and to laugh at ourselves as well as the parody. He demands an alert audience. In Stoppard’s plays, they are events rather than texts; written to happen, not to be read. As is famous of the whodunit genre, the audience have to expect the unexpected. The audience are forced to participate, but have to keep reinterpreting what they see as they watch the events on stage. As in the card-playing dialogue half-way through the play, nearly every line is capable of two interpretations. Cynthia Muldoon and her younger guest, Felicity, spar over Simon’s attention:
Cynthis: Did I hear you say you saw Felicity last night, Simon?
Simon: Did I? - Ah yes, yes, quite - your turn, Felicity.
Felicity: I’ve had my turn, haven’t I Simon? Now, it seems, it’s Cynthia’s turn.
Cynthis: That’s my trick, Felicity dear.
Stoppard accentuates the melodramatic elements of crime fiction. The action is full of improbabilities, the most comical being that the corpse remains undiscovered at the feet of the actors for more than half the play’s length.
As Stoppard encourages the audience to laugh at themselves, he sets an example, while making a statement about humanity’s irresistible urge to role-play, he makes fun of himself;
Moon: ‘Within the austere framework of what is seen to be on one level a country-house weekend.....the author has given us - yes, I will go so far - he has given us the human condition’
Birdboot and Moon are at first in the role of spectators, absent from the action on the stage. When Moon cannot resist answering the phone ringing on the empty stage with a call from Birdboot’s wife , Birdboot enters into the action commenting on it in his exchanges with Moon,
Cynthia: ‘Don’t- I love Albert!’
Birdboot: ‘He’s dead.(Shaking her) Do you understand me-Albert’s dead!’
Cynthia: ‘No- I’ll never give up hope!Let me go!We are not free!’
Birdboot: ‘You mean Myrtle?She means nothing to me- nothing!’
Moon: ‘Have you taken leave of your tiny mind?’
The plot is revealed to be not just about the country house guests, but also about the rivalry among theatre critics, and Birdboot’s infatuations with actresses, revealed in the opening scenes. The second body is that of the famous first-string critic, Higgs, an absent presence in the conversations of Birdboot and Moon from the beginning;
Birdboot: ‘I tell you it’s Higgs…I don’t understand…He’s dead.
Moon: He must have been lying there all the time…
Moon too leaps on stage when his colleague is shot, both led into a presence in the dramatic action which leads inevitably to their deaths;
( There is a shot and Birdboot falls dead)
Moon: Birdboot! (He runs on, to Birdboot’s body)
Cynthia: Oh my God- What happened, Inspector?
Moon: (almost to himself) He’s dead…Who did this, and why?
The play ends with Moon’s death, yet the play’s ending, as with the whole play is humourous,
Moon: ( with a trace of admiration) Puckeridge…you cunning bastard.
(Moon dies)
It is with this flamboyant, melodramatic ending that this farce ends similarly. The play’s aim is to entertain and I believe that it succeeds in its aim.