Subject: # 14227 Teatro Inglés Siglos XIX y XX Grupo A

Author: Arnold Wesker

Play: The Kitchen

Subtitle: A play in two parts with an interlude

Publisher: not available

This version was first represented in 1961 in London.

This play has many characters, but the main characters are Peter and Kevin. These characters share nothing but the fact that they are working at the same place and suffering the same conditions, but facing them up from different viewpoints. Peter is the experienced german young man, the one who wants to keep working there, hoping for an external agent or an event to change his life, while Kevin is the irish newcomer to that restaurant who gets fed up the first day and wants to quit that way of working. Another interesting feature of Kevin is that he is quite religious, he has a painting of the Virgin and he is constantly saying religious expressions.

The main plot of this story is the daily life of a very busy kitchen composed of employees working in bad conditions, each of them coming from different backgrounds, which results in many little arguments conveying a little message in each case. The plot shows us how pernicious such conditions are to everybody and the fact that people in such situations choose to evade themselves with either dreams or games, not assuming they can change their lives. The play ends showing up how the mistakes in the behaviour of some of them can end up in a disaster, like the tense situation of the end of the play and the paranoid attitude of Marango.

The space where the play takes place is a very busy kitchen representing the accelerated life people carry. The never ending murmur that prevails in the scenery also reflects common life.

Academic year 2005/2006
© a.r.e.a./Dr. Vicente Forés López
© Pablo Cristóbal Borillo
pacrisbo@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press