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

Author: Harold Pinter

Play: Party Time

Subtitle: N/A

Publisher: Faber and faber

This play was first performed was in 1991 at the Almeidra Theatre, London.

Despite the existence of several characters, one should define one profile, one same pattern for all of them, because they are like the different facets of the same diamond. Thus, the major picture of all them (excluding Jimmy) is the kind of person who wants to leave the problems outside the main entrance (except Dusty in this case) and to have first class services, without caring about the feelings, as happens with Melissa when she says she couldn’t stand half of her friends after saying they were her dearest friends, or when Douglas says his relationship with Liz has survived because of all the work she has done while he was outside travelling, not due to the love they feel of the other. We can see the consequences of not caring about the feelings, for example, with the way the relationship between Terry and Dusty goes, the common idea of the men having to control their wives, and how Liz falls in love with other man in spite of his being married with Douglas.

Then, we have Jimmy, who cannot be named at the party, who sucks the dark, who only appears when the others are “hidden” or “inactive”. In my opinion, this should be taken as a metaphor. And one explanation one could give to it, based on the fact that he cannot be a theme of conversation, and that problems of the everyday life should be left outside the party, we can match the problems that make one wonder if she or he has been acting correctly or should change her or his way of being.

The plot of the play is quite easy, it is only a party, a high class party when everyone wants to avoid to face problems and, as part of the high society they are, they want to control and change their country. This is clearly said in a conversation between Douglas and Fred:

“Fred: How’s it going tonight?

Douglas: Like clockwork. Look. Let me tell you something. We want peace. We want peace and we’re going to get it.

Fred: Quite right.

Douglas: We want peace and we’re going to get it. But we want that peace to be cast iron. No leaks. No draughts. Cast iron. Tight as a drum. That’s the kind of peace we want and that’s the kind of peace we’re going to get. A cast-iron peace.”(292-293)

At the ending of the play, the most important part of the plot happens, because then Jimmy appears and explains, in a way, about what was it all.

Finally, we can stress no important time and vaguely talk about the place. It is not where they were but what was going on at the place they were in. It was a party, as I have mentioned before, a party of high class people caring only about materialistic issues.