Stephanie Gamarra January 10, 2006

Group: A

The Play

“Ashes to Ashes”

“Ashes to Ashes” was written by the famous playwright, Harold Pinter. This play was first published by the editorial Faber and Faber in 1996, London.

In this particular play there are only two characters: Devlin and Rebecca who aren’t described physically. Devlin is a man in his forties who throughout the whole play interrogates his wife about an affair she had a while back. He seems to feel betrayed by this but he doesn’t feel hurt about it. Rebecca is woman in her forties, who doesn’t seem to be in love with her husband. We can see this in cold attitude towards Devlin. We can also add that when she talks to Devlin it seems as though she is scared to talk clearly, and she talks about stuff that don’t have to do anything with the subject Devlin and her are talking about.

The play starts of with Rebecca telling Devlin about Rebecca’s former love affair. Devlin asks for Rebecca to give more details about her affair with her lover. Little by little we can situate ourselves when Rebecca was with her lover, although sometimes they start talking about other stuff that have nothing to do with the subject. As she tells Devlin about her former lover, some things change, for example Rebecca says that he was a travel guide and later says he was a boss in a factory. This makes as doubt if Rebecca is telling the truth or not. Rebecca her former lover had a lot of authority over her and was very capricious. She also tells her husband that she remembers him going up and down a platform where he would take babies from their mothers. At the end of the play, Rebecca then reveals that she also was one of those mothers who then went aboard a train.

The space, in which this play takes place, is in a simple and closed space. The whole play takes place in a house in the country. It is a ground-floor room with a large window and beyond a garden ( page 393). Although during the play, we are sent to Rebecca’s memories which take place in a room, a train, etc.

The play starts on an early summer evening and as the hours pass, the room darkens and the lamplight intensifies. This play takes place in the present and there’re no time ellipses, only the memories of the past the Rebecca has. Although it isn’t confirmed, when Rebecca talks about her former lover, she remembers him talking babies away from their mothers which refers when the Jewish were being deported to concentration camps.

The play is written in verse and the language used is quite simple and colloquial.

Other aspects that we can talk about are the economical and technical aspects in this play.

This play didn’t have a lot of objects or furniture which facilitates the production of this play with a very low cost. We can also add that since there were only two characters this made it less difficult to put the play together.

In my opinion, this play wasn’t that good due to the fact that there wasn’t any kind of argument or turning point in the play. The play was very simple and very easy to read. Another thing that I didn’t like was the character or Devlin, because he obliged Rebecca to give him more details about what happened. It seemed as though he was a detective interrogating a suspect.