Context Flashcards
First run of TBP
1958 - taken off after only one week
Contemporary reviews were filled with…
‘a baffled anger at Pinter’s failure to explain himself’ (Michael Billington)
Which character has Pinter played on stage and in film?
Goldberg
The Room
1957
Explores notions of privacy being invaded and threats that ensue
The play exists within an oppressive architectural structure, much like in TBP, during which the set remains static
Use of claustrophobic stage spaces to reflect the entrapment of the characters
The Dumb Waiter
1960
Often linked with TBP due to the similar shift from comedy to menace or absurdist theatre to horror
Ends at the moment of climax – with ‘A long silence’ – ending holds no meaning or answers
The Dumb Waiter
1960
Often linked with TBP due to the similar shift from comedy to menace or absurdist theatre to horror
Ends at the moment of climax – with ‘A long silence’ – ending holds no meaning or answers
Pinter’s use of newspapers
Idea of newspapers and magazines as being a connection to society
Meg in TBP - form of entertainment
McCann in TBP - represents the destruction of society
Ben in The Dumb Waiter - protective over his newspaper
Rose in The Room - reads magazines
Emergence of kitchen sink drama
In 50s and 60s
Disillusionment of young people in the post-war war
Kafka
‘The Trial’ (1925) - both involve men who are arrested on their birthday day by two individuals who represents the shadowy force of the establishment
How old was Pinter when he read ‘The Trial’?
18
Impact of WWII
Raised awareness and understanding of worldwide horror (hydrogen bombs and concentration camps)
Resulted in around 60 million deaths
Malcolm Bradbury and post-modernism
‘existential anguish of the early post-war world’
Existentialism
French novelist and dramatist Albert Camus – ‘in a universe suddenly deprived of illusions and of light, man feels a stranger’
Meaningless and purposeless nature of existence
‘Dead centre’
The lack of meaning and understanding seems to have no purpose other than to represent that existentialist ‘dead centre’ that humanity had found itself in following WWII
Creation of the Welfare State
1945 - threw up questions regarding the duty of society to protect the vulnerable
Impact of the Cold War
TBP as a post-nuclear play – no physical violence is seen but there is an ever-present sense of anxiety
Absurdism
Prominent theatrical movement which rejected conventional dramatic structures and aw the world from an existentialist perspective
Waiting for Godot
By Samuel Beckett
First premiered in London in 1955
Presented all human action as pointless, uses similar techniques of repetition and sparse dialogue
Modernism/breakdown of society
Breakdown of the grand structures – church numbers decreasing, rising interest in psychology and the individual
Deconstructive Theory
A critique of the relationship between text and meaning
Links with the unreliability of language and the failures to communicate in the play – Pinter offers no guide towards objective truth because there is no truth to be directed towards
TBP as a representation of Pinter’s own political and social anxiety
Fear as a conscientious objector during WWII regarding ‘two people knocking at the door’ which he claimed had become ‘more and more actual in our lives’
Einstein and time
Idea that all time is eternally present (past and future are simultaneously existing)
Pre-occupation with time and memory in TBP as a consequence of scientific inquiry and interest in time travel
Henri Bergson
Philosopher who influenced the modernist movement
Stated that the human experience of time was subjective and, in some cases, wildly different to ‘scientific time’
Symbolism of Stanley’s glasses
McCann - ‘I’ll take your glasses’
A nod, perhaps, to the horrifying games played in William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’ (1954) in which Piggy’s glasses are broken
Greek tragedy
Deaths and violence took place off stage - much like the audience assumes happens in TBP (torture session between the party and the morning in Act III)
Meg and gender roles
Seems unaffected by the post WWII reassignment of gender roles - instead tried to weaponise conventional ideas of femininity in an attempt to control the other characters
She is almost a caricature of a domesticated woman - slavishly subscribes to the patriarchy throughout the play
McCann’s questions during the interrogation are specific and sinister, chiming with…
Contemporary Cold War fears regarding atomic bombs and authoritative states
Culture of revisionism and denial
Events in the public consciousness which are too terrible to discuss - Holocaust and atomic bombs - links to how the characters revise and weaponise their own pasts
