Themes Flashcards
Bill Naismith on Pinter’s use of traditional children’s tales
‘the original bogeyman story…made real’
Irving Wardle on the conflicting genres in the play
‘comedy of menace’
Bill Naismith on Pinter’s subversion of the audience’s expectations
‘The language and action are in stark contrast to the surface naturalism and the conventional stage setting’
Harold Hobson on the sense of threat in the play
‘Mr Pinter has got hold of a primary fact of existence. We live on the verge of disaster’
Harold Hobson on the threat of the past
Pinter shows ‘there is something in your past – it does not matter what – which will catch up with you’
Peter Zadek on the mixing of genres
‘A mixture of Agatha Christie and Kafka’
P. Hope Wallace on the theatre of the Absurd
Pinter relies on ‘language device’ rather than more conventional ‘ritualistic visual devices’ to create the character of Absurdist theatre
Martin Esslin on the lack of explanation
‘a metaphor for the inexplicable uncertainties and mysteries of the human condition itself’
R.F. Storch on the lack of explanation
‘the irrationality is a major part of the meaning’
R.A. Buck on how the text compels the audience to search for answers
‘the language of the text demands that we participate in a probe for meaning’
Pinter on the past
‘We are faced with the immense difficulty, if not the impossibility, of verifying the past’
Michael Billington on the past
‘it is a private, obsessive work about time past; about some vanished world, either real or idealised’
R.F. Storch on the menace being intensified by the family setting
Emerges from ‘this all-enveloping cosiness, the family culture served up in a heavy syrup of sentimentality’
Martin Esslin on childhood
‘a metaphor for the process of growing up, of expulsion from the warm cosy world of childhood’
However - TBP actually sees Stanley regress into an overtly infantile state (giggling at the party, whilst potentially assaulting Lulu)
R.F. Storch on the oppressive nature of the family (2)
‘many-tentacled monster strangling its victim’
‘Pinter’s plays are largely about running away from certain family situations’
Lloyd Evans on the dramatic structure
‘It deconstructs the conventions of repertory thriller but doesn’t bother to reassemble them’
Paul Rodgers on the naturalistic elements of the play
Pinter ‘really writes about people. And the extraordinary way in which ordinary people’s minds work. Ordinary people don’t behave like people in a well-made play, where you follow one line of direction’ - Pinter does not care for the through line of action which propels most well-made plays
Bill Naismith on Pinter’s use of conventional theatrical techniques
‘What distinguishes Pinter is the extent to which he stylises all the most familiar conventions of the stage’
Pinter on structure
‘I can say I pay meticulous attention to the shape of things, from the shape of a sentence to the overall structure of the play’
Pinter on humour
‘the laughter goes out of any play I’ve written before it’s finished’
Pinter on speech
Speech is a ‘a constant stratagem to cover nakedness’
Pinter on silence (2)
‘I think that we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is left unsaid’
Silence means that ‘something has happened to create the impossibility of anyone speaking for a certain amount of time’
Pinter on pauses
Pauses are ‘not formal conveniences or stresses but part of the body of the action’
Light and darkness imagery in A View of the Party
‘And by morning Petey saw / The light begin to dim / (That daylight full of sun) / Though nothing could be done.’
Pinter on the pathway of meaning
‘Meaning begins in the words, in the action, continues in your head and ends nowhere’
Pinter on conclusive meaning
‘Meaning which is resolved, parcelled, labelled and ready for export is dead, impertinent – and meaningless’
Pinter on the need to explore
Below ‘the ambiguity of what they say lies a territory which…is compulsory to explore’ (speech in 1962)
Pinter’s writing process
Pinter’s writing as a process of ‘finding out’ about his characters and seeing where they lead him from his initial ideas – organic process rather than a planned one
Pinter on communication
‘Communication is a fearful matter’
Pinter on comedy and absurdity
‘The play is a comedy because the whole state of affairs is absurd and inglorious. It is however…a very serious piece of work’
Pinter on the visual nature of the play
The play ‘will possess a potent dramatic image and a great deal of this will be visual’
Two contrasting critical interpretations
- Socio-psychological – the play as a snapshot of the culture in which invaders can arrive
- Psychopathological – the play as a projection of Stanley’s paranoid mind
