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Harold Pinter Is the Pre-Eminent Stylist of Post-War British Theatre, And
Pinter and style by Harry Derbyshire Harold Pinter’s style is both impressive and contagious, and the dramatists who have emerged in his wake have often wrestled to free themselves from his influence, just as he himself has been periodically accused of self-parody. What was at first taken to be hyper-realistic or ‘tape-recorder’ dialogue, capturing the manifold hesitations, inaccuracies and repetitions of everyday speech, has become an ever-more recognisable mode of writing which maximises the allusive power of language while, often, denuding it of literal meaning. Pinter’s particular way with words is exemplified by his early revue sketches, as much exercises in style as studies in character, arguably the best of them being ‘Last to Go’. The sketch treats its audiences to a desultory conversation between the barman of an all-night coffee stall and his only customer, a newspaper seller who has recently packed up for the night. Their subject is which newspaper was the last to be sold: Man Yes, it was the ‘Evening News’ that was the last to go tonight. Barman Not always the last though, is it, though? Man No. Oh no. I mean sometimes it’s the ‘News’. Other times it’s one of the others. No way of telling beforehand. Until you’ve got your last one left, of course. Then you can tell which one it’s going to be. Barman Yes. Pause. Man Oh yes.[i] The pointlessness of the conversation is the point of the drama: the need for human contact, rather than any looked-for practical outcome, is what is driving the dialogue. -
Chapter 36 Harold Pinter: the Dramatist and His World
Chapter 36 Harold Pinter: The Dramatist and His World Background Nobel winner, Harold Pinter (1930- 2008) was born in London, England in a Jewish family. Some of the most recognizable features in his plays are the use of understatement, small talk, reticence , and silence. These devices are employed to convey the substance of a character’s thoughts. At the outbreak of World War II, Pinter was evacuated from the city to Cornwall; to be wrenched from his parents was a traumatic event for Pinter. He lived with 26 other boys in a castle on the coast. At the age of 14, he returned to London. "The condition of being bombed has never left me," Pinter later said. At school one of Pinter's main intellectual interests was English literature, particularly poetry. He also read works of Franz Kafka and Ernest Hemingway, and started writing poetry for little magazines in his teens. The seeds of rebellion in Pinter could be spotted early on when he refused to do the National Service. As a young man, he studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Central School of Speech and Drama, but soon left to undertake an acting career under the stage name David Baron. He travelled around Ireland in a Shakespearean company and spent years working in provincial repertory before deciding to turn his attention to playwriting. Pinter was married from 1956 to the actress Vivien Merchant. For a time, they lived in Notting Hill Gate in a slum. Eventually Pinter managed to borrow some money and move away. -
March 2009.Pmd
Number 157 March 2009 The newsletter of London Drama Two Primary Reviews for your diary There are currently for further learning two prestigious reviews at the secondary LONDON DRAMA of the Primary stage’ rather than by Courses & Workshops Curriculum going on at their intrinsic value.” the moment: The Wed 4 Mar; 7-9pm Cambridge Primary The Cambridge Voices in the Park (Primary) Review initiated by the report identifies University of Cambridge areas of at Central School in 2006 and led by convergence with Professor Robin the interim Rose * * * Alexander; and the report (like the need Government’s to regroup the Wed 11 Mar; 6.30-8.30pm Independent Review of primary curriculum Drama with EAL Students the Primary Curriculum into areas of study at Central School led by Sir Jim Rose. rather than Each report is due to traditional subjects) * * * be published this year. but also important differences which reflect the reviews’ Sat 14 Mar; 10-1.15pm Is there a difference between the contrasting remits, scope, Half Day Workshop: two reports, and if so, what is it? evidence and degrees of Hoipolloi & WebPlay According to the authors of the independence. The Cambridge at Unicorn Theatre Cambridge Review, the answer is review is rather less sanguine one of remit and focus: about the problems of the existing * * * primary curriculum, and does not “..there is a sense in which the exempt current policies from Thurs 19 Mar; 6.30-8.30pm very focused remit of Rose, and comment. It asks whether the Drama & SEN students (KS1/2) the number of matters which are Rose review is more about at Bloomsbury Theatre apparently to be taken as given, curriculum rearrangement than may encourage the view that the reform, with educational aims * * * two enquiries are incompatible – added after the event rather than though we hope not. -
Sundowning by Nessah Muthy
Sundowning by Nessah Muthy Betty . .Hazel Maycock Intrepid plays by fearless women since 1991 Teresa . Nadia Nadif Alyssa . Aasiya Shah Kali Theatre develops and tours ground breaking, Director . .Helena Bell thought provoking, contemporary theatre by women Writer . Nessah Muthy writers of South Asian descent. Designer . .Rajha Shakiry Lighting Designer . Pablo Fernandez Baz We seek out and nurture talented writers, bringing their experience and stories to audiences from all backgrounds to transform the theatre Sound Designer . .Dinah Mullen landscape and better reflect modern Britain. Video Designer . .Daniel Denton Sundowning Choreographer . Yarit Dor We have been championing women writers from a South Asian background for over twenty five years. We actively encourage our Production Manager . .Kate Jones by Nessah Muthy writers to reinvent the theatrical agenda and have gained a reputation Company Stage Manager . Charlotte R L Cooper for staging inspiring and provocative new theatre. Wardrobe Support . Alex Horner Our new Discovery and Festival Writer Development Programmes Kali Theatre encourage and support the creation of new work through writing Artistic Director . Helena Bell workshops, dramaturgical support and public readings. Executive Director . .Christopher Corner Administrator. Samia Djilli Publicist . Nancy Poole Find our more and join our mailing list at kalitheatre.co.uk Marketing . Reshmi Mayer Email us [email protected] Thanks to the staff of Plymouth Theatre Royal for all their support in creating this Like us facebook.com/kalitheatureUK production of Sundowning. Follow us @KaliTheatreUK Thanks to Pursued by a Bear who first commissioned Sundowning when under previous AD Helena Bell and in particular Julia Tymukas, Thomas Kell, Katharine Ives and Cathy Westbrooke who helped support early sharings. -
Muriel SPARK's the HOTHOUSE by the EAST RIVER
18 ZNUV 2018;58(1);18-30 Irena Księżopolska Akademia Finansów i Biznesu Vistula w Warszawie SPECTRAL REALITY: MURIEL SPARK’S THE HOTHOUSE BY THE EAST RIVER Summary The essay deals with the concept of the supernatural in Muriel Spark’s novel The Hothouse by the East River, in which all the major characters appear to be dead, while leading apparently comfortable lives. The essay will examine Spark’s paradigm of the mundane supernatural, that is, representation of absurd and impossible as quotidian elements of life. The enigma of the plot (the strange way in which Elsa’s shadow falls without obeying the rules of physics) is not solved by the end of the novel, but rather by-stepped by revealing a grander mystery, that of her otherworldly status. This peculiarity is of high importance for Spark, who is not interested in solution, but in the way people (or characters, to be more precise) react to mystery and attempt – often in vain – to solve it. But Spark’s novel also pushes the reader to realize that what s/he may assume to be irrelevant from the perspective of eter- nity – namely, our mundanely absurd life and the imperfect memory that tries to contain it – still very much matter and may not be dismissed or reduced to a mere footnote to the main text of divine design. Key words: Muriel Spark, postmodernism, supernatural, narrative, memory, absurd, ghost story. Spark’s riddles Muriel Spark’s fictions are usually examined through the prism of religion, since it was after her conversion to Catholicism that she began writing novels. -
The Hothouse HAROLD PINTER
CRÉATION The Hothouse HAROLD PINTER 20 21 GRAND THÉÂTRE › STUDIO 2 CRÉATION The Hothouse HAROLD PINTER WEDNESDAY 24, THURSDAY 25, FRIDAY 26, TUESDAY 30 & WEDNESDAY 31 MARCH & THURSDAY 1 & FRIDAY 2, TUESDAY 6, WEDNESDAY 7, FRIDAY 9 & SATURDAY 10 APRIL 2021 › 8PM WEDNESDAY 7 & SATURDAY 10 APRIL 2021 › 3PM SUNDAY 11 APRIL 2021 › 5PM – Running time 2h00 (no interval) – Introduction to the play by Janine Goedert 30 minutes before every performance (EN). – This performance contains stroboscopic lights. 3 GRAND THÉÂTRE › STUDIO 4 With Tubb Pol Belardi Lamb Danny Boland Miss Cutts Céline Camara Lobb Catherine Janke Lush Marie Jung Roote Dennis Kozeluh Gibbs Daron Yates & Georges Maikel (dance) – Directed by Anne Simon Set design Anouk Schiltz Costume design Virginia Ferreira Music & sound design Pol Belardi Lighting design Marc Thein Assistant director Sally Merres Make-up Joël Seiller – Wardrobe Manuela Giacometti Props Marko Mladjenovic – Production Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg 5 GRAND THÉÂTRE › STUDIO THE HOTHOUSE The Hothouse is a play about unchecked (state)-power and the decisions leaders make – spurious decisions that are potentially dangerous in the name for the preservation of a society. Somewhere in an authoritarian state. Former military Colonel Roote runs an institution where bureaucracy rules and the inmates are reduced to numbers. When one Christmas day, the cantankerous Colonel is confronted by a double crisis with the death of one inmate and the pregnancy of another, he finds himself increasingly cornered and sees the system he obeys so respectfully slip away. The Hothouse is a blackly comic portrait of the insidious corruption of power and demonstrates how far people will go to keep a system alive that is long condemned to fail. -
Full Casting Announced for Rose Theatre Kingston's
FULL CASTING ANNOUNCED FOR ROSE THEATRE KINGSTON’S CHRISTMAS SHOW ALICE IN WINTERLAND Rose Theatre Kingston presents Alice in Winterland Based on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll Adapted and directed by Ciaran McConville Music and lyrics by Eamonn O’Dwyer Set and Video Concept: Timothy Bird; Costume Designer: Peter Todd; Lighting Designer: Tim Mascall; Sound Designer: Leigh Davies; Design Consultant: David Farley; Design & Video Administrator: Hayley Egan; Video Designer: Dan Denton; Associate Video Designer: Letty Fox; Illustrator: Lucie Arnoux; Puppet Director: Yvonne Stone; Fight Director: Lyndall Grant; Choreographer: Jamie Neale; Voice Coach: Josh Mathieson; Casting Directors: Lucy Jenkins CDG & Sooki McShane CDG; Associate Director: Sarah Hayhurst; Children’s Casting: Liberty Buckland and Jody Ellen Robinson; Clowning Consultant: Stephen Sobal; Puppet Maker: Nick Ash Rose Theatre Kingston Thu 7 Dec – Sun 7 Jan 2018 Press Night: Fri 15 Dec 7pm The Rose is delighted to announce full casting for its Christmas show, Alice in Winterland, based on Lewis Carroll’s timeless books Alice Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Following the success of last year’s enchanting adaptation of The Wind in the Willows and 2015’s festive hit A Christmas Carol, Ciaran McConville returns to direct a cast of local young actors from the Rose Youth Theatre led by a team of professional actors including Daniel Goode (Father/Mad Hatter), Amanda Gordon (Cheshire Cat/Mother), Jonathan Andrew Hume (Blue Caterpillar/Knave), Tony Timberlake (White Knight/Isumbras) and Susannah van den Berg (Aunt Margaret/Queen of Hearts). The production opens on the Fri 15 Dec, with previews from Thu 7 Dec, and runs until Sun 7 Jan. -
The Hothouse and Dynamic Equilibrium in the Works of Harold Pinter
Ben Ferber The Hothouse and Dynamic Equilibrium in the Works of Harold Pinter I have no doubt that history will recognize Harold Pinter as one of the most influential dramatists of all time, a perennial inspiration for the way we look at modern theater. If other playwrights use characters and plots to put life under a microscope for audiences, Pinter hands them a kaleidoscope and says, “Have at it.” He crafts multifaceted plays that speak to the depth of his reality and teases and threatens his audience with dangerous truths. In No Man’s Land, Pinter has Hirst attack Spooner, who may or may not be his old friend: “This is outrageous! Who are you? What are you doing in my house?”1 Hirst then launches into a monologue beginning: “I might even show you my photograph album. You might even see a face in it which might remind you of your own, of what you once were.”2 Pinter never fully resolves Spooner’s identity, but the mens’ actions towards each other are perfectly clear: with exacting language and wit, Pinter has constructed a magnificent struggle between the two for power and identity. In 1958, early in his career, Pinter wrote The Hothouse, an incredibly funny play based on a traumatic personal experience as a lab rat at London’s Maudsley Hospital, proudly founded as a modern psychiatric institution, rather than an asylum. The story of The Hothouse, set in a mental hospital of some sort, is centered around the death of one patient, “6457,” and the unexplained pregnancy of another, “6459.” Details around both incidents are very murky, but varying amounts of culpability for both seem to fall on the institution’s leader, Roote, and his second-in- command, Gibbs. -
A Foucaldian Reading of Harold Pinter's Old Times
A FOUCALDIAN READING OF HAROLD PINTER’S OLD TIMES Yrd. Doç. Dr. İfakat Banu AKÇEŞME* Abstract This paper aims to examine the power struggle initiated for dominance, the possession of territory and love between the characters Deeley, Kate and Anna in Harold Pinter`s play Old Times in the light of Foucault`s theory on discourse, power, knowledge and resistance. It explains how the on-going battle is carried out through the production of discourses and counter-discourses, the fabrication of truth and knowledge and the reconstruction and deconstruction of past memories. The characters exert and resist the power by employing various strategies and maneuvers including subjugation, victimization and exploitation. Nevertheless, this is a battle with no ultimate winner and loser since power rapidly keeps changing hand, and the alliances formed by the characters against each other are constantly altering and redesigned. Key Words: Foucault, Discourse, Power, Knowledge, Resistance, Old Times HAROLD PINTER’IN ESKİ ZAMANLAR ADLI OYUNUNUN FOUCAULTCU SÖYLEM BAĞLAMINDA İNCELENMESİ Öz Bu çalışma Harold Pinter’in Eski Zamanlar adlı tiyatro eserinde karakterler Deeley, Kate ve Anna arasındaki sevgi ve mekana sahip olmak ve birbirleri üzerinde hakimiyet kurmak için yürütülen güç mücadelesini Foucault’nun söylem, güç, bilgi ve direnç üzerine olan teorisi ışığında ele almayı amaçlamaktadır. Karakterlerin bu mücadeleyi söylem ve karşı söylem üreterek, bilgi ve gerçeklik imal ederek ve geçmiş hatıraları bozup yeniden inşa ederek nasıl sürdürdükleri tartışılacaktır. Karakterler boyun eğdirme, istismar ve mağdur etmenin de dahil olduğu çeşitli manevralara ve stratejilere başvurarak hem güç uygulamakta hem de güce karşı koymaktadırlar. Ancak yine de karakterler arasındaki bu savaş, kazananı ve kaybedeni olmayan bir mücadeledir çünkü güç, oyunun sonuna kadar sürekli olarak el değiştirmekte ve karakterlerin birbirine karşı kurdukları ittifaklar sürekli değişerek yeniden dizayn edilmektedir. -
A Study of Certain Plays by Harold Pinter
COMEDY IN THE SEVENTIES: A STUDY OF CERTAIN PLAYS BY HAROLD PINTER Annette Louise Combrink A thesis submitted to the Facul ty of Arts, Potchefstroom University for Christian High er Education in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor Litterarum Promoter: Prof. J.A. Venter Potchefstroom November 1979 My grateful thanks to: My promoter for painstaking and valued guidance The staff of the Ferdinand Postma Library f o r their invaluable cheerful assistance My typist , Rina Kahl My colleagues Rita Ribbens and Rita Buitendag My l ong-suffering husband and children My parents and parents-in-law for their constant encouragement CONTENTS 1 A SURVEY OF PINTER CRITICISM 1 1.1 Pinter's critical reputation: 1 bewildering variety of critical responses to his work 1.1.1 Reviews: 1958 2 1.1. 2 Reviews: 1978 3 1.1.3 Continuing ambiguity of response 4 Large number of critical \;,arks: 5 indicative of the amount of interest shown Clich~s and commonplaces in 6 Pinter criticism 1.2 Categories of Pinter criticism 7 1. 2.1 Criticism dealing with his dramatic 7 language 1. 2. 2 Criticism dealing with the obscurity 14 and opacity of his work 1. 2. 3 Criticism based on myth and ritual 18 1. 2 . 4 Criticism based on. his Jewishness 20 1. 2. 5 Pinter's work evaluated as realism 22 1.2. 6 Pinter's work evaluated as Drama of 24 ~ the Absurd 1.2. 7 The defective morality of his work 28 1.2 .8 Pinter and comedy: a preliminary 29 exploration to indicate the incom= plete nature of criticism on this aspect of his work 1,3 Statement o f intention: outline of 45 the main fields of inquiry in this study 1.4 Justification of the choice of plays 46 for analysis 2 WHY COMEDY? 4 7 2.1 The validity of making generi c 47 distinctions 2.2 Comedy as a vision of Zife 48 2.3 The continuing usefulness of genre 50 distinctions in literary criticism 2.4 NeopoZoniaZism 52 2.4.1 Tragicomedy 52 2.4.2 Dark comedy and savage comedy 54 2.4 . -
Stephens Plays: 2: One Minute; Country Music; Motortown; Harper
Simon Stephens Plays: 2 One Minute, Country Music Motortown, Pornography, Sea Wall One Minute: ‘Set in London in the aftermath of the disappearance of an eleven-year-old girl, One Minute brings together the girl’s mother, an unreliable witness, a student/barmaid and two investigating officers . the writing cleverly suggests how much the characters would like to connect but never really can.’ Guardian Country Music ‘spotlights four fateful moments in the life of Jamie Carris, an engaging but violent south Londoner. The play unfolds in a series of tightly focused two-handers, set before, during and after the prison sentences he has served for glassing one man and for killing another.’ Independent Motortown: ‘Danny – a squaddie who has served in Basra – is bringing the war back home [to] an England where the “war on terror” has become a war waged using the tactics of the terrorists. It is also a place of dubious moralities, small-time arms dealers and middle-class swingers and anti-war protesters. A searingly honest play written with a deadly coiled energy.’ Guardian Pornography: ‘Set in July 2005, between the announcement that London had been awarded the Olympics and the July 7 bombings, it tells seven entwining stories, including the imagined story of one of the bombers journeying towards London to commit an act of terrorism.’ Guardian Sea Wall: ‘A quietly gripping monologue about grief and belief . this play is like a deceptive calm blue sea beneath which lurks a ferocious riptide of sorrow.’ Guardian Simon Stephens is a British writer whose theatrical career began in the literary department of the Royal Court Theatre where he ran its Young Writers’ Programme. -
The Limehouse Golem’ by
PRODUCTION NOTES Running Time: 108mins 1 THE CAST John Kildare ................................................................................................................................................ Bill Nighy Lizzie Cree .............................................................................................................................................. Olivia Cooke Dan Leno ............................................................................................................................................ Douglas Booth George Flood ......................................................................................................................................... Daniel Mays John Cree .................................................................................................................................................... Sam Reid Aveline Mortimer ............................................................................................................................. Maria Valverde Karl Marx ......................................................................................................................................... Henry Goodman Augustus Rowley ...................................................................................................................................... Paul Ritter George Gissing ................................................................................................................................ Morgan Watkins Inspector Roberts ...............................................................................................................................