DOCSLIB.ORG

The Hothouse HAROLD PINTER

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
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. After all it’s the only one they have. Anne Simon and her international ensemble embark the audience into a dark, absurdist microcosm that its inhabitants desperately try to keep in existence because it is their sole raison d’être. Anouk Schiltz’ 360°set, reminiscent of a panopticon prison, plunges the spectator right at the heart of this dangerous game of appearances and slipping realities. 6 DIRECTOR’S NOTE The Claim-Game What else is a society other than “a group of people in which group common assumptions are shared and common principles observed?” That is true for any kind of society: we agree to agree on certain principles and truths, whether they be factually true or not doesn’t matter, what matters is that we BELIEVE in the same truths. This mechanism is one on which societies are built. It is how we define who our enemies are – namely those who do not play by those rules and act by the same beliefs. It is the contracts that we make with each other. Most truths are, as humanity has to learn over and over again and often the hard way, not empirically researched facts, but rather claims that we chose to believe in, or not. And the claiming of truths, is the nature of theatre. Our medium is in the end nothing more than the extreme reproduction of those mechanics that structure societies: we make a contract with the audience and ask them to suspend their disbelief. The Hothouse as we conceive it, thus becomes a metaphor for the theatre as well as for societal contracts. In Pinter’s microcosm, the agreement, the contract is to believe in what has always been believed in, namely the system in place (a fundamental principle of societies in place). We’d like to take that principle further and make it resonate with the fundamental principle of theatre itself: namely to accept whatever is claimed as the truth (for that moment in time and space). By breaking down and showing those mechanisms and consciously letting the reality of the theatre as a medium and space run in parallel to that of the play with its narrative, we aim to explore how thin the lines between different truths actually are. It is to be imagined as a reverse principle of Schrödinger’s cat experience: as long as no one looks out of the box, nothing can be proven wrong and the status quo can be preserved. The Change-Challenge And here, a play that seems to consist of pretty one-dimensional characters that at first glance might only fulfil a representational purpose (as Pinter has claimed himself) turns out to offer characters with the potential for depth and layers that are endless and truly human. The social critique 7 GRAND THÉÂTRE › STUDIO becomes a reflection on why we are so afraid of change. We try to under- stand, why an old white western male desperately tries to hold on to a system that has always been in place and why it is questioned so little – even by the ones that are further down the food chain – the so-called minorities (gender, ethnic, economical, belief,...) and find out that we are possibly all scared of change, because although a system in place might be oppressive, unfair and incorrect, it is most possibly the only one that we have and the prospect of having to instaure something new is often far more frightening. The white males have their obvious reasons not to change a system: even though crumbling, it is their reason of existence, they need to keep a rotten, nameless place – that potentially is even devoid of patients – going in order to keep existing. To explore the struggles that the minorities are facing in order to cut ties (there is a character called Cutts...) with a system that is not theirs is just as important. The absent and nameless patients are the voicelessly oppressed. They don’t exist for the oppressor in anything more than a number in a statistic (Say their name). The absurd tale that unravels in this micro society under a looking glass, in which everything develops faster, stands for all the physical and especially mental prisons that humanity should strike down and refuses to. It stands for any system in place (western, white, male, Christian, dominant) that feels like a prison to the majority of its people but that society as a whole still desperately holds on to. The Denial of Death On a metaphorical level, keeping a system in place is of course a mechanism to deny death. The big delusion is, according to cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, the basic human drive and it gives rise to “immortality systems”, or non-rational belief structures that give us a means to believe we’re immor- tal. Apart from the obvious ones that are religion and the longevity through the arts system, the most commonplace is the one of identifying with a group, a tribe, a society or nation that lives on into the indefinite future. In The Hothouse, Roote’s disintegrating mental state becomes not only a harbinger of his own end, but the image itself for the slow disintegration of the structure, the immortality system itself that so many depend on. The dilemma for the characters around him becomes real: if he dies and the system collapses, part of them might have to go with him. The decision at the end is: prolonging the system or allowing tabula rasa. 8 The Hothouse might well be, in all of those aspects, more relevant today than ever. While it was originally intended as a critique of British upper middle classes and bureaucracy, it now resonates with movements that address the question of where we stand with regards to death (and the denial of it) and exploring the mechanics of belief versus fact. Anne Simon (March 2021) 9 GRAND THÉÂTRE › STUDIO IN CONVERSATION WITH ANNE SIMON INTERVIEW LED BY JANINE GOEDERT JG: Why The Hothouse and not one of the better-known plays? After all, we do not often see a Pinter play on stage in Luxembourg. AS: I chose it because I am really interested in the “huis clos” Pinter so often writes about. In this regard, The Hothouse seems to me the obvious choice: the outside world could not be more inexistent and there lies the threat, really. Also, what I really like is the fact that it has more of a socio-political structure than many of the later plays which have a more personal basis. The play centres on how the system we live under works rather than on interpersonal stories. Yet it has the space to allow for these interpersonal stories. JG: Now, Pinter was legendary for refusing to explain what his plays were about. There is the famous quip: “This is what happened. That is what they said. That is what they did.” Will you be a bit more forthcoming and tell us what The Hothouse is about for you? AS: Well, I guess I am even less forthcoming… The play is a lot about theatre as well as about how societies are built, about how we agree to accept certain truths. We accept to agree since we have a contract to function as a society. The truths we are claiming have become our reality. And, in a way, that is what theatre is about, too. The play becomes a metaphor for theatre, whereas theatre is a metaphor for society. There is this doubling, this mirroring: this is the truth or structure we claim to believe in or we agree to believe in. Anyone that does not agree is our enemy. But then all these truths can be questioned from within, and that becomes dangerous as the system might crumble. It is a play about a group of people who believe in something. They need to go on believing in the system.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • Think Night: London's Neighbourhoods from 6Pm
    THINK NIGHT: LONDON’S NEIGHBOURHOODS FROM 6PM TO 6AM LONDON NIGHT TIME COMMISSION FOREWORD London is a world-class city. As such, of expert witnesses. In another world-first, it merits world-leading thoughts on all we commissioned new research to hear aspects of city life at night. from Londoners themselves about how they use the city between 6pm and 6am: what We are interested in London’s identity they do, what activities they take part in and at night. When we talk about night we crucially what more needs to be done to therefore consider it as broadly as we allow them to live their lives more fully. would the day. We have used a wide lens, looking at the wealth of activities that London is a dynamic and diverse ecosystem happen from 6pm to 6am. at night that goes far beyond commercial transactions. It incorporates the culture, Uniquely, London’s Night Time Commission character and atmosphere of our city. was established to build on London’s Londoners are more active between 6pm and strengths rather than to address a crisis. 6am, and have later bedtimes and a better Our focus goes well beyond the scope of quality of sleep, than anyone else in the other similar bodies that centre only on UK. Two-thirds of us regularly do everyday the night time economy. The Commission activities at night – errands, shopping, set itself a broad, holistic framework: to catching up with friends – and a staggering develop and help realise an ambitious 1.6 million of us usually work at night.
    [Show full text]
  • London at Night: an Evidence Base for a 24-Hour City
    London at night: An evidence base for a 24-hour city November 2018 London at night: An evidence base for a 24-hour city copyright Greater London Authority November 2018 Published by Greater London Authority City Hall The Queens Walk London SE1 2AA www.london.gov.uk Tel 020 7983 4922 Minicom 020 7983 4000 ISBN 978-1-84781-710-5 Cover photograph © Shutterstock For more information about this publication, please contact: GLA Economics Tel 020 7983 4922 Email [email protected] GLA Economics provides expert advice and analysis on London’s economy and the economic issues facing the capital. Data and analysis from GLA Economics form a basis for the policy and investment decisions facing the Mayor of London and the GLA group. GLA Economics uses a wide range of information and data sourced from third party suppliers within its analysis and reports. GLA Economics cannot be held responsible for the accuracy or timeliness of this information and data. The GLA will not be liable for any losses suffered or liabilities incurred by a party as a result of that party relying in any way on the information contained in this report. London at night: An evidence base for a 24-hour city Contents Foreword from the Mayor of London .......................................................................................... 2 Foreword from the London Night Time Commission ................................................................... 3 Foreword from the Night Czar ....................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • The Hothouse and Dynamic Equilibrium in the Works of Harold Pinter
    Oberlin Digital Commons at Oberlin Honors Papers Student Work 2011 The Hothouse and Dynamic Equilibrium in the Works of Harold Pinter Ben Ferber Oberlin College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/honors Part of the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Repository Citation Ferber, Ben, "The Hothouse and Dynamic Equilibrium in the Works of Harold Pinter" (2011). Honors Papers. 406. https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/honors/406 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at Digital Commons at Oberlin. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Papers by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons at Oberlin. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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.
    [Show full text]
  • Politics, Oppression and Violence in Harold Pinter's Plays
    Politics, Oppression and Violence in Harold Pinter’s Plays through the Lens of Arabic Plays from Egypt and Syria Hekmat Shammout A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS BY RESEARCH Department of Drama and Theatre Arts College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham May 2018 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis aims to examine how far the political plays of Harold Pinter reflect the Arabic political situation, particularly in Syria and Egypt, by comparing them to several plays that have been written in these two countries after 1967. During the research, the comparative study examined the similarities and differences on a theoretical basis, and how each playwright dramatised the topic of political violence and aggression against oppressed individuals. It also focussed on what dramatic techniques have been used in the plays. The thesis also tries to shed light on how Arab theatre practitioners managed to adapt Pinter’s plays to overcome the cultural-specific elements and the foreignness of the text to bring the play closer to the understanding of the targeted audience.
    [Show full text]
  • Full Cast Announced for the Treatment
    PRESS RELEASE Friday 24 February 2017 THE ALMEIDA THEATRE ANNOUNCES THE FULL CAST FOR THE TREATMENT, MARTIN CRIMP’S CONTEMPORARY SATIRE, DIRECTED BY LYNDSEY TURNER CHOREOGRAPHER ARTHUR PITA JOINS THE CREATIVE TEAM Joining Aisling Loftus and Matthew Needham in THE TREATMENT will be Gary Beadle, Ian Gelder, Ben Onwukwe, Julian Ovenden, Ellora Torchia, Indira Varma, and Hara Yannas. The Treatment begins previews at the Almeida Theatre on Monday 24 April and runs until Saturday 10 June. The press night is Friday 28 April. New York. A film studio. A young woman has an urgent story to tell. But here, people are products, movies are money and sex sells. And the rights to your life can be a dangerous commodity to exploit. Martin Crimp’s contemporary satire is directed by Lyndsey Turner, who returns to the Almeida following her award-winning production of Chimerica. The Treatment will be designed by Giles Cadle, with lighting by Neil Austin, composition by Rupert Cross, fight direction by Bret Yount, sound by Chris Shutt, and voice coaching by Charmian Hoare. The choreographer is Arthur Pita. Casting is by Julia Horan. ALMEIDA QUESTIONS In response to The Treatment - where it’s material that matters – Whose Life Is It Anyway? continues the Almeida’s programme of pre-show discussions as a panel delves into the worldwide fascination with constructed realities in art and in life. When you sell your story is your life still your own? In the golden age of social media - where immaculately contrived worlds are labelled as real life - what is the cost? Can truth be traced in art at all? The panel includes Instagram star Deliciously Stella, Made In Chelsea producer Nick Arnold, and Anita Biressi, Professor of Media and Communications at Roehampton University.
    [Show full text]
  • The Dramatic World Harol I Pinter
    THE DRAMATIC WORLD HAROL I PINTER RITUAL Katherine H. Bnrkman $8.00 THE DRAMATIC WORLD OF HAROLD PINTER By Katherine H. Burkman The drama of Harold Pinter evolves in an atmosphere of mystery in which the surfaces of life are realistically detailed but the pat­ terns that underlie them remain obscure. De­ spite the vivid naturalism of his dialogue, his characters often behave more like figures in a dream than like persons with whom one can easily identify. Pinter has on one occasion admitted that, if pressed, he would define his art as realistic but would not describe what he does as realism. Here he points to what his audience has often sensed is distinctive in his style: its mixture of the real and sur­ real, its exact portrayal of life on the surface, and its powerful evocation of that life that lies beneath the surface. Mrs. Burkman rejects the contention of some Pinter critics that the playwright seeks to mystify and puzzle his audience. To the contrary, she argues, he is exploring experi­ ence at levels that are mysterious, and is a poetic rather than a problem-solving play­ wright. The poetic images of the play, more­ over, Mrs. Burkman contends, are based in ritual; and just as the ancient Greeks at­ tempted to understand the mysteries of life by drawing upon the most primitive of reli­ gious rites, so Pinter employs ritual in his drama for his own tragicomic purposes. Mrs. Burkman explores two distinct kinds of ritual that Pinter develops in counter­ point. His plays abound in those daily habit­ ual activities that have become formalized as ritual and have tended to become empty of meaning, but these automatic activities are set in contrast with sacrificial rites that are loaded with meaning, and force the charac­ ters to a painful awareness of life from which their daily routines have served to protect them.
    [Show full text]
  • Tacit Significance, Explicit Irrelevance: the Use of Language and Silence in the Caretaker and the Dumb Waiter
    Revista de Lenguas ModeRnas, N° 16, 2012 / 31-48 / ISSN: 1659-1933 Tacit Significance, Explicit Irrelevance: The Use of Language and Silence in The Caretaker and The Dumb Waiter Juan Carlos saravia vargas Escuela de Lenguas Modernas Universidad de Costa Rica Abstract Readers who approach the Theater of the Absurd face complex interpreti- ve problems. The style of Harold Pinter, the laureate British playwright, adds an additional difficulty due to his particular use of language. His plays The Caretaker and The Dumb Waiter show how speech is overs- hadowed by silence, which provides a more direct access to the tortured psyche of characters. Key words: Theater of the Absurd, Harold Pinter, silence, dialog, plays, interpretation, The Caretaker, The Dumb Waiter Resumen El Teatro del absurdo presenta complejos problemas de interpretación a los lectores. El estilo del reconocido dramaturgo inglés Harold Pinter, representado en las obras El guardián y El Montaplatos, añade una difi- cultad adicional por su uso particular del lenguaje, donde la prominencia del discurso oral se ve opacada por el silencio. Es este último recurso dramático el que provee un acceso más directo a la torturada mente de los personajes. Palabras claves: teatro del absurdo, Harold Pinter, silencio, diálogo, obras, interpretación, El Guardián, El Montaplatos Recepción: 1-8-11 Aceptación: 5-12-11 32 Revista de Lenguas ModeRnas, n° 16, 2012 / 31-48 / ISSN: 1659-1933 heater, as a dramatic genre, has always posited an ontological problem for readers: since plays are intended to be staged, and not merely read, Tthe capacity of the reader to envision stage elements and their inter- action with characters might affect the interpretive experience of a dramatic work.
    [Show full text]
  • FURTHER INFORMATION on THEATER EMORY AUDITIONS–
    Pinter Revue, A Pinter Kaleidoscope, & Pinter Readings – FURTHER INFORMATION on THEATER EMORY AUDITIONS– GENERAL Please see the THEATER EMORY STUDENT AUDITIONS: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS document for general information about auditions and Theater Emory productions. Who is Harold Pinter? • Brutally funny political playwright who transformed theater by turning silences into ticking time bombs. • His characters' relationships are as dangerous and suspenseful as his portrayals of state-sponsored terrorism. • To experience Pinter is to be "in certain expectation of the unexpected." • Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005 Actors may audition for Pinter Revue (Revue), or A Pinter Kaleidoscope (Kaleidoscope), or for both productions. • Revue and Kaleidoscope overlap. Actors can be cast in one or the other production, not both. In any case, Theater Emory and Theater Studies advise involvement in only one major (multi-week) production per semester. • Student actors are expected to keep up with course work during rehearsal periods. Participation in theater projects requires time management and careful planning with respect to assignments, exams, and papers. Rehearsal or performance is not an excuse for lack of preparation for classes. • In the audition form actors indicate their interests and priorities, from weighing one production against the other to giving both productions equal weight. Actors may also identify particular roles of interest, if they wish. Directors carefully consider these interests and priorities in casting TE productions. Actors can also indicate if they wish to be involved in the Pinter Readings – see below. Actors may also audition for certain Pinter Readings (readings of individual Pinter plays) directed by Theater faculty.
    [Show full text]
  • {Download PDF} the Dumb Waiter: Play
    THE DUMB WAITER: PLAY PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Harold Pinter | 40 pages | 31 Jan 2015 | Samuel French Ltd | 9780573042102 | English | London, United Kingdom The Dumb Waiter: Play PDF Book From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Get ready to write your essay on The Dumb Waiter. Ben bursts out loudly again about something he sees in the newspaper, but Gus quickly changes the subject to whether they could go to a football soccer game the next day. They begin to argue, and Gus passionately questions Ben about why their boss, a man named Wilson , wants them to do this job. Ben points his gun at the door, ready to shoot, as Gus enters the room. Our study guide has summaries, insightful analyses, and everything else you need to understand The Dumb Waiter. Ben has to explain to the people above via the dumbwaiter's "speaking tube" that there is no food. Two Person Three Person. Ben criticizes Gus for complaining about their job, which is not yet clear to the audience, saying that he gets plenty of time off. Remember me. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Project Webster continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. Mostly male cast Includes adult characters. These horrors are dramatized through images of torture and oppression culminating in moments of silence that index the full extent of the destruction unleashed by the forces of power against dissidence. Another interpretation is that the play is a political drama showing how the individual is destroyed by a higher power.
    [Show full text]
  • The Power of Repetition
    The Power of Repetition An Analysis of Repetition Patterns in The Hothouse and The Caretaker by Harold Pinter Mari Anne Kyllesdal A Thesis Presented to The Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages The University of Oslo In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the MA Degree Spring Term 2012 II The Power of Repetition An Analysis of Repetition Patterns in The Hothouse and The Caretaker by Harold Pinter Mari Anne Kyllesdal III © Mari Anne Kyllesdal 2012 The Power of Repetition: An Analysis of Repetition Patterns in The Hothouse and The Caretaker by Harold Pinter. Mari Anne Kyllesdal http://www.duo.uio.no/ Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo IV Abstract In most of Harold Pinter’s plays, underlying relations between characters are a central feature. Through the slight alteration and further development of naturalistic dialogue, and exploiting the features of The Theatre of the Absurd, Pinter perfected his project of turning dramatic dialogue into the equivalent of authentic language, and created for himself a mode of speech where the explicit text can ‘hint at’ an implicit subtext. One central feature of Pinter’s dramatic language is the use of repetition as a way of communicating psychological action within his characters. This thesis explores how Pinter uses repetition patterns in his dramatic dialogues in the two plays The Hothouse and The Caretaker. Attempting to reveal what is concealed underneath the surface of language, the thesis also discusses the concept of power- play which is exhibited within the examples chosen. Disclosing an inadequacy in using language is often felt by Pinter’s characters as a mark of inferiority, and repetition may occur as a means of correcting any perception of the individual as subordinate to others.
    [Show full text]