The Birthday Party and the Room: Two Plays

by Harold Pinter

Book Overview

In The Birthday Party, a musician escapes to a dilapidated boarding house, where he falls victim to the shadowy, ritualized violence of two men who have followed him from his sinister past. In The Room, a derelict boarding house again becomes the scene of a visitation from the past when a blind man suddenly arrives to deliver a mysterious message. Both plays are invested with the elements that make Pinter's work unique: the disturbing familiarity...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802151140
• ISBN13: 9780802151148
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 116 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

The Birthday Party

The Birthday Party is a very good play about a young man and his inevitable and perhaps unavoidable fate. The plot is quite simple, yet it is also elegant in its simplicity. Without saying too much, the story is about a young man who has been living for some time in a beach-sited boarding house owned by a mid-aged couple. These characters lives' are invaded by two men who for some unknown reason want to catch the young man. The story evolves... The play is captivating and exciting, at some points also downright scary. Pinter has obviously used techniques of how to seize the attention of an audience, something a reader will surely experience. The incertainty and unease that fills the story is highly credible, as one easily can identify the feelings that fills you when something sudden, dangerous and unavoidable happens to you. I think Pinter perhaps has found inspiration in other authors works. As I read it, I came to think on Hemingways short story "The Killers" and the sense of utter despair of Kafka's "The Trial". Please do not shoot me should you disagree..As a play, one recognizes elements that characterize most great playwrights, both classical and modern, due to its "actor-friendliness" and room for interpretation. Recommended, indeed. And one last thing to Ken (The reviewer): Unless you follow the idea that Meg has a brain-disfunction, She is definitely not Stanleys mother.

sinister intent?

Harold Pinter's _The Birthday Party_:A young man lives with his mother at a run-down boarding house near the beach. Two visitors come and shake things up. They don't do anything wild or unusual, but they question and intimidate the young man, until the reader becomes unsure what sinister plans the two men have in mind.Pinter's strength lies in his dialogue, which is thoroughly believable and memorable. Not for a moment does the reader doubt that these scenes could happen (and may HAVE happened) in real life. As this reader read the play, the tension built and built, as I became more and more sympathetic to the young man, awaiting to learn his fate, as his own will seemingly deteriorated.I would agree that this play is a funny read, but it's certainly very unsettling as well. If you haven't read anything by Harold Pinter, or are curious because you've read his other plays, _The Birthday Party_ is worth checking out.ken32

Laugh Out Loud, Funny!

A side splitting send up of the misunderstood artist.One of the funniest plays of the century, by one of England's greatest playwrights.Bring your knife and fork!