The Birthday Party

by Harold Pinter

Stanley Webber is visited in his boarding house by strangers, Goldberg and McCann. An innocent-seeming birthday party for Stanley turns into a nightmare.The Birthday Party was first performed in 1958 and is now a modern classic, produced and studied throughout the world.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Fiction, Classics, Nobel Prize, British Literature

100 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

Harold Pinter was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works.

Reviews

[Barry Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Birthday Party is the play I'd give to someone if I really wanted them to be scared shitless by Harold Pinter. There is no easy way into Pinter so it's best to just crash-land into his work. This play contains everything that one may describe as "Pinteresque". Long pauses. Overwhelming dread. Near deathly tension. And, of course, humour. Dark, dark humour.

Stanley is a lodger in a house in a seaside town. He lives with the owners of the house. They are simply folk. One day two men turn up at the house and brutally interrogate Stanley until he is reduced to a child-like vegetative state. Wait. What? Yeah. But there's jokes as well.

If you are in any way familiar with my humour then you've probably already guessed that I adore this play. Pinter is one of those writers who I feel would be hilarious at funerals. In that his work is so out-there that it almost transcends life and death and everything takes place in a near purgatorial setting. The drum beat, the fricative verbal tennis matches, everything in this play feels like it's counting down to something. Tick follows tock follows tick. But then Pinter does what Pinter does best and stops. Is the ending satisfying? Fuck no. And that's why I love it. Ugh, Pinter you beautiful man.

[Fabian · Rating 3 out of 5]

O gee. As with Shaw & Beckett, Pinter's first work is not without its... charm. The "uselessness and bleakness" angle so articulately employed in "Godot" is present here as well-- there is an aimlessness, a sense of character alienation on an individual basis-- perhaps actual just sound and fury signifying nil. All the characters seem to be pawns in that "Classical Narrative" sort of way--but they are obvious embodiments of other things-- FOR SURE. Pinter seems like the most surreal (hooray!) of the three amigos-- but I wonder how he holds up against titans like Albee or even Eugene O'Neill.

"The Room" is also eerie and disturbing. A splinter-like companion piece to "The Birthday Party," it is allegorical, undoubtedly unlike the own playwright's mighty insistence that it isn't.

[Sidharth Vardhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It looks like Pinter had ideas about a lot of tricks - mostly aimed at confusing the audience like ambiguous identity, confusions of time and place etc. And Pinter does write his first play that display all those tricks. The problem is that the tricks are all you get. There is not much of plot or understandable characters. It is like a dish made entirely of spices.

[Mariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goldberg. You're dead. You can't live, you can't think, you can't love. You're dead. You're a plague gone bad. There's no juice in you. You're nothing but an odour!

Goldberg and McMann eviscerate Stanley. Who are Goldberg and McMann? Two men to mysteriously show up and ask for a room in the boarding house that isn't a boarding house. They mean business of menace and firey pits of scorn. Go Stanley. It's your birthday. I pictured Stanley to not fit his own clothes. He doesn't fit his time, the kitchen in the boarding house no one ever rents from, except for the men with questionable pasts and something to answer for. There would be a much too small children's school desks for him to sit in if he makes it to the pearly gates and judgement day. I don't know what he did to make these guys hate him so much and I can't imagine what he could ever do to make anyone like him.

I can't find the scene now. It is the scene that made me think if the right actor had this part (I'm thinking Philip Seymour Hoffman when he still had an edge, before you could think out his mind made flesh before it happened. Not in the best sense of prophetic mind meld but it is rote and award show seeking. Someone who will let go). Stanley takes the birthday drum kit and beats it. Gently, steadily. He goes around the table in Meg's persistent and insistent kitchen. Go on, it's your birthday. He had never said it was his birthday. If he had he would deny it. It would be every kid who ever wished that the world would forget its birthday and secretly wish that the universe would open up all of its ground holes to let in a secret birthday wish. You never get what you want when you wish this way. He is beating the drum and it is a never get what you want wishful beating. It's a furious build up, helpless and sad. It's one hell of a tribal drum beat scene. If the right actor had this part it would be the rising call of every time you ever hated yourself and felt helpless and didn't know what to do. You can't feel anything but the primal howl. It's not a wolf. It has no teeth. If you could have this cake and eat it too it would be savage surprise jump out of the cake. It would be off with your heads streamers and celebrations. It wasn't even my birthday. What could he possibly have done? Maybe it was because he didn't do anything. Maybe this is what happens to you when you don't do anything.

The Birthday Party is my least favorite Harold Pinter play that I've read thus far. That's to say that I loved the ever loving shit out of his other plays and this one isn't as awesome as all hell party get out as the others. It's a worst nightmare. I wake up and try to think about something else, afraid to go to sleep. Goldberg and McMann arrive wrapped in gift wrap. Every ominous feeling you ever had. It lost some of its burning hate the night of the party. Goldberg bounces the big bouncing girl, the one who comes over. Lulu who could have made eyes at Stanley or he made eyes at her, if he wasn't the doomed sort. The morning after she expected something. What? What do girls want? Lulu and sexy times and behind those closed doors could stay shut for me. Please don't distract me with a lot of Goldberg speeches. He talks and I feel sick when Stanley feels sick. Only then. It is bad times again. When he walks down the stairs and Goldberg makes his promise and Stanley's body shudders and he's "the same old Stan". The slump is dead man walking. You were dreading something and it came true. I had the feeling he gave up after his birthday drum song. His landlord Petey tells his frustrating, always needling in her returning to place one blankness wife to "let him.... sleep". The poor bastard.

[Lostaccount · Rating 2 out of 5]

What makes the toilet bowl in an art gallery a work of art as opposed to it being simply a lavatory for public use is that it’s installed by an artist instead of a plumber and that an art critic (or somebody who wants to call you a philistine) comes along and attaches meaning to the toilet bowl.

Well I don’t go in for that kind of crap. I don’t like being told what to think. I’ll make up my own mind, and I don’t believe The Birthday Party means anything unless you want it to mean something.

You can say it’s absurdist if you want (because somebody wants you to think it is), and you can say it’s about the human condition (because somebody told you it is).

But I don’t want to be patronised by people telling me that I don’t understand the play just because I think the play is dull.

It’s ridiculous to talk of spoilers because nothing of any real consequence happens.

The plot (such as it is): Stanley (out of work pianist) lives in a boarding house with Meg (flirty housewife owner of boarding house) and her husband Petey (bland nothing character). One day two blokes (Goldberg and McCann) arrive. The men interrogate Stanley with gibberish, reducing him almost to catalepsy. A mistaken birthday party for Stanley takes place; Stanley goes ape and attacks Lulu, the neighbour at the party. Next day, it’s as if nothing happened (suggestions here and there re Lulu and Goldberg spending the night together) except that the two interrogators take Stanley (who appears to have suffered a nervous breakdown) with them when they leave, ostensibly to see a doctor (Monty).

You could interpret this play a hundred different ways. It doesn’t matter. You could say that Stanley suffered the breakdown because he was forced by the two men to face the meaninglessness and absurdity of an existence from which he was hiding (at the boarding house) etc. You could say ten different things about the meaning of the drum or the new suit, or the banal breakfast talk, and on and on.

The play could meaning anything or nothing.

Meg: What are you doing?
Petey: What am I doing?
Meg: That’s what I said.
Petey: Writing a play.
Meg: A play?
Petey: Yes.
Meg: Oh.
(Pause)
Meg: What about?
Petey: What about?
Meg: Yes.
Petey: About the banality of human speech and domesticity, the meaningless of existence, the human condition, oh lots of heavy meaningful things.
Meg Oh.
(Pause)
Meg: What’s going to happen?
Petey: What’s going to happen?
Meg: Yes. In the play.
Petey: Oh. The main character, already on the edge, will have his quiet domestic escape from the world disturbed by two men.
Meg: That’s nice. What then?
Petey: He’ll have a breakdown.
Meg: Oh.
(Pause)
Meg: Want your breakfast?
Petey: My breakfast?
Meg: Yes.
Petey: No, I’m writing this play.
Meg: Oh
(Pause)
Meg: When will you finish it?
Petey: When will I finish it?
Meg: Stop bloody repeating everything I say or I’ll be the one having a fucking breakdown. Now Eat your fried bread and shut up.

[Arman · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really did NOT like it. this is a play which lots of modern playwrights refer to as kind of a masterpiece. there are hundreds of "how-to-write-a-play" books which you can find in every bookstore and I bet 99% of 'em has pulled out something outta this play as sort of an instance, so you choose to read this play and you're really excited about it. you've even got this assumption that you're gonna read something absurd, but from what you've read in past, absurd plays usually have several layers and those people who reach to the deepest layer are the most satisfied readers of the book. regarding this book, though, I found absolutely no extra layer! I mean while you're reading the play, you're anticipating THAT turning point which will clarify lots of vague things, but there comes the last page and the turning point is not arrived yet! you check the back cover and the turning point ain't there either (sarcasm). so, I sure consider this possibility that last night I was too sleepy to find out what actually happened, but even so, it won't make me read it again to find out the cause.

[Jyoti · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are a literature student and haven't read this play, go sue your university.

If you're a literature student, you've read the play and hated it, go sell your degree.

If you are a literature student, have read the play and are indifferent to it, I understand.

If you're a layman and you've read the play, bravo!

Honestly, I don't know how I'd have reacted if I'd read the play when I was younger. But literature develops taste for all things.

Be forewarned. This is a play belonging to absurd theatre. If you are a layman and still want to read it, you'd probably want to read up on what to expect in absurd literature. Enjoy!

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Who watered the wicket in Melbourne?"

You never find out; looking around, I find that many people have been confused by this cricket reference. Pinter was apparently delighted to find that his German translator had rendered it as something meaning "Who pissed on the city gates?"

[Mary ♥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 stars

Trigger Warning: Attempted r*pe

That was the most absurd thing I have ever read...

[Pep · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harold Pinter este unul dintre pilonii teatrului absurd, iar The Birthday Party pare desprinsă dintr-un univers kafkian. La prima vedere, piesa pare ușor de descifrat: liniștea unei case aflate pe malul mării este tulburată de sosirea a doi străini. Coincidența face ca ziua să fie una specială, aniversarea unuia dintre locatari. Însă, din acest punct, realitatea începe să se destrame, iar ceea ce părea limpede devine tot mai obscur. Pe măsură ce înaintezi în text, descoperi că personajele nu sunt deloc ceea ce păreau la început: identitățile lor se contorsionează, intențiile devin tulburi, iar adevărul alunecă într-o zonă de neliniște și ambiguitate. In actul al doilea, personajul principal este supus unui lung și amenințător interogatoriu:

GOLDBERG. What do you use for pyjamas?
STANLEY. Nothing.
GOLDBERG. You verminate the sheet of your birth.
MCCANN. What about the Albigensenist heresy?
GOLDBERG. Who watered the wicket in Melbourne?
MCCANN. What about the blessed Oliver Plunkett?
GOLDBERG. Speak up, Webber. Why did the chicken cross the road?
STANLEY. He wanted to—he wanted to—he wanted to….
MCCANN. He doesn’t know!
GOLDBERG. Why did the chicken cross the road?
STANLEY. He wanted to—he wanted to….
GOLDBERG. Why did the chicken cross the road?
STANLEY. He wanted….
MCCANN. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know which came first!
GOLDBERG. Which came first?
MCCANN. Chicken? Egg? Which came first?
GOLDBERG and MCCANN. Which came first? Which came first? Which came first?
STANLEY screams.

Pinter surprinde cu precizie anxietatea omului confruntat cu o lume opacă, imposibil de descifrat și de controlat. Personajele sale se află într-o realitate fluidă, unde certitudinile se destramă, iar întrebările rămân fără răspuns. Tensiunea nu vine doar din situațiile ambigue, ci și din imposibilitatea de a înțelege mecanismele care le guvernează. În universul său, nesiguranța devine o forță dominantă, iar frica de necunoscut capătă un caracter aproape sufocant.

În cartea Pinter, The Playwright, Martin Esslin amintește un episod intrigant legat de această piesă. Dramaturgul a primit o scrisoare din partea unei cititoare nedumerite, care îi cerea lămuriri:

"Dragă domnule Pinter,
Mă simt obligată să vă cer să-mi explicați sensul acestei piese. Sunt câteva aspecte pe care nu le-am înțeles:
1. Cine sunt cei doi bărbați?
2. De unde provine Stanley?
3. Se presupune că toți sunt persoane normale?
Sunt sigură că veți înțelege că, fără răspunsurile la aceste întrebări, nu voi putea înțelege pe deplin piesa."

Răspunsul lui Pinter a fost la fel de enigmatic și ironic:

"Dragă doamnă,
Mă simt obligat să vă cer să-mi explicați sensul acestei scrisori. Sunt câteva aspecte pe care nu le-am înțeles:
1. Cine sunteți?
2. De unde proveniți?
3. Se presupune că sunteți o persoană normală?
Sunt sigur că veți înțelege că, fără răspunsurile la aceste întrebări, nu voi putea înțelege pe deplin această scrisoare."

[Harun Ahmed · Rating 4 out of 5]

হ্যারল্ড পিন্টার পড়া শুরু করলে আসলে বোঝার সাধ্য নেই যে গল্প কোথায় যেয়ে থামবে। হাস্যরস ও অদ্ভুত ঘটনায় পূর্ণ নাটকের পরিণতি এতো বিষণ্ণতায় মোড়ানো!সমালোচকরা প্রতিটা চরিত্রের পেছনে অনেক রূপক আর প্রতীক খুঁজে বের করতে থাকুক, শুধু মানবিক একটা গল্প হিসেবেও " বার্থডে পার্টি" স্মরণীয়।

[Elaheh]

نمایشنامه جشن تولد هم مثل بقیه آثار پینتر درونمایه جامعه سرکوب شده رو نشون میده که در اون هنرمندانی مثل استنلی شخصیت اصلی نمایش فردی سرکوب شده از طرف قدرت ها و جامعه ایی هست که به شکل مرموزی افراد جامعه رو اون طور که دلش میخواد شکل میده و کنترل میکنه، مراسم جشن تولد برای استنلی یعنی آغاز مرگ او توسط قدرت ها. نمایش بسیار خواندنی بود.لذت بردم. البته نمایش کوتاهی هست که توی یه نصف روز میشه کلش رو تموم کرد.

[Rachel Louise Atkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have absolutely no idea what I just read but it was really weird and I'm weird too so I liked it.

[Mahdi · Rating 3 out of 5]

انقدر پرده‌ی دوم سانسور داشت که نفهمیدم چی شد😐 نسخه‌ی انگلیسی‌ش هم پیدا نکردم اگه کسی داره برام بفرسته

[Sportyrod · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slow suffocation of ominous tension. It takes a lot of skill to introduce a sense of impending doom and to maintain it for so long, and this was the play’s strongest suit.

As soon as the guests arrived at the birthday party you knew it was bad news. However, they were subtle and clever in the way they went about controlling certain guests. It’s one thing to get up and leave if you feel uncomfortable, but if you are blocked and coerced into the situation where in order to leave or intervene you must cause a scene, then that’s another story. The bullies were so cunning. For the whole time I was waiting to see the snapping point.

A bit more action or visibility or explanation would not have gone unwanted. Having said that, the play was so impactful it got me thinking as to the meaning of the whole thing, and I could not do that without reading other reviews.

The calculation of the review is 5 stars for the skill of creating such a scenario. A deduction of 2 stars for not providing enough action. But 1 star added for the post-play impact as it had me thinking for a long while after.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

read this for uni a while ago. really really unsettling, as i expected it to be. the interrogation scene will always remain in my mind.

[Talie · Rating 2 out of 5]

من که خودم نمی خواستم هرولد پینتر بخوانم. این نشانه غلط را علی اکبر علیزاده در مقدمه دوازده قطعه ی کوتاه بکت به من داد.
مشکل اصلی " جشن تولد" این است که شخصیت ها ابتدا می خواهند برای خودشان کسی باشند ولی در میانه ی راه نویسنده فراموششان می کند یا پشیمان می شود. مثلن دو شخصیتی که به عنوان مهمان وارد خانه می شوند، ابتدا از ماموریت حرف می زنند و فکر کردم شاید همان روتین کلیشه ای دو کارگاه یا قاتل کله پوک باشند. اما معلوم نمیشود آنها چه هستند و ارتباطشان با موزیسین سرخورده چیست. آیا پینتر می خواهد خواننده/ تماشاچی را گول بزند؟ ابتدا فکر می کنید با نمایشنامه ای طرفید با شخصیت پردازی غیر ابسورد کلاسیک. نمایش که پیش می رود این انتظار شما بر آورده نمی شود. اگر این هم ابسورد است و بکت هم ابسورد، من ابسورد بکت را خیلی بیشتر می پسندم. بکت از همان ابتدا ابسوردش را در صورتتان می کوبد.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

First reading: 10th May 2016
Second reading 13th May 2017

پنج ستاره هم ميتونستم بدم بهشااا! ولي خوبه همين چهار...

[Hossein Sharifi · Rating 5 out of 5]

a brilliant, confusing, and shocking play ....
it takes hours and hours to talk about.

[Nick Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was still at school we were taken one afternoon to our local theatre for a workshop on Harold Pinter. I can’t remember what we were asked to do (maybe nothing?), but I remember the session finished with a performance of The Dumb Waiter and before that one of the actors had talked to us, trying to explain Pinter. If I remember correctly he explained Pinter in terms of naturalism, that his repetitions, for instance, reflected normal speech. This seems nonsense. Pinter’s dialogue might be built on spoken English, but it is a deeply stylized version of spoken English – in fact, we could almost call it Pinteresque. I can’t remember if this workshop was my first encounter with Pinter, but I’ve always liked Pinter’s dialogue: for whatever reason it chimes with me. One of the fascinations of The Birthday Party is in the collision of naturalism with stylization. Samuel Beckett’s influence on Pinter is often remarked upon, but this is Beckett placed in the detailed naturalism of an English seaside boarding house: Vladimir and Estragon in a kitchen sink drama. And Pinter brings in aspects of popular culture: a norm today, but in 1950s British culture bringing the low brow into the high was an oddity and maybe a scandal. Meg and Petey seem to be out of a comic music hall routine, Goldberg and McCann are part of a long line of sinister double acts leading to John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction. And Pinter’s stylized dialogue flips from the comic to the sinister, sometimes being both at the same time. The result in strangely unnerving, the characters often seemingly indulging in self conscious routines. In narrative terms we never quite find out what is happening: we never, for instance, quite find out what is the basis of the relationship between Stanley and Goldberg and McCann. This might not be so strange today, but in the late 1950s English theatre it would have been deeply disconcerting. The development of The Birthday Party is also strange: it begins with Stanley as the central figure, but by the end he has become a passive and silent figure, Goldberg and McCann’s double act now taking central stage. Personally I find the end of the play less intriguing than the beginning, but overall I find the play provokingly strange. But I presume it is not as strange today as it was 60 years ago.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 3 - Drama on 3:
Stanley, an erstwhile pianist lives in a dingy seaside boarding house run by Meg and Petey. He is comfortable there, like a surrogate son. Two sinister strangers turn up - Goldberg and McCann. They claim to know him from the past. They turn Stanley's birthday party into a menacing and terrifying encounter. Franz Kafka meets Donald McGill in Pinter’s iconic comedy of menace.

Stanley ..... Toby Jones
Goldberg ..... Henry Goodman
McCann ..... Stephen Rae
Meg ..... Maggie Steed
Petey ..... Peter Wight
Lulu ..... Jaime Winstone

Director/Producer Gary Brown

An Irishman and a Jew walk into a seaside boarding house. And what? A parable about power and persecution? Or maybe it's marginalised minorities taking their revenge against seedy Albion? Pinter's slippery and sly black comedy has a huge resonance for today.

Harold Pinter was one of the writers championed by the Third Programme – and in the late 1950s commissioned one of his early plays before he had his first stage hit. Pinter himself acknowledged the role the Third had had in his own cultural education. For the 70th anniversary, Drama on 3 presents a new production of The Birthday Party, now considered a Pinter classic, but which on its first London opening only lasted a week.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b083...

[Czarny Pies · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harold Pinter, l'ami et collaborateur de Samuel Beckett, a développé un sous-genre du théâtre de l'absurde qui s'appelle le "théâtre de menace" dont "L'anniversaire" est une des pièces les plus marquantes. Chez Pinter l'homme vit dans une situation absurde et se dirige vers un sort horrifique.

Pinter était un vrai homme de théâtre. Mon expérience personnelle est que sur la scène les pièces de Pinter sont beaucoup plus puissantes que celles de son maitre. Néanmoins il faut reconnaitre que la force de frappe des pièces de Pinter comme pour celles des auteurs de l'école de l'Absurde se dégrade très rapidement. C'est très étonnant la première que l'on assiste à une pièce qui n'a ni conflit dramatique ni dénouement ni explication de qui sont les personnages. Après deux ou trois soirées de ce genre au théâtre, la recette devient très ennuyante.

Pourtant, "L'anniversaire" est diaboliquement bien écrit. Malgré fait que je suis bien blasé par le théâtre de l'absurde, cette pièce a gardé mon intérêt du début jusqu'à la fin. J'espère "L'anniversaire" vous plaira autant qu'il m'a plu.

[Xueting · Rating 4 out of 5]

whaaaaa...?

This play is brilliant. I feel a little confused but in a mind-blown way. I feel a lot of pathos for Stanley, who has his comfortably peaceful although mundane life disturbed by two strangers (who really put the 'strange' in 'strangers'!) staying at the boarding-house in just one day. But Stanley himself is such an enigma to me too, it's hard to feel very personally for him. And the two strangers - what on earth is this 'job' and mission they're there to do???! I like how Harold Pinter approaches the complex concept of the human condition/psyche by seriously perplexing his audience/readers along the way! Harold Pinter is a magician with dialogue and the whole dramatic pacing, it doesn't get boring at all! Gosh those snappy "interrogations" by Goldberg and McCann kept me sitting straight up!

I can't wait to start discussing this one in classes, first to answer some basic 'what is going on?' questions and then to discuss the very interesting layers of meaning.

[sohrab mohajer · Rating 3 out of 5]

ابزورد اما نه به کیفیت بکت
نمایشنامه درد بیچارگی آدمی ست که با انزوا هم کارش درست نمی شود و هر چه می خواهد از مهلکه دور بماند بالاخره پایش گیر است و گویی هر رفتاری حتی در زندانی نمادین خود را پنهان کردن ، کنشی محسوب می شود و چاره ای برای فرار نیست
، پس بهتر که به جای چشم بستن و گوشه نشینی ، اعتراض را چاره کنیم ،
پینتر این را نمی گوید ولی من این طور نتیجه گرفتم !!!!

[Keen Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be honest, I'm still not really sure what to make of this play. I think I mostly enjoyed it, but there are clearly some obvious questions and uncertainties which continue to buzz around it long after you've finished the final page. I suppose this can be seen as both a good and bad thing. Oh dear my attempt at a review appears to be as ambiguous as this strange and dark play.

[Reza · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not quite sure I got the point of the story. That may be a lack on my part but I felt that the themes, as I later figured out by some reviews and analysis, were too vague. There were some pretty interesting dialogue exchanges in it though.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b083...

Recommended by Brazilliant, it has been many years since first encountering this. Wonder if this revisit with Toby Jones will tickle me into a better opinion.

Description: Stanley, an erstwhile pianist lives in a dingy seaside boarding house run by Meg and Petey. He is comfortable there, like a surrogate son. Two sinister strangers turn up - Goldberg and McCann. They claim to know him from the past. They turn Stanley's birthday party into a menacing and terrifying encounter. Franz Kafka meets Donald McGill in Pinter’s iconic comedy of menace.

Stanley ..... Toby Jones
Goldberg ..... Henry Goodman
McCann ..... Stephen Rae
Meg ..... Maggie Steed
Petey ..... Peter Wight
Lulu ..... Jaime Winstone

Director/Producer Gary Brown


Brought to you by the word 'succulent'


An Irishman and a Jew walk into a seaside boarding house. And what? A parable about power and persecution? Or maybe it's marginalised minorities taking their revenge against seedy Albion? Pinter's slippery and sly black comedy has a huge resonance for today.

Harold Pinter was one of the writers championed by the Third Programme – and in the late 1950s commissioned one of his early plays before he had his first stage hit. Pinter himself acknowledged the role the Third had had in his own cultural education. For the 70th anniversary, Drama on 3 presents a new production of The Birthday Party, now considered a Pinter classic, but which on its first London opening only lasted a week.<

[Suhaib · Rating 4 out of 5]

This play is about a shady thirty-year old named Stanley, staying for well over a year now in a seaside boardinghouse run by Meg and Petey, a couple in their sixties. Everything is all right until Petey announces that two men asked him for a place to spend the night. Stan seems concerned when Meg tells him about the new arrivals. Clearly, Stan has done something wrong. At least, he is hiding away from something.

Later that morning, the two gentlemen, Goldberg and McCann, arrive. Obviously, they are here on a mission; and this mission is about Stan. Meg reveals that she is preparing a birthday party for Stan, and Goldberg loves the idea—although when she confronts Stan about it later and reminds him that it is his birthday today to cheer him up, he denies and says that it won’t be until next month.
Anyway, everything culminates in absurdity until the very end.

As for the style, it’s Hemingway pure and simple: the power of the unsaid, the repressed, his iceberg theory … the telegraphic telegraphic.

[cherelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

alright i admit i didn't know half the time, or quite frankly, the entire what was going on in this play... but these characters are such enigmas, and offered an intriguing, albeit obscured view into the human psyche... and off dark humour !!!

[Vanessa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just really not for me.