A Night Out

by Harold Pinter, Ehsan Noroozi (translator)

Albert finds himself dominated by his mother. At an office party he is mercilessly teased by his colleagues and arrives home, his temper rising. When his mother nags he attacks and leaves her, gets picked up by a girl and is able to reduce her to humble servility. Yet, when he arrives home his mother is there fully recovered and ready to reassert her dominance.

Genres: Plays, Fiction, Literature

74 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

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

[Yegane · Rating 3 out of 5]

تا صفحه‌ای پنجاه(کتاب شصت صفحه داره)می‌خواستم یک ستاره بدم، اما ده صفحه‌ی آخر و همون یه ذره شجاعت آلبرت، باعث شد یک ستاره بیشتر بدم و الآن که این ریویو رو می‌نویسم به این فکر می‌کنم توانِ ساخت شخصیت لج‌درآر و ضعیف ولی ملموسی مثل آلبرت، ارزش یک ستاره بیشتر رو هم داره!
پی‌نوشتِ کمی بی‌ربط:همیشه آرزو داشتم یه روز مسیر خونه تا مدرسه با دوچرخه برم، من دیگه مدرسه نمی‌رم و امیدوارم مسیر خونه تا محل کارمو با دو چرخه برم.

[Mercedé Khodadadi · Rating 4 out of 5]

پسری تحت اسارت مادر، فشار اجتماع و همکاران برای توجه به زنان، و بیزار از پرحرفی و خسته از کنترل شدن دائم

[Ziba Ghodsifar · Rating 2 out of 5]

برای یک تجربه کوتاه خواندن جالب بود.

[Hamoun Dorfaninezhad · Rating 3 out of 5]

سیلی: یه لحظه صبر کنین چندتا سیگار بگیرم
به سمت دکه می رود. آلبرت و کج همان جا می مانند
به کافه چی-رفیق، بیست تا ویتز بده
کج با آلبرت احوالپرسی می کند
کج: مادرت چطوره آلبرت؟
آلبرت: خوبه
کافه چی: فقط وودز داریم
سیلی: اونم خوبه
آلبرت: [به آرامی] منظورت چیه که حال مادر من چطوره؟
کج: فقط پرسیدم حالش چطوره، همین
آلبرت: چرا نباید حالش خوب باشه؟
کج: نگفتم حالش خوب نیست
آلبرت: خب، خوبه
کج: خب، پس اوضاع درسته، نه؟
آلبرت: به چی می خوای برسی؟
کج: آلبرت، نمی دونم امشب چه ت شده
ص21

[Henry! · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not his best but I still am addicted to it

[Fo · Rating 2 out of 5]

در بین کتاب‌های کوچک نیلا تا اینجا (نهمین کتاب مجموعه)، این بزرگترین کتاب بود و البته شاید قابل فهم‌ترین. کلا نمایشنامه قلق خودش را برای خواندن دارد، ولی این یکی کمی راحت‌تر بود.

[lala · Rating 4 out of 5]

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

—Philip Larkin

This play is like the spiritual twin to Elfriede Jelinek's The Piano Teacher. The domineering mother, the repressed adult child seeking to regain their autonomy through perverse sexual power struggles. Jelinek has said of her character Erika that she is not insane, and I guess this is the price one pays for holding onto one's mind in the face of repeated erasure and condemnation.

It's my second encounter with Pinter's works, after The Birthday Party. I love how masterful he is at building tension throughout and filling you with a growing sense of dread. The opening scene feels incredibly stressful, and it's mirrored in the penultimate scene with the girl where Albert finally reacts. The resolution is both expected and deplorable, and I feel complicit for anticipating the train wreck. Other times the resolution is so absurd - like in the "Who's Betty?" bit - that it makes me burst out laughing.

[Isabella ⸙ · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Disclaimer: I haven't watched Adolescence yet, but I feel like this play is making similar commentary, just 65 odd years earlier.)

I had to listen to A Night Out twice because I wasn't concentrating and missed out on a lot of the nuances, but it's pretty good, albeit unsettling (what's new?). It would've been a smooth transition between The Caretaker and The Birthday Party, balancing the hopelessness and absurdity of being "stuck".

It's funny, the producer who introduced the play said that Pinter and Chekhov share a lot of similarities and, although my knee-jerk reaction was to disagree, I couldn't really, other than on the grounds that I like the former but not the latter 😂.

(I listened to the original 1960 BBC Radio broadcast.)

[Kazi · Rating 3 out of 5]

وقتی چیزایی که ازارت میدن رو بنا به انواع و اقسام ملاحظات، توی خودت میریزی و بروزشون نمیدی، مثل دیگ بخاری که سوپاپ هاش از کار افتادن باید هر لحظه منتظر یه انفجار باشی... گاهی فقط به اندازه یه اپسیلون دیگه فشار کافیه تا دیگ بترکه و خیلی چیزای دیگه هم به همراهش...

[Matthew Oglesby · Rating 4 out of 5]

68

[Shai Kauffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

the end was nice. but i used to higher standards from him.

[Angela Randall]

We own this as part of a collection of plays in one book: A Slight Ache: And Other Plays: "A Night Out", "The Dwarfs", - "Revue Sketches"

[Alborz Taheri · Rating 1 out of 5]

به شخصه خیلی باهاش "ارتباطِ حسی" برقرار نکردم . از طرفِ دیگر هم به نظرم نه موضوع خیلی موضوعِ بکر و خوبی بود و ( مهم تر از اون ) نه خبری از اون سبکِ خاص نوشتن و روایت کردن پینتر . فاصله زیادی داشت با پینترِ مثلا "خیانت" یا "از خاکستر به خاکستر" به نظرم .

[Tom O'Brien · Rating 4 out of 5]

A spring compressed for too long snaps free. A relatively realistic early piece of Pinter examines his obsession with power and release from new angle, successfully.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Typical, early Pinter play with dysfunction and tension in the dialog between odd participants.