Week #17 : 'The Room' by Harold Pinter

”My first play was The Room, written when I was twenty-seven.  A friend of mine called Henry Woolf was a student in the drama department at Bristol University at the time when it was the only drama department in the country. He had the opportunity to direct a play, and as he was my oldest friend he knew I'd been writing, and he knew I had an idea for a play, though I hadn't written any of it. I was acting in rep at the time, and he told me he had to have the play the next week to meet his schedule.  I said this was ridiculous; he might get it in six months. And then I wrote it in four days.”  

Harold Pinter interview with The Paris Review Fall Edition 1966 #39

Influenced by Samuel Beckett (and not being introduced to Ionesco until he had written a few plays), Pinter attributes him and Franz Kafka as being the most captivating literary voices in his own world of writing.

The first play written by Harold Pinter was titled 'The Room'.  Taking only 4 days to write in 1957 when he was homeless, always on tour with a Repertory Stage Company performing in small dingy theatres around provincial cities and small out-of-the-way seaside villages.

'The Room' is One Act play set in a single room in the house of Bert Hudd and Rose.
Rose dominates the conversation whilst making breakfast (yet it seems to be dark out with stars present, making the audience wonder if it really is day or night) for Bert with very... small.... talk....
"It's very cold out, I can tell you.  It's murder."
"Just now I looked out of the window.  It was enough for me.  There wasn't a soul about.  Can you hear the wind?"
Rose discusses (single handedly) the new tenants that live in the basement of the house.  We are given no stage directions for Bert, but can safely assume that he sits at the kitchen table ignoring all that Rose is saying whilst reading his magazine.  She continues the one sided conversation musing about the people living downstairs and the prospect of Bert going outside in the cold weather to drive on the icy roads. And she talks... and talks..... and talks......
Suddenly there is a knock at the door.  Mr Kidd drops by to let them know that he has been looking at the pipes.  Rose chimes in about the weather (again!) and they have a pleasant chit-chat.  (So far, we can really see the influence of Beckett here and the start of the conversations that happen in the 'The Dumb Waiter' which I previously blogged about.)
As per Absurdist theatre techniques, there is frequent repetitions in the dialogue.  Rose continually says to Bert "I'll have some cocca on when you get back."  also "Don't go too fast" - in relation to his driving on the icy roads.
After some more dialogue from Rose and ignorance by Bert, we meet Mr and Mr Sands, the basement dwellers!  In this initial conversation Mrs. Sands repeats the phrase from Rose earlier on "It's murder out."  and again we are given another Absurdist technique of misheard lines.  There is a confusion as to who the landlord is : Kidd or Hudd.

After Mrs Sands finishing telling Rose about how they came to rent the room below... by walking into a dark room and hearing a voice telling them that the room was free, Rose states that Mr Kidd said earlier that all the rooms were taken.  Mrs Sands responds saying that the 'voice' told her and her husband that room seven was free.  "That's this room" Rose responds.
(It is all becoming very Ionesco's 'Bald Soprano' at this point in the script!) 
Just then Mr Kidd comes into the room and Rose accuses him of renting the room to the Sands.  
Mr Kidd tells Rose that there is a man in the basement that knows her and she must go and speak to him immediately.  This man refuses to talk to anyone but Rose.  Mr Kidd fetches him and we are introduced to a 'Blind Negro' - as it states in the script.  We soon learn his name is Riley and that he has a message for Rose - 'Your father wants you to come home."
Riley starts to call Rose - Sal .  At this moment Bert arrives home regaling Rose of his tales on the road driving 'her' back.  (This is never referenced again...)  
Bert sees Riley sitting on the chair at the table, he looks at him for a coupleof moments , and with his foot lifts the chair up dislodging Riley, whom falls to the floor.  "Mr. Hudd, your wife - " Riley begins to say, and to this Bert strikes him, knocking him down, kicks his head against the stove a couple of times and walks away.  
Rose closes the play yelling "Can't see.  I can't see.  I can't see."


Throughout the play we are surrounded by fear.  Fear of the outside, fear of other people, fear of losing others, fear of losing oneself.
We are also blurred by the elements.  It is cold and dark outside.  Rose is cooking up breakfast foods.  No one seems to want to stand near the fire to warm up, yet they eventually gravitate that way.  
Rose is seen to be the dominate character due to her dialogue at the beginning if the script.  She is making all the conversation, delivering food and making sure that her husband is well fed, warm and has a jacket to wear on his trip. No one seems to be in control in the middle section of the play - Rose does not know why Mr  Kidd has come to visit. Mr Kidd is dependent on Rose to get rid of the blind man downstairs. Mr and Mrs Sands are not sure whether they have come up or are going down stairs, not to mention that they don't even know who the landlord is. 

This is a perfect example of Absurdism at its greatest.  Limited character profiles, disjointed scenes, repetition of lines and no knowledge of their place in their world.


To sum up quite nicely, a word from Pinter on seeing his first play in it's first performance...

“It was the process of writing a play that had started me going. Then I went to see The Room, which was a remarkable experience. Since I'd never written a play before, I'd of course never seen one of mine performed, never had an audience sitting there. The only people who'd ever seen what I'd written had been a few friends and my wife. So to sit in the audience—well, I wanted to piss very badly throughout the whole thing, and at the end I dashed out behind the bicycle shed.” 

Harold Pinter (same interview)

Next Week: 'Falling Petals' by Ben Ellis

Week #16 : 'The Frogs' by Aristophanes

Aristophanes, the only playwright whose comedic plays are the only left surviving from the Greek period to this day.  His play 'The Frogs' written 405BC and presented at the Lenaia Summer Festival where it won first prize.  Since then this play is not often performed in modern day, being overlooked by the classic Tragedies of the genre.  Yet, he was one of the most clever of al the Greek playwrights.  Incorporating philosophers, including Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus – not to mention Dionysus himself, he created the Old Comedies which encompass topics that the other great playwrights did (the Peloponnesian War, Family relationships, sex and death) he wrote in a comedic style that was more for the educated and intelligent than the general public.  Although he also wrote with an astonishing ability for comedy (now called Old Comedy) that was adopted into a Vaudevillian/Absurdist style of  comedy that is still used today.  Take for instance the first few lines of the play:

XANTHIAS: Shall I crack any of those old jokes, master, 

At which the audience never fail to laugh?

DIONYSUS: Aye, what you will, except "I'm getting crushed": 

Fight shy of that: I'm sick of that already.

XANTHIAS: Nothing else smart?

DIONYSUS: Aye, save "my shoulder's aching."

XANTHIAS: Come now, that comical joke?

DIONYSUS:With all my heart.
Only be careful not to shift your pole, 

And-

XANTHIAS:What?

DIONYSUS: And vow that you've a belly-ache.

XANTHIAS: May I not say I'm overburdened so 

That if none ease me, I must ease myself?

DIONYSUS: For mercy's sake, not till I'm going to vomit.

I believe that this showed a great forbearance to how we now perceive the comedy stylings of a duo: Abbot and Costello,  Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Laurel and Hardy and even Walter Mattau and  Jack Lemon.

Aristophanes' play ‘The Birds’ was turned into a popular Opera, yet ‘The Frogs’ is much lesser known despite the list of characters he uses to unravel the processes of travelling to the underword to bring back to Earth one of the great dramatists of the age – Euripides.

The basis of the play is simple – Dionysus travels to the underworld with his servant to bring back Euripides from the dead.  Yet he does not bet on the journey being so difficult and fraught with decisions.

We are introduced to Dionysis as a theatre-goer.  He bemoans to the audience the sever lack of good dramatists in the world.  As the God of Wine, Theatre and Merry Making, he feels that this reflects upon him personally.  He resolves to go with his servant Xanthias and return with Euripides, the Prince of Dramatists.

With a lion-skin in tow, he disguises himself as Heracles (the Gatekeeper of Olympus) to herald his strength and ward against the possible dangers of the journey to the underworld.

Ferried across to the Underword by the boatman Charon, we are introduced to a huge croaking chorus of frogs – who seem to be the vocal link between the Earth and the Underworld.  In the meantime, servant Xanthias was denied a boat trip, he has had to walk across the lake to the entrance to the Underworld.

Taking the opportunity to get even with Heracles for misdeeds committed in the underworld, Dionysus forces his servant to change clothing/costumes with him (which alludes to a great banter between the two as a modern musical Vaudevillian style comedy).  The change is barely complete when a handmaiden of Proserpine to bid Xanthias (thinking he is Heracles) to a great banquet.  Dionysus insists that he changes back into the lion skin – that is until two housekeepers of Pluto (the God of the Underworld – in classical Greek mythology) attack Dionysus thinking that he is Heracles and wanting revenge for the damages he had done on his last visit to the Underworld. In a rush to prove his identity the chorus of frogs help to substantiate his true form.

The news soon spreads throughout the Underword that Dionysus has arrived to herald one of the great dramatists back to Earth.  There is a great disturbance and we hear quarreling from Aeschylus and Euripides, each trying to prove his worth to gain the position of the King of Tragedy and to take the high honour alongside Pluto for the great banquet.  It is soon decided that as both their plays were written and performed for the Dionysus Festival, that he should make the decision and decide who is to be the King of Tragedy.

A trial is set where Aeschylus and Euripides both need to prove their worth by presenting the first lines and verses from their plays.  Dionysus is torn between the two and originally takes the side of Euripides as he was the original intent of his visit to the Underworld.  Finally Aeschylus is declared with winner, yet it has also change the mind of Dionysus as to whom he wants to bring back to Earth.  Dionysus and Xanthias leave the Underworld, bringing back Aeschylus to write on Earth again, thus leaving Sophocles in the place of honour of King of Tragedy.

Like most classical Greek plays, the chorus is used as an intermediary between the main actors and the audience, both in representing what happens off stage to the audience and sometimes to the main actors, re-delivering imperative information to the audience and becoming the main conductors of movement on stage.  This play is no different, however there is a comedic prescense, not only used by the vaudevillian style comedy between Dionysus and Xanthias, but also with the information that the frogs deliver to the audience - always beginning with the requisite croaks and brekekex's of a typical frog call.

Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax, 

Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax! 

We children of the fountain and the lake 

Let us wake 

Our full choir-shout, as the flutes are ringing out, 

Our symphony of clear-voiced song. 

The song we used to love in the Marshland up above, 

In praise of Dionysus to produce, 

Of Nysaean Dionysus, son of Zeus, 

When the revel-tipsy throng, all crapulous and gay, 

To our precinct reeled along on the holy Pitcher day, 

Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax.

It's nice to enjoy the lighter side of Classical Antiquity!

Next Week: 'The Room' by Harold Pinter

Week #15 : 'Love, Loss and What I Wore' by Nora and Delia Ephron

Five women dressed all in classic and well fitting black dresses sitting on a stage in front of music stands.  Doesn't really sound like an interesting play does it... but as the stories in 'Love, Loss and What I Wore' unfold, we hear from 20 different characters (and some others to help tell their story) about the importance of memory in clothing.  These characters deliver moving and hilarious monologues based on pieces of clothing from their past that have remained imprinted in their memory for one reason or another.

Each actor plays 5-7 characters telling their stories or love, loss, heartache and embarrassment (and one very torturous story about rape).  
The main character, kind of like a narrator (but kind of not, at the same time) 'Gingy' is the only character for that actress and is the centre of the plot who sets the tone for each section of the play (based on Ilene Beckerman and her book of the same name).  Her stories are numerous and she has a more detailed plot line than the rest of the characters.
Each of the other characters delivers a shortish 3-5 minute monologue about the importance of a specific piece of clothing, like a tuxedo or Eggplant coloured dress (my personal favourite story in the whole play!) or a pair of boots, a bathrobe that holds infinite memories or a pale blue and white chiffon prom dress.  

The stories are set out in semi tonal waves, each slightly pertaining and responding to 'Gingy's' last clothing story.

Cast from 2009: Tyne Daly, Rosie O’Donnell,
Samantha Bee, Katie Finneran and Natasha Lyonne.

The most hilarious tale is about the uselessness of the handbag - One item that every woman has and an item that every woman dreads, which is directly from Nora Ephron's collection of acerbic essays "I feel bad about my neck." - "I hate my purse.  I absolutely hate it.  If you're one of those women who think there's something great about purses, don't even bother listening because I have nothing to say to you."
The saddest is the tale of the olive green boots - "I thought my boots gave me a kind of mysterious, Bohemian charisma, tough but tender, rugged but sensuous, poetic but unself-conscious, like Joni Mitchell."
Some of the other tales encompass the decision to wear heels or be able to function properly in society - 'I started wearing heels again.  Oh the pain, I can't think.  but I look gorgeous.  I had to choose - heels or think.  I chose heels."
The blunders of fashion 'There was, for a very brief moment in time, the paper dress.  And I had one." 
The trials of finding the right clothes for your body shape - "My mother as the most competent human being alive but she gave up on me clothes-wise.  She would send me off alone in a taxi to a store called Jane Engel on the southeast corner of 79th and Madison, and they'd bring me clothes and I'd try them on.  There was a dressing room with three mirrors, and no matter which way I looked, there I was, as big as a house.  There has never been a good time to be fat, but this was a particularly bad time on account of Audrey Hepburn.".

The monologues are intermingled with 'clothesline' mini tales.  Each one about a poignant clothing moments in every females life: 'What my mother said', 'The Bra', 'Madonna', 'The dressing room', 'The closet' and the importance of 'Black'.

The 'Madonna Clothesline'

  However you see the monologues, there is going to be at least one tale that each woman can respond to in some way.  Be it just the memory of the way a particular dress made you feel, the memory of a non-descript outfit you were wearing when you heard elating (or devastating) news, or that all important choice of a wedding dress.
These all encompass happy, shocked or terrified moments in every woman's life.

Playwright Nora Ephron (and co-wrote by her sister Delia Ephron) bought us perfect romantic/comedy films as: 'When Harry Met Sally', 'You've Got Mail', 'Sleepless in Seattle' and 'Julie and Julia' (she also directed the last three on this list).  Also an accomplished Essayist, Nora Ephron wrote heartfelt female stories of love and loss and the ways in-between.  This play is no different. 

'Love, Loss and What I Wore'  was first officially staged at the Westside Theatre in  New York for Off-Broadway (there were numerous readings of the play on Off-Off Broadway at the D2 Theatre) in 2009, it has increased in popularity ever since.  

The cast consisted of Tyne Daly, Rosie O'Donnell, Samantha Bee, Katie Finneran and Natasha Lyonne.  It soon became a revolving cast including stars of stage and screen (and the comedy circuit): Joy Behar ('The View'), America Ferrera ('Ugly Betty'), Blyth Danner, Rita Wilson, Barbra Feldon (Agent 99 in 'Get Smart'), Kirsten Wiig (SNL and 'Bridsesmaids'), Kristin Chenoweth (Broadway star - Glinda in 'Wicked'),  Jane Lynch, Kathy Najimi (Sister Act 1 & 2), Janeane Gafofalo, Melissa Joan Hart ('Sabrina the Teenage Witch') and Rhea Perlman.

An interview with Nora and Delia Ephron about the play gives you an understanding into the creation of some of these stories.  There are real life stories from the playwrights themselves, stories from Ilene Beckerman's book as well as stories from friends and relatives of the author and playwrights.  We see glimpses of how Nora and Delia, in conjunction with Ilene Beckerman's book, designed the elements and the importance of the moments in the play - each punctuated by the 'closeline' moments.

Nora Ephron passed away in June of 2012 from pneumonia aggravated by myelodysplastic syndrome which is a pre-leukemic condition.  Only close friends and family knew of this and it was not made public until her death.

This play has something for every female in the world and also allows males to catch a fleeting glimpse of what it is like to be a female.  Hopefully this play will help men to understand why females can take so long to choose a dress/shoes/handbag for certain situations!!

Next Week : 'The Frogs' by Aristophanes