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 #14 : 'EndGame' by Samuel Beckett

HAMM:  I wonder.  (Pause.)  

Imagine if a rational being came back to earth, wouldn't he be liable to get ideas into his head if he observed us long enough.

(Voice of rational being)  Ah, good, now I see what it is, yes, now I understand what they're at!

( Normal voice)  And without going so far as that, we ourselves...

(with emotion)  ...we ourselves... at certain moments...

(Vehemently)  To think perhaps it won't all have been for nothing!

Samuel Beckett, the God of Absurdism, brings us a disastrously tragicomedy in one long act.  EndGame, the tale of four misfits living their rudimentary lives in a post apocalyptic world, not in any hope of gaining a better one, but just - to be.

Living in a cyclical stasis, Hamm and Clov discuss the world, it's complexities and the nature of beginnings and endings, whilst being completely alone and devoid of happiness.

Clov and Hamm

Hamm is the Protagonist of EndGame.  All though his obnoxious and disagreeable behaviour at times makes him the Antagonist to his man-servant, Clov. Blind and completely imprisoned (we assume, by old age) in his wheeled chair, Hamm continuously comments that no one suffers more in life than he. For Hamm, there is no reason for being on this Earth, particularly not in the damp and chilly hole where he also polices over his parents - Nagg and Nell.

HAMM:   In my house. (Pause)

(With prophetic relish) One day you'll be blind like me. You'll be sitting here, a speck in the void, in the dark, forever, like me. (Pause.)

One day you'll say to yourself, I'm tired, I'll sit down, and you'll go and sit down. Then you'll say, I'm hungry, I'll get up and get something to eat. But you won't get up. You'll say, I shouldn't have sat down, but since I have I'll sit on a little longer, then I'll get up and get something to eat. But you won't get up and you won't get anything to eat. (Pause.)

You'll look at the wall a while, then you'll say, I'll close my eyes, perhaps have a little sleep, after that I'll feel better, and you'll close them. And when you open them again there'll be no wall any more.  (Pause.)

Infinite emptiness will be all around you, all the resurrected dead of all the ages wouldn't fill it, and there you'll be like a little bit of grit in the middle of the steppe.  (Pause.)

Yes, one day you'll know what it is, you'll be like me, except that you won't have anyone with you, because you won't have had pity on anyone and because there won't be anyone left to have pity on you.  (Pause.)

Clov is the Antagonist of EndGame (and as his character is more downtrodden and worn out – He is the more likable character and therefore assumes the role of Protagonist in our minds).  He is the servant to Hamm despite his own disability – Clov cannot ever sit, he is forever walking – often pacing from one side of the room to another and looking out the windows for something.

Adopted into his household by Hamm as a young boy, the play's tension centres around Clov's yearning to leave against his feelings of responsibility to stay with Hamm (an obligation he constantly questions throughout Endgame). Clov constantly attends to Hamm and his relentless commands, such as wheeling him around the dank hole, relaying the landscape outside the windows, giving Hamm his medicine and covering him up at night.  Clov has inexorable juxtaposing emotions of hatred and bonds to Hamm.

CLOV (as before):  I say to myself— sometimes, Clov, you must learn to suffer better than that if you want them to weary of punishing you— one day. I say to myself—sometimes, Clov, you must be better than that if you want them to let you go—one day. But I feel too old, and too far, to form new habits. Good, it'll never end, I'll never go.  (Pause.)

Then one day, suddenly, it ends, it changes, I don't understand, it dies, or it's me, I don't understand that either. I ask the words that remain— sleeping, waking, morning, evening. They have nothing to say.  (Pause.)

I open the door of the cell and go. I am so bowed I only see my feet, if I open my eyes, and between my legs a little trail of black dust. I say to myself that the earth is extinguished, though I never saw it lit.  (Pause.)

It's easy going.  (Pause.)

When I fall I'll weep for happiness.  (Pause. He goes towards door.)

Nagg and Nell

Nagg is Nell's husband and Hamm's father. Living (or should I say – Not living, as Nagg and Nell are in all aspects of the word – dead) in a rubbish bin next to his equally ‘binned’ wife.   He arises every now and then to yell out for food or to try, and always in vain, to kiss Nell and retell the identical story he always tells (we assume on a daily basis). Often, especially when demanding food, he is childish, barely verbose, but sometimes he can be quite profound and articulate.

Nell is Nagg's husband and Hamm's mother. She is resigned to the routine and sameness of their existence, professing the frequent attempt and persistence of Nagg to kiss her a "farce." Nell, as a character, is minimal and not important to the plot, she appears to be the only reason Nagg keeps ‘living’ and is the the sole example of a normal relationship in the play.

NELL (without lowering her voice):  Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. …  ... ...  Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more. 

Hardly a verbose play, the dialogue is frequently one to three words in response from Hamm's musings and barking orders and Clov's responses.  Some of the longest sections are the stage directions for Clov.  They are long, detailed and highly important to the characterisation of EndGame.  The first entry to the play is Clov walking from one window, getting up on a chair, getting down and walking to the other side of the stage, only to repeat the same movement.  this is a long and laborious task, but gives the audience a clear depiction of the characters and the world that they are living in.

It is extremely  difficult to describe this play.  I suggest, if you have a week spare:

Read it.

Muse over it.  

Put it down.

Pick it up again and sigh.

Put it back down.

Stare at it wondering if the next time you attempt to read it, it will make a little more sense.

Pick it back up.

Read it.

Put it back down.

Sigh.

Pick up a pen.

Pick up the script again.

Read it and scribble notes all throughout the script.

Put it back down.

Sigh in realisation that you will NEVER fully grasp the complexity of Beckett's writings.

CLOV (straightening up): I'm doing my best to create a little order.

 (Don't ask why there is a red background to the text........ Grrrrrr... I have no idea why it is there and how to get rid of it......  Blogger is getting worse and worse to use.)

Next Week: 'Love, Loss and What I Wore' by Nora Ephron