Worksheet: The Birthday Party
This Worksheet is based on movie screening of the play "The Birthday Party" by 2005 Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter. We have watched 1968 adaptation of the play The Birthday Party, directed by William Friedkin as part of our syllabus. As a part of our thinking task we have been given pre-viewing, while-viewing and post-viewing of the screenplay 'The Birthday Party'. Click here for teacher's blog
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, who passed away at 78, was a very important and thought-provoking playwright of his time. Besides being a playwright, he also worked as an actor, screenwriter, and director. He was also active in politics, but he will be most remembered for his plays, where he turned everyday speech into dramatic poetry. In 2005, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Harold Pinter was born in the Hackney area of London to a Jewish family. His grandparents, who were Ashkenazi Jews, had escaped persecution in Poland and Odessa. Understanding Harold Pinter's personality wasn't hard, as one could see aspects from both sides of his family. He combined his father's strong determination with his mother's natural kindness. His upbringing, marked by certain conditions, led to him feeling a sense of loneliness, detachment, and sorrow an ideal environment for someone destined to become a playwright.
Harold Pinter was an avid reader, going through the works of Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Eliot, Lawrence, Woolf, and Hemingway. He was at the heart of a smart group in Hackney, and they stayed close throughout their lives. Pinter was also inspired by a teacher, Joe Brearley, who had a strong passion for poetry and drama and fueled Pinter's imagination.
Pinter stands out among the playwrights of his time because his work has lasted so well. He's also one of the few writers who significantly influenced the way people write. For example, he got rid of the idea that the narrator knows everything about the characters. After plays like The Birthday Party and The Caretaker, it wasn't necessary for narrators to know everything about the characters' past or future.
Harold Pinter faced some sad moments in his life, but his marriage to Fraser brought him a lot of happiness. She is still alive, along with his son Daniel from his first marriage. Despite his anger about unfairness and ongoing health issues, his later years were filled with joy.
Pinter was a unique figure in the theater world, someone we probably won't come across again. He was a playwright, actor, and director, deeply involved in every aspect of theater – all while nurturing his personal vision of the universe. Ultimately, that was his greatest accomplishment.
His Plays
Pinter's plays have established himself as a key practitioner of the Theatre of Absurd, and his most famous play The Birthday Party is commonly cited example of Comedy of Menace. His plays are marked by uncertainty in their storylines, character depictions, and conclusions, yet they possess unquestionable strength and uniqueness.
In Pinter's plays, conversations play a crucial role and are likely the reason behind his unique style. His characters engage in everyday, peculiar, and often ambiguous speech, known as "Pinteresque," which is filled with disjointed exchanges and meaningful pauses. Through the characters' words, hesitations, and silences, we see their struggles in connecting with others, exposing their sense of isolation. Even seemingly simple statements carry various layers of meaning.
Comedy of Menace
The term Comedy of Menace used to describe the works of David Crompton and Harold Pinter, and this term was coined by critic Irwin Wardle, taken from David Crompton's play The Lunatic View: A Comedy of Menace. Basically a Comedy of Menace is a tragi-comedy. Superficially it seems as a simple comedy but the comedy has a deep layer of meaning and various interpretation, involving tragedy of characters. There is sense of violation within the comedy, whether verbal or physical. The play keeps us entertained, but at the same time, it keeps us teetering on the edge of fear.
Characteristics of Comedy of Menace
- Tragedy with comic elements
- Indefinable and vague fear
- Sense of terror
- Ominous and surreal setting
- Uneasy feeling yet laughing and smiling
- Usually set in one room
- High comic level to deep seriousness
- Violence
Pinteresque
Pinter has used distinctive style of writing, which come to be known as Pinteresque. In which he made us of silence, also known as Pinter's pause, in his plays there is one elements is common and that is pause in between ongoing conversion of characters, and this silence is more significant and symbolic than what is spoken. For Pinter silence is the best medium for communication, in his plays Pinter uses the miscommunication of characters to add more layer of ambiguity and terror effect. Pinter uses colloquial language and over lapping dialogues.
The Birthday Party: An Artist in Exile
The Birthday Party has many interpretation and contextual meanings, one of them is about Stanley Webber. We can consider Stanley Webber as a a piano artist, because in the play as well as in the movie, he gave some references of him being an artist in the past during his conversation with Meg, and said that he had hold many piano concerts in his past throughout the Europe. May be we can see him as an artist who came in in the boarding to spent some time alone, and practicing his art. On the other hand, the character like McCann and Goldberg can be considered as fanatic fans, who came to meet his favorite artist Stanley Webber, and forcefully took him away with them.
The Birthday Party as Political Allegory
Harold Pinter's Nobel lecture provides a useful lens to view his play 'The Birthday Party' as a politically charged work that challenges widely accepted narratives propagated by those in power. Pinter emphasizes the role of art and drama in exploring multiple, competing "truths" that often contradict the single truth promoted by politicians and powerful entities to maintain their control over society. In The Birthday Party, the contrasting perspectives of characters like the vulnerable Stanley and the domineering Goldberg and McCann represent this clash between individual perceptions of reality and the enforced reality of powerful groups.
Pinter condemns acts of violence, torture, and human rights abuses carried out by governments under the guise of establishing order and freedom. The brutal treatment of Stanley by Goldberg and McCann can be seen as a metaphor for such inhumane actions sanctioned by the powerful. The play's claustrophobic setting and unpredictable power dynamics mirror Pinter's idea of drama being set in "an enclosed space" where people are "at the mercy of each other," reflecting the vulnerability of individuals against overpowering political forces. Ultimately, The Birthday Party aligns with Pinter's belief in the writer's role to confront and expose deeper truths that are obscured by self-serving power structures in society through compelling works of art. (Pinter)
While - Viewing Tasks
Harriet Deer and Irving Deer on Pinter's "The Birthday Party", The Film and The Play
In this article Deer and Deer both argues that, in both movie and the play of The Birthday Party, dialogues remains the same, because the movie also is written and directed by Harold Pinter. There are some dialogues which are slightly different, but it is covered by the cinematic medium. Pinter also used camera positioning to highlight menacing effects of the play, which in the play narrated through many words.
The film opens with an unsettling sequence of distorted visuals and unsettling sounds, setting an ominous and surreal tone of the movie. Pinter magnifies the trivial details and squalid living conditions through extreme close-ups frames, making the domestic environment seem more menacing. Camera angles and editing techniques enhance the sense of threat posed by Goldberg and McCann towards the vulnerable Stanley.
During the bizarre birthday party scene, even inanimate objects like furniture take on a volitional quality, actively working against Stanley. The final blackout sequence visually represents Stanley's descent into madness and loss of humanity in a more visceral way than the play. The concluding exterior shots show a sterile, lifeless suburban landscape, implying the total dehumanization of society.
Overall, the authors argue Pinter exploits the expressive capabilities of film to render the terrifying, absurd world of the play in starker, more nightmarish visual terms that amplify the work's themes of alienation and dehumanization. (Deer and Deer)
- In the play, the sense of emptiness and menace stems primarily from the dialogue, like Meg's inane chatter and tenacious small talk.
- In the film, Pinter creates a sense of emptiness and menace more through visuals and sounds - magnifying and distorting the trivial objects and noises of the domestic environment.
- Camera angles, extreme close-ups, and distorted visuals of mundane objects like plates and furniture make them seem grotesque and threatening.
- Loud, grating sound effects like scraping and tearing amplify the menacing atmosphere.
- The overall effect is that the trivial textures of daily life - sights, sounds, objects - take on an ominous, surreal quality in the film that is not as present in the play's text.
- The opening car sequence shows distorted, disjointed visuals and sounds with no clear narrative purpose, establishing a sense of a meaningless, unstructured world from the outset.
- The amplified mundane sounds like scraping plates and tearing newspapers take on an ominous, almost surreal quality disconnected from reality.
- The extreme close-ups on decaying objects and settings like the dirty kitchen render the texture of this squalid environment in meticulous, unsettling detail.
- Even the camera movements and angles at times seem untethered from conventionally motivated cinematic language.
Symbols
Chairs: Dining table as whole can be seen as disturbing for the all characters except Petey. No one can sit relax on the chairs, everyone who sits on the chair seems to be grappled with inner struggle with themselves. MaCcann sits on the chair while striping newspaper.
Post - Viewing Tasks
Why two scenes of Lulu omitted from the movie?
The omission of two scenes involving Lulu in "The Birthday Party" movie may be attributed to pacing, narrative focus, and thematic coherence. Filmmakers often streamline the story and prioritize key plot points, cutting scenes deemed unnecessary or lacking in significance to the overall arc. Constraints like time and budget can also influence scene selection. Ultimately, such decisions aim to enhance the viewing experience and align with the filmmaker's vision for the adaptation.
The movie is very much successful in providing the menacing effect of the play. Form the beginning of the movie nonsensical sounds from the kitchen and plates suggests the mysterious and ominous tone of movie. Much of the conversion between Meg and Stanley is also one of the contributing factor in giving menacing effects to the movie. Through these unnecessary sounds Pinter conveyed his message about the absurdity of the play, and its importance in the life as well. The arrival of the two strangers Goldberg and McCann is seen as menacing and visibly shakes Stanley, indicating an underlying threat or menace associated with their presence. McCann's violent behavior like cutting paper strips and warning Stanley to stay away, as well as delivering a physical blow to Stanley, conveys a sense of menace. Goldberg is portrayed as an authoritative and manipulative figure who menacingly threatens Petey, adding to the aura of menace.
The interrogation scene where Stanley is bombarded with questions like why he betrayed the organization is seen as a menacing verbal attack aimed at annihilating his identity. Stanley's forceful "birthday party" where he is reduced to an animal-like state making guttural sounds is interpreted as the ultimate menacing act representing the dissolution of his individual self by oppressive forces. The use of oblique, menacing language like clichés, pauses, and repetitions in the dialogues creates an underlying sense of menace and intrigue throughout the play.
The elements of violence, both physical and psychological, the presence of mysterious menacing characters like McCann and Goldberg, and their manipulative and threatening use of language contribute to an overarching aura of menace in the play.
There are several incidents in the movie that convey a sense of danger through the characters' language, behavior, sounds, tone, and ongoing action. The first instance occurs when the two uninvited guests, McCann and Goldberg, arrive at the boarding house uncertain if they are in the right place. The threat intensifies when Meg and Petey offer them accommodation without knowing their true identity. Stanley's rapid drumming also adds to the danger. Additionally, Goldberg's authoritative and cold demeanor towards Meg and Lulu further contributes to the overall theme of danger in the movie.
The entire interrogation scene is absurd yet dangerous, depicting violence between McCann and Stanley. Both McCann and Goldberg overpower Stanley, rendering him helpless. The scene where the newspaper is stripped also contributes to the dangerous atmosphere of the movie. The scene of birthday party is one of the most threatening scene, during this time screen goes completely blank, and we don't know who raped Lulu while lights are cut off.
Pinter's artistic methods in writing "The Birthday Party" are intentionally aimed at evoking a tangible atmosphere of imminent threat, psychological unease, and a disquieting aura of mystery surrounding the characters and circumstances.
The newspaper is closely associated with the characters of Petey and McCann. Petey spends much of the movie reading the newspaper and having breakfast, possibly using it as a means to escape the absurdities of life. He appears disconnected from the outside world and indifferent even to Meg. McCann tearing the newspaper into strips may symbolize his inner conflict with his job and the situation involving Stanley.
Camera is positioned over the head of McCain when he is playing Blind Man's Buff and is positioned at the top with a view of room like a cage (trap) when Stanley is playing it. What interpretations can you give to these positioning of camera?
This overhead camera angle could represent the menacing, overpowering presence of characters like McCann and Goldberg as they psychologically torment and entrap Stanley. The overhead view depicts their dominating, oppressive stance over Stanley. The bird's eye view camera angle resembling Stanley trapped in a cage aligns with the "room" being a symbolic space of enclosure, deceit and confinement for Pinter's characters. It visually reinforces the idea of Stanley being trapped and cornered, with no means of escape from the menacing forces closing in on him, represented by the cage-like framing.
"Pinter restored theater to its basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue, where people are at the mercy of one another and pretense crumbles." (Pinter, Art, Truth & Politics: Excerpts from the 2005 Nobel Lecture). Does this happen in the movie?
The majority of the film takes place within the confining setting of the boarding house of Meg and Patey, creating a dangerous, inescapable atmosphere for the characters, much like the confinement of Pinter's plays. The dialogues are full of non-sensical elements, and characters talking at cross-purposes in an unsettling, unpredictable way. There are long pauses and an underlying menace, accurately reflecting Pinter's use of ambiguous conversation. The power dynamics constantly shift, with Stanley being psychologically dominated by Goldberg and McCann through their intimidating presence and manipulative language. Stanley's attempts to cling to his identity and memories gradually break down as Goldberg and McCann's interrogations become more aggressive, leaving him a broken at the end.
The movie helps us to understands certain aspects of the play that may not be easily grasped through reading alone. Visuals can enhance comprehension of complex literary texts, such as conveying the menacing and dangerous effects of certain characters. Personally, I gained a deeper understanding of Goldberg's character while watching the movie, observing his use of manipulative language, his coldness, behavior, and relationships with his companion McCann and other characters.
Joseph K. from Kafka's "The Trial," Winston Smith from Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four," and Victor from Pinter's "One for the Road" share striking similarities in their experiences within oppressive systems. Each protagonist grapples with existential themes, feeling trapped and powerless against unjust forces. Joseph K. faces a mysterious legal system that accuses him without explanation, while Winston Smith is subjected to constant surveillance and manipulation by the totalitarian Party. Similarly, Victor contends with an oppressive government that employs torture to enforce conformity. All three characters struggle to maintain their individuality in dehumanizing environments, whether it's Joseph K. asserting his innocence, Winston Smith rebelling against thought control, or Victor resisting his interrogator's demands. Their narratives convey a sense of absurdity and futility in the face of oppression, with Kafka, Orwell, and Pinter all exploring themes related to totalitarianism and the abuse of power. Despite the unique details of their stories, the thematic parallels among Joseph K., Winston Smith, and Victor underscore the universal human experiences with oppression, power, and the pursuit of individual freedom. (ChatGPT)
Who would be your choice of actors to play the role of characters?
My cast for the movie, "The Birthday Party",
Word count: 3406
Images: 14
References:
Billington, Michael, and Madhumita Murgia. “Harold Pinter | Harold Pinter.” The Guardian, 26 December 2008, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2008/dec/27/harold-pinter-obituary-playwright-politics. Accessed 24 March 2024.
Dabi, Smita. “The elements of violence, menace and intrigue in the birthday party.” International Journal of Advanced Academic Studies, https://www.allstudyjournal.com/article/522/3-1-74-244.pdf. Accessed 24 March 2024.
Deer, Harriet, and Irving Deer. “Pinter’s ‘The Birthday Party’: The Film and the Play.” South Atlantic Bulletin, vol. 45, no. 2, 1980, pp. 26–30. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3199140. Accessed 24 Mar. 2024.
“Harold Pinter | Nobel Prize-Winning Playwright & Screenwriter.” Britannica, 25 January 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Harold-Pinter. Accessed 24 March 2024.
Malkovich, John, and Joe Hill. www.haroldpinter.org - Home, http://www.haroldpinter.org/home/index.shtml. Accessed 24 March 2024.
Pinter, Harold. “Art, Truth & Politics.” PMLA, vol. 121, no. 3, 2006, pp. 811–18. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25486356. Accessed 24 Mar. 2024.
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