The Birthday Party

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Harold Pinter: „The Birthdayparty“

The play "The Birthdayparty" was published in London in 1957. The play is characterised by communication problems between the characters. These communication problems are typical for Harold Pinter's plays.

Also characteristic for his plays is that they are separated in to three parts. They all are in the same location. They play in a house in a seaside town. The first Act is " A morning in summer", the second Act is " Evening of the same day" and the third Act is "The next morning".

The main characters of the play are Petey ("a man in his sixties"), Meg (" a woman in her sixties"), Stanley ("a man in his late thirties"), Lulu ("a girl in her twenties"), Goldberg ("a man in his fifties") and MCCann ("a man of thirty"). On a normal day, Stanley's birthday, Goldberg and McCann arrive at the house of Petey and Meg and want to stay there for a few nights. Goldberg and McCann's arrival interrupts the tedious morning ritual between Petey, Meg and Stanley. Goldberg seems to be a undertaker. McCann has sort of a double-act routine.

The enduring communication problems make the whole situation even harder. In the end these problems leed to that Goldberg and McCann manipulate Stanley, Meg, Lulu and finally Petey to achieve their ultimate goal.

More information about the Communication-Problems in Pinter's works in the WikiSchool at: "The Caretaker".

In Germany, the play was published as „Die Geburtstagsfeier“.

Textausgabe:

Pinter, Harold: The Birthdayparty. ISBN: 0-413-30480-9

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Links

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