The Word as Weapon The Birthday Party EBSCOhost. The ...

Rachel Lampson
ENGL 339
Professor Hale
14 April 2013

The Birthday Party

“The Word as Weapon.” Rev. of The Birthday Party, by Harold Pinter. Time 13 October 1967:

81-82. EBSCOhost. The review opens with a discussion of Pinter’s work as a whole. The
author writes that “…whether or not he baffles playgoers, Harold Pinter exerts a modish
appeal for an age of jitters that likes it comedy sauced with cruelty. He taps the adrenal
flow of anxiety and guilt that contemporary audiences bring into the theater with them.
Mirrored in his comedies of terror, playgoers can see the resurgence of their own
childlike fears, sense their own sadomasochistic impulses, detect the image of themselves
as pawns of chance in a chaotic and absurd cosmos” (81). The characters are then
“unleashed” onto the stage to interact in a primitive and recurring set of phases in Pinter’s
works: “the room, the torment, and the expiation” (81). Perhaps the most interesting part
of the review is when the author argues that to see the communication between characters
as unachievable is a gross misconception. The author writes that “not inability to
communicate but unwillingness to communicate is his central theme.” He then quotes
Pinter as saying: “I think that we communicate only too well, in what is unsaid, and that
what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to
ourselves…” (82).

Kalem, T.E. “Spirited Skull-Puzzler” Rev. of The Birthday Party, by Harold Pinter. Time

1971: 64. EBSCOhost. Out of all the reviews that I have read on “The Birthday Party,”
this perhaps comments on the actors’ collective performance in the most detail. The
authors main praise was that their work raised this play to such a level that it can actually
compete with his later, more highly acclaimed work. According to the author, part of the
power of Pinter’s works is the ability for this torment to strike the audience as comic and
appalling at the same time.

“The Birthday Party.” Robert Knopf. Rev. of The Birthday Party, by Harold Pinter. Theatre
Journal Oct. 1993: 382-384. Literature Resource Center. Director Vladimir Mirzoev has
taken much of what is left unsaid or unresolved and has tried to “fill in the gaps,” as it
were. This is done largely through set design, choreography, etc. Knopf writes that “by
placing his visualization of the subtext in the foreground, Mirzoev reorients the
production from Pinter’s focus on language and silence to his own focus on the visual
and sensual, yet he often overwhelms the text with his images” (382). The most
surprising of these changes is most likely Stanley’s exit at the end of act two. By having
Stanley exit in a scene that was originally intended be ended abruptly in a state of tension
and unease, Mirzoev has interpreted Stanley’s journey as “a positive one” (382). Knopf
also writes that “Mirzoev’s views of Stanley’s journey as an escape from domination
directly conflicts with the action of Pinter’s play. In the text, Goldberg and McCann bully
Stanley into submission and by the end o fact 3 they lead him away in a nearly catatonic
state. Mirzoev inverts the action, transforming Stanley’s final exit from an image of
submission into one of free will, with Stanley walking offstage unattended” (384). In
other words, it would seem that Knopf feels that Mirzoev has taken too many creative
liberties and has strayed from Pinter’s original intent.

Akalaitis, JoAnne. “The Birthday Party,” Rev. of “The Birthday Party,” by Harold Pinter.
Theatre Journal Oct. 2004: 508-510. JSTOR. Much like many other reviews, Akalaitis
expresses that careful attention must be paid to the rhythm and flow of language in
Pinter’s plays. She writes that “the dramatic force of Pinter’s narrative accumulates
through suggestion, intimation, and innuendo rather than explicit plot developments”
(508). This is really the first review I’ve read that comments on the actor’s performance
and interpretation of the play. Akalaitis writes that “throughout the production, the
efficacy of language is questioned and the characters’ inability to communicate with each
other becomes a source of dramatic tension” (509). The tensions created through
language are then replicated in the set design. For example, as Stanley becomes
increasingly confined by McCann and Goldberg’s barrage of questions, the walls literally
close in on them. Akalaitis views this as misguided, however, writing that “ while the
production is suffused with a palpable existential anxiety, an implicit political dimension-
often associated with the persecution of Pinter’s protagonists by anonymous authoritarian
forces-is absent. The authoritarian messengers, Goldberg and McCann, seem as
victimized by the general absurdity, the breakdown of language, and the surreal décor as
Stanley is by them” (510).