The birthday party characters

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The birthday party as a comedy of menace

Discussion Questions. Harold Pinter had an extensive career as an activist and as one of the most significant English playwrights of the 20th century. The Birthday Party , his first full-length play, was first performed at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge in , under the direction of Pinter himself. The play toured to positive reviews, landing on the West End in London with a different director the following month, where reception was significantly chillier.

The Birthday Party closed after a week because audiences and reviewers were perplexed by the play, with the notable exception of Harold Hobson of the Sunday Times , who praised Pinter for his rare and disarming insight into existential precarity. The Birthday Party defies categorization into traditional genres of comedy, tragedy , or even tragicomedy.

The characters speak to each other in pleasantries that are frequently vaguely threatening. Certain moments might draw laughter or pity, but the ending is ambivalent. Get access to this full Study Guide and much more! The SuperSummary difference.