jujijo

theatre

THE DUMB
WAITER
by

Harold Pinter

Study pack

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 Harold Pinter’s early life

Harold Pinter was born on 10 October 1930, in Hackney, a relatively poor area of
East London, England. His parents were native English, Jewish, lower middle class,
and of Eastern-European ancestry; his father was a tailor, worked long hours, and
was quite severe and old fashioned. His mother was a housewife and "a wonderful
cook." Pinter was an only child and spent many hours on his own.

He wrote his first play in 4 days in 1957 for a student drama competition. He
stopped writing plays and screenplays in 2005 to dedicate more time to his political
writing and activism – his later plays had already become more political than his
early ones. He wrote 29 original stage plays, 27 screenplays various radio plays,
poetry and a novel. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005.

Possible early influences

London

Pinter grew up in a traditional red-brick, three-storey town house in London. These

houses often had different families living on different floors, or even different
rooms on the same floor. Many of his early plays are clearly based in London and
seem to take place in rooms that could be in this kind of house, with strange
collection s of people coming together sometime for unknown reasons.

War

When he was only nine years old, the Second World War broke out. This was a very
difficult time, and in particular for Jewish people all over the world because of
Nazism. Many of his plays deal with a kind of external authority that suddenly
interferes with ordinary people’s lives, forcing them to face situations and make
choices they don’t understand, with no explanation. Pinter always said that it was
the audience’s job to work out what was happening – this was not because he just
wanted to be mysterious and confuse the audience, but because be believed that
every single situation in life is interpreted and understood completely differently by
everybody involved and everybody watching: we must all, always, make up hour
own minds based on the evidence we see and the feelings we have, at the same
time as wanting to know more about what is happening.

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Evacuation

Like many young children in big cities all over England, Pinter was sent away from
his family during the war into the country to live with people he didn’t know: this
was called evacuation. This was in order to protect children from the bombings in
the cities – in London, this bombing was very famous and was usually called the
Blitz. This evacuation affected Pinter very much: he later talked about facing "the
life-and-death intensity of daily experience" at that time; his "prime memories of
evacuation" were "of loneliness, bewilderment, separation and loss”: these are
themes that appear in all of his works.

School

When he went to Secondary School, his English teacher inspired him to read more
(at home, there were very few books) and become interested in the theatre – he
began acting in school plays. He also made very strong friendships with other boys
and the male teachers, but there were very few female influences in his life. In his
plays, there are often complex relationships between the men, but the women
seem to be stronger characters, often being capable of resolving situations that the
men cannot.

Reading

In 1951, Pinter stole a library book – a novel by the famous write Samuel Beckett:
he later said he thought that no-one would mind, as nobody had borrowed it since
1939! His plays are often compared to the plays of Beckett – Pinter admired him
very much, and later they became friends. Although neither writer liked labels being
given to their work, people often talk about them both as being part of the Theatre
of the Absurd: this is an idea of theatre in which extremely unreal things happen: in
one of Beckett’s plays, a woman is buried up to her middle in sand and talks all the
time about how good her life is! Pinter’s plays seem to happen in more real
situations, usually a closed room or house, with people apparently talking about
everyday things: the strangeness - or absurdity - is why the people are there or
what their relationship is.

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Obituary of Pinter by Michael Billington (theatre critic and Pinter’s biographer)
The Guardian, December 25 2008

“Harold Pinter, who has died at the age of 78, was the most influential, provocative
and poetic dramatist of his generation. He enjoyed parallel careers as actor,
screenwriter and director and was also, especially in recent years, a vigorous
political polemicist campaigning against abuses of human rights. But it is for his
plays that he will be best remembered and for his ability to create dramatic poetry
out of everyday speech … it is a measure of Pinter's power that early on in his
career he spawned the adjective "Pinteresque" suggesting a cryptically mysterious
situation imbued with hidden menace.

Pinter on Pinter

I’m convinced that what happens in my plays could happen anywhere, at any time
in any place, although the events may seem unfamiliar at first glance. If you press
me for a definition, I’d say that what goes on in my plays is realistic, but what I’m
doing is not realism. Harold Pinter, 1961

We have heard many times that tired, grimy phrase ‘Failure of communication’ …
and this phrase has been fixed to my work quite consistently I believe the contrary I
think that we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and what
takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves
to ourselves. Communication is too alarming. To enter someone else’s life is too
frightening. To disclose to others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility.
Harold Pinter, 1962

I can sum up none of my plays. I can describe none of them except to say: This is
what happened. This is what they said. This is what they did. Harold Pinter, 1970

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 Study ideas

BEFORE YOU WATCH … Here are some questions that might help you understand
the play better – think about them before and while you watch the play.
1 Here are some words that appear in the play: do you know what they mean?
Listen for them in the play, and try to remember what the context was.

lorry stove melted cucumbers

crockery matches sour watercress

pie handy mouldy roll mops

lavatory café beansprouts hardboiled

eggs
pong stale radishes
scampi
kettle

2 Where are Ben and Gus and why are they there?
3 What is the relationship between the two men?
4 What does Ben want Gus to make throughout the play? Why doesn’t Gus ever
do it?
5 Ben gives Gus lots of orders with question tags at the end. Try to remember
some of them.
6 Each person in the audience has their own idea about what are the most
important moments in the play – or the “turning points” – for the characters and for
the story of the play: as you watch, try to identify what you think are the turning
points.

AFTER YOU WATCH … we will discuss some more questions to help you
understand the play better. If you have any questions as you watch the play, try
to remember them and we’ll answer them too. Here are some to start:
7 What do you think happens at the end of the play?

8 If you have read the notes on Pinter’s biography and influences, what things do
you think were an influence on The Dumb Waiter?

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Post-performance questions and activities (can be continued in class)

 At what point does Ben know that he has to kill Gus? Are there any clues earlier
in the play?
 Why does Pinter not write a conclusive ending?
 What were the most entertaining moments of the play and why?
 What were the most serious moments and why?
 What single moment are you most likely to remember?
 Which did you feel sympathy with either character? Why?
 Which character did you feel angry with either character? Why?
 Which moment of the play did you find the most worrying and why?
 If you had to explain the message of the play, what would you say?

Hotseat
Students have an opportunity to interrogate the actors/director and ask any question
they think relevant.

 In groups, students think of three questions to ask each “character”.

 Whole group ask the actors question in turn.
 Whole group decides which question is the most interesting/revealing.

Advice to characters
Students have an opportunity to advise the characters about the end of the play.

 Actors replay the ending of the play

 Class group splits into 2. One group advises Ben on what to do next. The other
group advises Gus on what to do next.
 Group comes back together and actors summarise a couple of good points of
 advice their group suggested.
 Actors play the scene again adding in some of the pieces of advice.

Violence and status

There is violence - or “menace” - in the play through the language and the way in which
it is delivered. The violence in the language affects or is a result of the ‘status’ of the
characters at any given moment. We can measure status by saying that number ‘5’ is
high status and number ‘1’ is low status. It can change from one moment to the next.

 Actors replay the “kettle” scene and students read it. Actors demonstrate the
status idea
 Students look through the scene decide what status each character has after
each two lines.
 Students feedback to the whole group and some students replay the scene with
different status.
 Actors replay scene with some new ideas.

Unspoken thoughts

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Sometimes (in life as well as in Pinter) what is NOT being said is more important than
what IS being said. We sometimes call this the sub-text. Pinter often talked about
silences that are full of meaning.

 Students identify one or two moment s when it is clear that the characters are
thinking about something else.
 Actors replay one or two of these moments.
 Class shout out ‘freeze’ at key moments (or during pauses) and add in a line to
say what the characters are thinking.

Unheard words
Classical Greek theatre often employed a concept called “deus ex machina” – it meant
that something or someone came on to the stage and had an important effect on the
play.

 What is the deus ex machina in this play?

 Ben replays the speaking tube scene, and students read it.
 In groups, students decide what Ben is “hearing” on the other end of the tube.
 Students perform the scene in pairs: one student as Ben, the other student as
the Voice of the Tube

Props and scenery

Pinter’s plays contain naturalistic props and scenery that are essential to the action.

 How much of the design do you think is in the original script?

 How do you think the design is relevant for the audience of today, so that the
play appears timeless?
 Discuss in pairs what you think was the most important prop/ piece of scenery
in the play and why.
 If a prop could be added to bring relevance to the action what would it be?
 If a key prop was removed, what would be the effect of this?

Secret messages

A
 Could there be a meaning hidden in code in the requests for food (sent down in
the dumb waiter) giving Ben information to kill Gus?
 Look at each of the messages. Play around with acrostics, anagrams and
 hidden sections of words contained within the language, to try and de-code.
 Why do some items have capital letters?

1. Two braised steak and chips. Two sago puddings. Two teas without sugar
2. Soup of the day. Liver and Onions. Jam tart.
3. Macaroni Pastitisio. Ormitha Macarounada
4. One bamboo shoots, Water Chestnuts and Chicken. One Char Siu and Beansprouts.
5. Scampi

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  Devise your own code and write short messages like the menus in the play. See
if your classmates can decipher the messages.

B
 Look at the section of the script below.
 Imagine that Ben is receiving messages from Wilson’s team, who are observing
what happens in the room on CCTV next door. If Ben was wearing an earpiece
what messages would he be receiving?

G: Ben, why did he send us matches if he knew there was no gas?

B looks up
Why did he do that?
B: Who?
G: Who sent us the matches?
B: What are you talking about?
G stares down at her
G: (thickly) Who is upstairs?
Ben: (nervously) What’s one thing to do with another?
G: Who is it, though?
Ben: What’s one thing to do with another?
Ben fumbles for his paper on the bed.
G: I asked you a question.
B: Enough!
G: (with growing agitation) I asked you before. Who moved in? I asked you. You
said people who had it before moved out. Well, who moved in?
B: (hunched) Shut up
G: I told you, didn’t I?
B: Shut up!
G (feverishly) I told you before who owned this place, didn’t I? I told you

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SPEAKING TUBE SCENE

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PUT THE KETTLE ON SCENE

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