The Birthday Party is also an intensely pyschologically claustrophobic play by
Harold Pinter. It tells the story of 2 men,
Goldberg - 50,
Jewish and in control of
McCann- 30 and Irish, who arrive at a deserted
boarding house and mentally break down a third visitor-
Stanley, who's been there for a long, but undisclosed period of time. The
boarding house is run by
Meg, who feels motherly towards
Stan , and
Petey , who puts up with her incessant jabbering. Eventually they break
Stanley and take him away in a van.
Pinter's style is such that you are left to fill in for yourself much of what is referred to, and it's something that you can draw what you like from really, (although I have my own ideas, of course). The dialogue feels awkward and uncomfortable very quickly, and gets quite disturbing in parts, and the contrast between the two sinister men and the babbling Meg really grates. Much of the play seems to be about repercussions of the men's pasts, but these we are never filled in on.