HAROLD PINTERPlays One
Contents
Title Page
Introduction: Writing for the Theatre
The Birthday Party
First Presentation
Act One
Act Two
Act Three
The Room
First Presentation
The Room
The Dumb Waiter
First Presentation
The Dumb Waiter
A Slight Ache
First Presentation
A Slight Ache
The Hothouse
Author’s Note
Characters
First Presentation
Act One
Act Two
A Night Out
First Presentation
Act One
Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three
Scene Four
Scene Five
Act Two
Scene One
Scene Two
Act Three
Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three
The Black and White
The Examination
About the Author
By the Same Author
Copyright
INTRODUCTION
Writing for the Theatre
I’m not a theorist. I’m not an authoritative or reliable commentator on the dramatic scene, the social scene, any scene. I write plays, when I can manage it, and that’s all. That’s the sum of it. So I’m speaking with some reluctance, knowing that there are at least twenty-four possible aspects of any single statement, depending on where you’re standing at the time or on what the weather’s like. A categorical statement, I find, will never stay where it is and be finite. It will immediately be subject to modification by the other twenty-three possibilities of it. No statement I make, therefore, should be interpreted as final and definitive. One or two of them may sound final and definitive, they may even be
I’ve had two full-length plays produced in London. The first ran a week and the second ran a year. Of course, there are differences between the two plays. In
It took me quite a while to grow used to the fact that critical and public response in the theatre follows a very erratic temperature chart. And the danger for a writer is where he becomes easy prey for the old bugs of apprehension and expectation in this connection. But I think Düsseldorf cleared the air for me. In Düsseldorf about two years ago I took, as is the Continental custom, a bow with a German cast of