About the work
Harold Pinter's „The Birthday Party" was premiered in Britain in 1958 and savaged by the critics at its opening before being recognised as a classic. Pinter's first full-length play is regarded as a model of the „comedy of menace" — a comedy in which an indeterminate threat undermines everyday life.
Plot
Stanley Webber, a run-down former pianist, is the only guest in the shabby seaside boarding house of the couple Meg and Petey. His idle existence is disturbed when two opaque strangers arrive: the smooth-talking Goldberg and the burly McCann. They claim to know Stanley and settle in. Meg insists that it is Stanley's birthday and throws him a party — though Stanley denies it. During the celebration the two strangers interrogate Stanley in a barrage of absurd, mutually contradictory accusations and wear him down psychologically. In a game of blind man's buff and in darkness the scene escalates. The next morning Goldberg and McCann lead away a mute, broken, smartly dressed Stanley — where to and why remains open.
Cultural significance
„The Birthday Party" is a key work of modern theatre and shaped the notion of the „Pinteresque": menacing pauses, offhand language and a never-explained danger. After its initial failure it became one of the most-performed plays of Pinter, who received the Nobel Prize in 2005. It belongs to the standing repertoire of English-language and international theatre.