Saturday, April 1, 2023

The Birthday Party

This blog is a response to the task given by Yesha ma'am, as we are having 'The Birthday Party' by Harold Pinter in our syllabus of MA at the Department of English, MKBU.

What is the Comedy of Menace?
Comedy of menace is a subgenre of comedy that was developed in the mid-twentieth century. It was first identified by the British theater critic, Harold Hobson, who coined the term in 1951 to describe the plays of playwright Harold Pinter. The Comedy of Menace is characterized by its use of tension and unease, as well as its exploration of the darker aspects of human nature.

The hallmark of the Comedy of Menace is its focus on the disintegration of social norms and the breakdown of communication between individuals. It often depicts seemingly harmless situations that escalate into something menacing and threatening. This subgenre is characterized by its exploration of themes such as power, identity, and alienation.

One of the key features of the Comedy of Menace is its use of language. The characters often speak in a cryptic and enigmatic manner, leaving the audience uncertain about their true intentions. The dialogue is often sparse and disjointed, with long pauses and silences that add to the tension.

The settings in the Comedy of Menace are typically confined and claustrophobic, with the action taking place in a single room or a small, enclosed space. This serves to intensify the sense of unease and discomfort.

The characters in the Comedy of Menace are often flawed and morally ambiguous. They are driven by their own desires and agendas, which can lead them to act in unpredictable and sometimes dangerous ways. They often struggle with issues of identity and power, as they try to assert themselves in an uncertain and threatening world.

Overall, the Comedy of Menace is a subgenre of comedy that explores the darker aspects of human nature through its use of tension, language, and setting. It challenges the audience to confront uncomfortable truths about the human experience and the nature of social interaction.
The phrase “comedy of menace” as a standalone description inspires both positive and negative feelings. Comedy is used during a dangerous situation to cause audiences to draw judgments about a particular character or communication. The words used are the focus of often powerful stories that create conflicting emotions from its audience. The title “Comedy of Menace” immediately brings contradictions to mind, because comedy is generally something that makes people laugh, and the word "menace" implies something threatening. Quite literally, then, this phrase involves laughing at an ominous situation.

Don't Comedy and Menace Contradict Each Other?
Where comedy represents the humorous, the amusing and the laughable, Menace can be defined as a 'Threatening quality, tone or atmosphere' where comedy is produced form incongruity, the bizarre, the out of place, menace is often produced from nothing. The longer nothing happens, the more anticipate something happening, the greater the intention, anxiety and fear!

The Birthday party is ostensibly a comedy of Menace as it mixed the comic Absurdity in the form of Meg's antics and the almost slapstick MaCann - Goldberg partnership with the pitiful existence of the former and the constant threat of violence presented by the latter.
 
The term comedy of menace points out that menace is secondary to comedy, the light, comic treatment of grave themes like oppression and cruelty in the play makes it more unsettling for the viewer alike. Thus it is arguable that the comedy in the play heightened not only the menace but also Printer's criticism of political authority as frighteningly abusive and violent.

The Menace Resulting from the Reference to the “Job”
The amusing dialogue between Stanley and Lulu is followed by a dialogue between Goldberg and McCann who now arrives at the boardinghouse. This dialogue again produces a feeling of menace in the hearts of the audience. McCann is already feeling nervous, but Goldberg asks him to relax, and to enjoy his "holiday" here. Says Goldberg: “McCann, what are you so nervous about? Pull yourself together.” McCann is feeling worried about the job which Goldberg and he have to execute here. He would like to know what exactly the nature of this job is because he is ignorant of it while Goldberg has all the details. McCann's anxiety about the job makes the audience anxious too. McCann says that, if Goldberg tells him what kind of a job they have come here to do, he would ask no further questions. Goldberg does not disclose to him the nature of the job but assures him that no harm will come to either of them in the course of their execution of the job. The audience naturally suspects that some criminal act has to be performed by these two men.

Our Anxiety, Followed Immediately by Amusement
Meg now returns from her shopping. Goldberg questions her not only about her husband but more particularly about the lodger she has already got in the boarding house. Goldberg's inquisitiveness about this lodger, namely Stanley, again gives rise to a feeling of anxiety in our minds because we begin to feel that the job which these two men have come to accomplish may have something to do with Stanley. But just when we are feeling a bit anxious about Stanley, Meg amuses us greatly by giving to Goldberg a garbled version of what Stanley had told her about the two concerts. Meg's muddle-headedness makes her version a funny one. The pun on the word “tip here is particularly amusing.

A Threat to His Security, Suspected by Stanley
After Goldberg and McCann have retired to the room which Meg has assigned to them upstairs, Stanley, who had slipped away from the house, now returns. Stanley is very anxious to know who the two men are, why they have come here, how long they will stay, what their names are, and so on. Stanley’s curiosity about the two men not only reveals his own feeling of anxiety but creates anxiety in our minds also. Evidently Stanley feels that the two men who have come to stay here might threaten his security. While talking to Goldberg, Meg had told him that it was Stanley’s birthday whereupon Goldberg had suggested that a birthday party should be held at night in Stanley’s honour. Meg had accepted the proposal. Now Meg reminds Stanley that it is his birthday, and she gives him the birthday present which she had bought for him through Lulu. The birthday present turns out to be a boys drum. At first Stanley beats the drum gently and rhythmically, and we feel quite amused by his behaviour, but then he begins to beat it in a wild and irregular manner. He almost becomes savage in his beating of it, and it seems that he is under the influence of some demon. This wild drum-beating has its own share in producing a feeling of anxiety in our minds, though we do not understand what has upset Stanley so much. Act I closes at this point. This brief survey of Act I shows that there is ample comedy in it but that the comedy is accompanied by an under-current of menace.

Harold Pinter and the Comedy of Menace:
Harold Pinter (1930-2008) was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, and director. He was one of the most important and influential British playwrights of the 20th century, and his works continue to be performed and studied today.
Harold Pinter is widely regarded as the foremost exponent of the Comedy of Menace. His plays are characterized by their use of tension, enigmatic dialogue, and exploration of power and identity. Pinter's plays often depict seemingly ordinary situations that gradually unravel into something menacing and threatening.

Pinter's first play, "The Room" (1957), set the tone for the Comedy of Menace. It was followed by other plays such as "The Birthday Party" (1958), "The Caretaker" (1960), and "The Homecoming" (1964), which cemented Pinter's reputation as a master of this subgenre. Pinter's plays often feature dysfunctional families or groups of people trapped in a confined space, such as a room or a house, where power struggles and manipulation ensue.

One of the key features of Pinter's plays is his use of language. Pinter's characters often speak in a disjointed and enigmatic manner, leaving the audience uncertain about their true intentions. The dialogue is often characterized by long pauses and silences, which can be just as meaningful as the spoken words. Pinter's characters also often engage in power struggles and verbal duels, using language as a tool to gain an advantage over one another.

Pinter's plays also feature settings that are claustrophobic and oppressive, with the action taking place in a single room or a small, enclosed space. This serves to intensify the sense of unease and discomfort for the audience.

Comedy and Menace in the Cross-Examination of Stanley.
Then Goldberg appears on the scene. In a reminiscent mood he talks about the girl with whom he used to go out on Fridays when he was a young man. But Stanley, feeling worried about his own safety, adopts an aggressive posture towards the two men and tells them that there is no accommodation in this boarding-house for them and that they must leave. When McCann brings the bottles of whiskey, Stanley says that this boarding house does not have the license to serve drinks or to permit drinking. Stanley's aggressiveness, however, proves absolutely ineffective because Goldberg completely ignores Stanley's plea. Now begins a real conflict, a conflict which portends danger. Goldberg wants Stanley to sit down but Stanley refuses to comply. After a good deal of argument Stanley does sit down but only after McCann has sat down first. In the course of this argument there is a hint of violence when McCann says that he would "kick the shit" out of Stanley. Stanley is then subjected by the two men to a grueling cross-examination. This situation is the most dramatic in the whole play, and it is also perhaps the most striking example of the mingling of comedy and menace. The questions asked by the two men are such as to amuse us greatly but at the same time these questions are tantamount to threats and bullying. The questions are amusing because they are a kind of hotch-potch, having no connection at all with one another, and in some cases mutually contradictory. And they are menacing because singly as well as collectively they constitute an arraignment of Stanley. Here are a few selected questions creating this two-fold effect of mirth and fear on us:

“Why did you kill your wife?

Why did you never get married?

Webber! Why did you change your name?

Is the number 846 possible or necessary?

Why don't you pay the rent?

What about Ireland?

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Chicken? Egg? Which came first?

What makes you think you exist?”

The Menace, Heightened
Then the birthday party begins. There is plenty of fun and frolic. But Stanley sits silent and still, after the terrible ordeal through which he has been as a result of the interrogation and the bullying. Perhaps Stanley is also thinking at this time of what might come next. Blind man's buff follows. Everybody seems to be enjoying the game but, when there is a blackout, Stanley tries to strangle Meg and, after being pushed away by Goldberg and McCann, he tries to rape Lulu. The two persecutors then advance threateningly towards him, and here menace becomes most pronounced. Act II ends at this point. Act II is thus rich in comedy but it also bristles with threats of violence. The cross-examination of Stanley is the high point of the menace in this Act, but the menace becomes even more serious by implication when Goldberg and McCann advance threateningly towards Stanley after it has been discovered that he had tried to rape Lulu. Thus this Act, which opened with tension between Stanley and McCann, ends with a much greater tension between Stanley and the two intruders.



Conclusion:
A comedy of menace is a play in which the laughter of the audience in some or all situations is immediately followed by a feeling of some impending disaster. The audience is made aware of some menace in the very midst of its laughter. The menace is produced throughout the play from potential or actual violence or from an underlined sense of violence throughout the play. The actual cause of menace is difficult to define: it may be because, the audience feels an uncertainty and insecurity throughout the play.
The Birthday Party and Look Back in Anger perfectly reveal the individual and social problems and doubts that Great Britain was moving through during the post-war era. Both these two famous plays indicate the spirit of times and become vehicle or instrument for dramatic action.

Thank you .


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