The Dumb Waiter
The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter is a play that was influenced by Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Pinter’s work is about two men, Ben and Gus, who seem to work together although no one really knows what they do. The play starts out with Gus trying to fill the void space that is evident by his actions. Ben is reading the newspaper and does not seem to notice the silence of the scene, but Gus is trying to find something to fill this silence. The setting is that of a basement room with no windows and a door leading outside. This room contains two beds and two unidentified objects in the walls. The first lines of the play are about what Ben reads in his newspaper and this occurs after a long silence filled by Gus’s actions of removing his shoes to find matches and cigarettes in them. They then start to discuss the events in the paper where an old man was run over by a truck. The use of the word discussion in relation to this scene is used loosely because it is really not a discussion because Ben doesn’t seem to really want to discuss with Gus, be just wants to relay the information found in the paper. As the play continues there is more waiting and silence. Gus continually goes to the bathroom to occupy time and tries many times to ask Ben questions. Ben then tells Gus to make tea and to stop trying to have a conversation. This coldness of Ben towards Gus seems to be foreshadowing of the eventual ending. Gus does not immediately make tea and he seems to dawdle. He continues to make statements like “I hope it wont be a long job, this one” (131) and these statements create a sense of repetition. It seems like they do a job every week or so and that they go through all the same motions before they start the job. The...
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...her rooms on the other sides of the basement room. This is especially so that there can be an entrance and exit to the lavatory and kitchen and also a door to the passage. One door will be center stage right by the wall this will be the door to the kitchen and lavatory, the other will be opposite this and will be the door to the passage. The beds will be at slight angles but close to flat against the wall to show that the room is not a formal room but just a makeshift room, and they will be placed in upstage center and upstage left. Ben will start out sitting on his bed, which is on the left. As stated in the stage directions the dumb waiter will be in between the two beds but will at first be closed so it is not easily apparent. The drawing attached to this shows how the stage will be organized and shows the angular shape of the room better than can be described.
The play is set in three scenes. The entire play is set in the dining
I think I agree with how the play was written. I believe it was written to relay a message to its readers on relationships and how they can explode in a fast manner. For example, the relationship that Jim and Dave had was ruined because on girl named Daisy. And because of her talking to both men it caused Jim to be considered guilty
Claudio questions, “Didst thou note the daughter of Leonato?” to which Benedick responses, “I noted her not, but I looked on her.” He at that juncture initiates to sort jokes about her look. It is a stimulating argument since Claudio claims to have “noted” her, but has actually only seen her. Benedick recognizes the dissimilarity. Everybody can take in the shallow qualities at a glimpse. One cannot love another, enjoying the worthy establish in them, at a peek. Claudio, who deceptively confidences his wisdoms obliquely without slightly charm to the use of motive, may possibly not be proficient of “noting” whatsoever awaiting at the conclusion he finally does note Hero in the semblance of her cousin. As soon as Hero has been acquired, and the dual proposal to join in matrimony, Claudio says, “Silence is the perfectest herald of joy.” Grasped in the framework of the play. Had individuals enunciated fewer, nothing of this would have occurred. On one supplementary event, Claudio expresses a pronounced line which amounts up the piece and the theme of blather and its results: “O what men dare, what men may do! what men daily do not knowing what they do!” As an on the side, it is symbolic of the superficiality of their bond that one time earned, neither take a thing to say to each other.
The Dining room’s dimensions are 18’ 6" x 18’ 0"; ceiling 17’ 9". This room has a Doric influence as well. (figure three, right) The Tea Room has dimensions of 15’ 1" x 11’ 2"; ceiling 17’ 11" ...
2. PLACE: Pittsburgh. The play is set in the dirt yard of the Maxson house. We're told that it's a two-story brick house, set off a back alley. Two junky chairs sit on a porch that's in bad need of a paint job.
Primarily, the overall environment of the play was welcoming. The Augusta Conradi Studio Theatre building was relatively small and no more than a hundred ninety seats. The stage arrangement was a classic stage setup. The stage was presented on a proscenium stage with stairs and ramps on both sides. The atmosphere of the building was fine and felt like a theatre should have. The theater was also clean and well-polished. The ceilings were high however the temperature inside the building was a little hot. Since the theater was rather small the stage felt more like a school play rather than a big play production but that soon changed as the actors stepped on the stage.
The setup of the stage was very simple. It was the living room of a home in the early 1980’s. It looked like a normal household, and it had small things such as crumpled up pieces of paper lying around the wastebasket. It also had a couch, circular class table and a recliner in the living room. The dining room was to the left side of the stage and only had the dining table and surrounding chairs. There was a door in the back of the set where characters entered and exited through. Beside the door was a table and stool where Willum presumably worked on his blueprints for the hotel. The lighting design was great; it put you into the atmosphere of the
Ben is sitting in his room while his welcome home party is going home downstairs. His parents come up to get him to mingle with their families’ friends, but Ben wanted to just be alone. As they are walking down the stairs the camera stops on the clown picture on the wall. The clown is dressed up and does not have any sign of happiness on his face. The viewer can assume Nichols was trying to explain Ben is feeling he has to act like someone that he truly is not and he is not pleased about doing what his parents are making him do. A significant shot that could foreshadow future action is when Ben is bringing Mrs. Robinson’s purse upstairs to Elaine’s room. As he walks in we have a still shot of a dark room with all the lights off except a light over Elaine’s picture. The shot cuts into a close-up shot of Elaine’s picture, but the audience can detect the reflection of Mrs. Robinson walking nude into the room. This scene, that is taking place in Elaine’s room, is the first time Mrs. Robinson approaches Ben about having an affair. The setting of this scene furthermore puts suspicion in the viewer’s mind about the
In this scene the writer repeats to a technique that he uses in other important parts of the play, by using the inspector this way in a number of occasions, most noticeably in his final speech when he talks about
Within a story that is mostly dialogue, it would be logical to understand which characters are speaking so the reader can understand the interactions of the characters. There are no names given to the two waiters in the café, and there is very little reference to which one is speaking. This makes the reader infer which character knows what key information is being presented. One of the first critics to start the dialogue debate in 1959 is Dr. William E. Colburn who authored Confusion in ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place’. Colburn declared, “The dialogue does not fit a logical pattern; there definitely is an inconsistency in the story” (241). At the same time in 1959, a college teacher named F. P. Kroeger wrote, “There has been what appears to be an insoluble problem in the dialogue” (240). These two initial statements have resulted in years of contention and controversy by many other critics.
When you first enter the theater, you are immediately in awe of the strongest aspect of this production: the set. The stage features a life-sized enchanted forest with “tress” as tall as the ceiling and a lit-up backdrop of a twilight sky. The tress would move around throughout the performance to make way for different scenes. In front of your very eyes, an enchanted forest would turn into the outside of a charming house with a lit porch and a well. The twilight sky would turn to a starlit sky and a soft spotlight simulating moonlight would compliment the faint sound of crickets. Suddenly the house and tress move around and you’re in a town with a little cart selling baguettes, or a lush dining room with Victorian wallpaper, a chandelier, and china displayed on the walls. The world shakes once again and now you’re in, inevitably, a ballroom. A white Victorian gate opens up to become the walls of the ballroom, and a white marble bridge and staircase appear for the outside of the castle. Adults and children alike were in awe of the craftsmanship and technology.
The swift conversations begin in a coffee house with the two main and only characters are Bill and Betty. From the beginning till the end of the play one can see a series of pick up lines, from a man to a woman sitting in a coffee shop reading. The lines start out short and rapid with an equivalent short response from the woman. Each line is separated by a ringing bell. All humans are critical of their fellow human?s beings. They are critical about their looks, cars and etc. Generally there is an old saying ?you never have a second chance to make a first impression.? In this play the author uses a bell as a mechanism of separating the dialogue of subsequent pick up lines, which gives the characters another chance to make a good impression.
One of my favorite aspects of this show was the onstage seating. I think that it’s a wonderful way to arrange Virginia Repertory Theatre’s Theatre Gym and a wonderful way to play towards all parts of the stage. This gave the audience the opportunity to feel as if they were in the home itself. While sitting on stage left I felt included in every scene and that I was never subjected to starting at the actors’ backs. In fact, some scenes were
The Butler is an amazing account of the life of Cecil Gaines. Mr. Gaines was raised on a cotton plantation in 1926 in Macon, Georgia, His parents were Share croppers. Their life on the plantation was difficult at best. Cecil’s mother was raped and his father was killed by the plantation owner. When Cecil was a teenager he left his mother and the plantation life behind. The events that transpired took a devastating toll upon his mother. His mother became a mute, due to these events.
This play shows the importance of the staging, gestures, and props making the atmosphere of a play. Without the development of these things through directions from the author, the whole point of the play will be missed. The dialog in this play only complements the unspoken. Words definitely do not tell the whole story.