AS 'COMEDY OF MANNER'
Once asked what his plays are about, Pinter lobbed back a phrase "the weasel under the cocktail cabinet", which he regrets has been taken seriously and applied in popular criticism. Despite Pinter's protestations to the contrary, many reviewers and other critics still find that Pinter's "remark", though "facetious"(teasing), is still an apt description of his plays. Now the Phrase "comedy of menace" is often applied to it and suggests that although they are funny, they are also frightening or menacing in a vague and undefined way. Even as they laugh, the audience is unsettled, ill at ease and uncomfortable. Pinter?s own comment clarifies it:
"more often than not the speech only seems to be funny - the man in question is actually fighting a battle for his life".
(What situations appear funny to us? But in fact for the character concerned is a terrifying experience.)
Now the question arises that does Pinter?s work really go in accordance to the ?comedy of manners. A critic says:
"Pinter restored theatre to its basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue, where people are at the mercy of each other and pretence crumbles. With a minimum of plot, drama emerges from the power struggle and hide-and-seek of interlocution. Pinter's drama was first perceived as a variation of absurd theatre, but has later more aptly been characterized as 'comedy of menace,' a genre where the writer allows us to eavesdrop (spy) on the play of domination and submission hidden in the most mundane of conversations. In a typical Pinter play we meet people defending themselves against intrusion or their own impulses by establishing themselves in a reduced and controlled existence. Another principal theme is the unpredictability and elusiveness (ambiguity) of the past."
The general setting of the play is naturalistic and mundane, involving no menace. However one of Pinter?s greatest skills is his ability to make an apparently normal and trivial object, like a toy drum, appear strange and threatening. Pinter can summon forth an atmosphere of menace from ordinary everyday objects and events, and one way in which this is done is by combining two apparently opposed moods, such as terror and amusement.
Another technique that Pinter uses to create an atmosphere of menace is to cast doubt on almost everything in the play. One method of doing this is to have a character give a clear and definite statement and then have him flatly deny it later on.
Wilson, T. W. (n.d.). "This is War" American Rhetoric: The Power of Oratory in the United States. Retrieved April 14, 2011, from http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/wilsonwarmessage.htm
Conflict with reality and appearance brings to surface the elements of the traditional commedia dell’arte in the form of mistaken identity, which enriches the farcical plot-lines that occur in the play. The very embodiment of mistaken identity establishes that what may be seem real could be quite the opposite, however the characters in the play are unable to distinguish this as their vision becomes distorted by their fall into the deception of appearance. It is this very comedic device that enables the conflict between Roscoe (Rachel) and Alan, or Charlie and Alan’s father to occur which is a significant part of the comedic nature of the play as the unproportional situation is what sparks laughter from the audience, and so it is the presence of mistaken identity alone that conveys the play into a light-hearted comedy. Furthermore, Peter O'Neill quotes that ‘using humour can provide a degree of safety for expressing difficult ideas or opinions which could be particularly effective…’. In the circumstances of the quotation Richard Bean effectively c...
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Some of the central components to this book include but are not limited to: a glossary of terms and concepts, notes on the play’s production history, a compilation of pertinent socio-cultural information, playwright information, history/historiography, dramatic criticism/commentary, a scene break-down, notes on genre, pertinent notes on characters (like their specific functions throughout the play), and other references like images of art, architecture, and geography (4).
The audience is interested in this plot, as "counterfeiting" and deception are themes that run through the play. We are led to feel that deception is not always totally bad, as it can have some powerful results.... ... middle of paper ... ... However, what is conceivably more relevant, is how the audience’s opinion adjusts throughout the play.
Starting with the title itself, there’s quite a bit of wordplay in this play. List as many examples as you can find. How does this use of language contribute to the tone and spirit of the play?
Deception and misunderstandings are important sources of humour throughout the play and both comedy features are predominately evident in Act 1 in the ‘cigarette case’ scene. In this scene, the audience is exposed to deceit and lies created by the main protagonist Jack (also known as Ernest in the city) and the deuteragonist, Algernon; which creates humour for the audience because of mistaken identity and deception together with dramatic revelation, chaos and confusion.
On “The Importance Of Being Earnest”, Act II lines 1324 to 1446 the sources of humor of these passage are the satirization of the Victorian era norms, violations against common sense, mockery of love and delusion. All of these humorous source are provided by the extravagant author Oscar Wilde in the short passage of 122 lines.
Elin Diamond defines "Gestus" as "a moment in performance that makes visible the contradictory interactions of text, theater apparatus, and contemporary social struggle." (Diamond 519) Gestus makes it clear that the apparatus is doing something else entirely. "The term "apparatus" draws together several related aspects in theater production: the hierarchy of economic control, the material features of machinery and properties, and, more elusively, the social and psychological interplay between stage and audience." (Diamond521) Society works in certain ways to try and tell us what is normal. In this theoretical essay, Diamond suggests that there is a contradiction within the play that portrays women as having free choice, which in this time,
The playwright uses different images and symbols as developed by female actors to ease his communication on various circumstances that drew the Denmark community backwards. In his play, he uses the Denmark society as the setting so as to
Pinter’s first play the room summarizes his basic concerns,imagery,and themes.it is also the most characteristic play in terms of style.in his more recent plays few things change,but the constant element in pinter is his style,the idiosyncratic manipulation of words and silence,in this respect,pinter shows qualities of an original writer.a contemporary critic argues that: