Plays for 2010 | Membership | New members on the committee | Upcoming performances

Plays for 2010

The Wizard of Oz directed by Emma Dow January 2010
The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter directed by Steve Lewis April 2010
Macbeth (A Farndale Farce) directed by Olwen Holme
Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen directed by Roland Fahey

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Membership due

If you have not done so yet please remember to pay your subscriptions. Our membership year starts from September through to September. It is still excellent value for £10.00 for single membership.

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New members on committee

Goodbye and many thanks to Gill Lambourn as chairwoman and Marion Millinger as Membership secretary who have both done a terrific job over the years  and welcome Cathy Dunn as new chairwoman and Sophie Hellicar as a new committee member

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Upcoming performances:

The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter.

Harold Pinter’s first commercially produced, full-length play received its premier at The Arts Theatre, Cambridge, directed by Pinter himself, on April 28th 1958.  Both there and on tour in Oxford it received some critical acclaim but when it moved to The Lyric Opera House in Hammersmith it received harsh criticism and closed within a week.  Subsequent productions in 1964 at The Aldwych and in 1968 at The Booth Theatre in New York were much better received and it became one of the plays that secured Pinter’s reputation as an avante-garde playwright.

Like much of Pinter’s work, describing the action of the play does not necessarily say what the play is about.  The setting is that of a seedy guest house in an unnamed, and non-descript, English seaside town .  Meg and Petey Boles run the establishment, although Petey also manages the deck chairs on the beach.  There is one guest in the house: Stanley, who is the subject of much motherly attention from Meg.  Stanley does not seem to do much but sit around all day.  Meg’s friend Lulu comes into the house and tries to get Stanley to smarten himself up but concludes that he is a bit of a washout.  Petey tells Meg that two men have enquired about staying at the guest house and that they will be turning up later.  These two men are Goldberg and McCann; what they are and why they are travelling together is unclear but, as the play progresses, there are strong indications that they have some past connection with Stanley.   Meg tells Goldberg that it is Stanley’s birthday and Goldberg, who seems used to taking control of situations, announces that they should hold a party in Stanley’s honour.

It is from then on that events take an ever increasingly sinister turn.  Stanley becomes more and more frightened by the behaviour of Goldberg and McCann.  They interrogate him with bizarre, meaningless questions and drive him to edge of hysteria, finally leaving him catatonic.  Despite Petey’s protests that he and Meg can look after him, Goldberg insists that they should take Stanley to “Monty’s” for special treatment.  Goldberg and McCann take Stanley away.

As to what the play is about: by the time it comes to performance, I and the cast will have a clear idea of what is going on.  You the audience can discover our understanding of the events by coming to see the play!

Characters:

Meg: in her sixties; very much in her own little world, or, at least, determined to impose her interpretation of events on the world around her.  Very proud of her respectable reputation.

Petey: in his sixties; a mild, everyman character and very gentle with Meg.
Stanley: in his late thirties; unkempt, sour tempered, feels slighted by the world.  Appears happy to scare Meg but is easily no match for Lulu.

Lulu: in her twenties; dresses provocatively and likes to think of herself as sexually experienced.  In fact this is mostly her confused understanding of what it means to be an adult.  Goldberg gets her drunk and seduces her at Stanley’s party.

Goldberg: in his fifties; good at taking control of situations either affably, telling little anecdotes about his upbringing, or forcibly by giving orders.  Pinter gives him the style of an old fashioned Jewish business man.

McCann: in his thirties; not one of the world’s great thinkers, although not without some doubts about what he is ordered to do.  A foot soldier who obeys Goldberg’s orders.

There is some lee way in ages but Meg, Petey and Goldberg should be within the same decade and Lulu should be younger than the others.

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