The Birthday Party (1957)

Harold Pinter

Play script

English

Stanley Webber is the only lodger in Meg and Petey Boles' rundown seaside boarding house. Over breakfast, Meg mentions to Stanley that two visitors are coming to stay for the night. Stanley immediately grows apprehensive and his fears are confirmed when Goldberg and his partner, McCann, arrive throwing the mundane lives of Stanley, Meg, Petey, and their friend, Lulu, into chaos. Meg announces that it's Stanley's birthday and, even though Stanley insists it is not, Goldberg demands a celebration which quickly descends into a disturbing nightmare.

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Date of Composition: February 1957 - 1957

Linked Works

No Linked works have been added to this work record yet.

Linked Places

Eastbourne (Type of place: Place of inspiration)

Eastbourne

Harold Pinter found lodgings here in 1954 whilst acting inside a horse's head in L. du Garde Peach's A Horse! A Horse! He met a man, who used to be a concert pianist, who suggested he stay in the same boarding house. There he met a quite remarkable landlady. The situation and characters gave birth three years later to The Birthday Party.

Confidence Level

Lower Edmonton (Type of place: Location (within the fiction))

Lower Edmonton

Stanley in The Birthday Party talks of his great success as a concert pianist at Lower Edmonton, which is also where Pinter himself won a 220 yard race when he was 16.

Maidenhead (Type of place: Location (within the fiction))

Maidenhead

Stanley, in The Birthday Party, tells McCann that he was 'born and brought up' here, and that he 'lived well away from the main road'. The location, and the further detail of being away from the main road, might be a means Stanley uses of implying a genteel, respectable background.

Basingstoke (Type of place: Location (within the fiction))

Basingstoke

In The Birthday Party, Goldberg recollects that his Uncle Barney used to have a house in Basingstoke. Stanley, in the same play, makes a passing reference to having lived here.

Ethical Hall, Bayswater (Type of place: Location (within the fiction))

Bayswater

Now a Catholic Church.

In The Birthday Party, Goldberg recalls giving a lecture at the Ethical Hall, Bayswater. Today, this is a Catholic Church.

Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia, London (Type of place: Location (within the fiction))

Charlotte Street, London

In The Birthday Party, Goldberg recalls that 'Charlotte Street was empty' when he gave a lecture at the Ethical Hall, Bayswater. Charlotte Street was a favourite location for the fashionable intellectuals of early and mid-twentieth-centory Fitzrovia.

Faber Education edition.

Faber and Faber Ltd on (1996)

Appears in 'Harold Pinter Plays: One', Reissued Faber edition.

Characters

Petey (Age: sixties, Male)

Stanley (The Birthday Party) (Age: late thirties, Male)

Goldberg (Age: fifties, Male)

McCann (Age: 30, Male)

Meg (Age: sixties, Female)

Lulu (Age: twenties, Female)

Resources

Full text on Drama Online (URL)

Type: Script

External Link: https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/plays/the-birthday-party-iid-129717

Subscription required

Sources

Correspondence from Pinter to Henry Woolf

ADD MS 89094/4, British Library Manuscripts

Library archive

In a letter postmarked 27 February 1957, Pinter writes to Woolf about the forthcoming production of The Room, and indicates that he has begun another play. This was no doubt The Birthday Party.