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4 - Tales of the city

some places and voices in Pinter’s plays

from Part 1 - Text and context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

Peter Raby
Affiliation:
Homerton College, Cambridge
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Summary

The double bill of The Room and Celebration at the Almeida Theatre in March 2000 provided a unique occasion on which to attempt to obtain some view or perspective on Pinter. Here were his first and his latest play, forty-three years between them, directed by the author, with an excellent cast, many of them experienced Pinter actors, four of them playing in both plays: The Room given an evocatively detailed 'period' setting, drab, utilitarian, a murky refuge warmed by a flickering gas-fire and filled with the depressing lodging-house furniture of the 1950s; Celebration took place in a smart, postmodern restaurant, all curved banquettes and ostentatious table-linen, a glance, according to some of the first-night critics, at 'The Ivy', but replicated in many of the smarter establishments in the streets outside the theatre. Private and public, domestic and social: nice weak tea and bacon and eggs in The Room, duck, osso bucco and Frascati for the ladies in Celebration. Even the names resonate differently: ordinary or formal in The Room: Bert and Rose, Mr Kidd, Riley; and a less specific, apparently classless fluidity in Celebration's Lambert, Prue, Suki, Richard. This was London, and Islington, then and now.

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Chapter
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2001

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  • Tales of the city
  • Edited by Peter Raby, Homerton College, Cambridge
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Harold Pinter
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521651239.005
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  • Tales of the city
  • Edited by Peter Raby, Homerton College, Cambridge
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Harold Pinter
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521651239.005
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Tales of the city
  • Edited by Peter Raby, Homerton College, Cambridge
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Harold Pinter
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521651239.005
Available formats
×