University of Karabuk

Sarah Saleh Abdul Mahdi

ID:1928218601
Q1

A lot of critics considered Pinter as an absurd writer because in his

plays we find the most of absurd features, the nonsensical dialogue, the
threatening universe, the dark comedy and other features in the absurd
theatre. He did not take himself as an absurd writer but he took another
level, he mixed it with some realistic features and he added more comic
elements to it but it's still dark comedy that’s why his plays have been
described as the comedy of menace..

Birthday party is full of absurdist features. What links it to the theatre

of absurd is that whole understanding of existence is being shady, is
being not clear, for example the main character of the play Stanley lives
in a condition that so fragile, he feels the entire existence is not secure.
Personal histories of the characters are sometimes unclear and
ambiguous, for example, Goldberg and McCann, who they are and what
they represent. These information remain unknown and unclear even to
the audience. Goldberg did not provide any proofs about why he intrudes
Stanley's life. What is the fact of Stanley? The fact of his past and his
background are ambiguous. He claims that he is pianist, this may be not
real information. Birthday party effects the audience to doubt anything
with certainty.

The absurd in this play takes the shape of man's reaction to the world
apparently without meaning. There is a kind of frustration and complain
from life in every character.

Pinter also uses contradiction such as in Act one when Stanley says
“I have played the piano all over the world” then he says “all over the
country” and then after a pause he says “I once gave a concert”. (Pinter, 1957)

Also, in Stanley's birthday when Meg decided to make a party but he tries
to refuse by saying

“It is not my birthday no; It's not until next month”. (Pinter 1957).

Also, when Goldberg and McCann ask Stanley a question, the

questions they throw at him are like gunfire, quick, unrelated, and do not
give us any information that explains the nature of the charge against
him. One of the charges against him was that he was the cause of his
fiancee's death because he did not marry her. Or he didn't pay the rent. Or
why did he break your nose? Why do you think you exist? Or what do
you think you are? The latter, it seems, is the fundamental question in the
play.

Thus, the place suddenly turns into a torture chamber in which

Stanley undergoes a cruel, tortured and dirty brainwashing, during which
he loses his ability to speak, and this is a metaphor for crushing his
personality, identity and humanity, to be born on the second day another
human being, Another Stanley in a suit similar to their suits, and then
lead him outside without a word. The Birthday party, which is the title of
the play, was not meant here, the anniversary of Stanley's birth, but the
day the other Stanley was born, which is quite different from Stanley just
before that party.

However, Pinter doesn't pass it like this without even a slight hint of
resistance, and this is embodied in old Peter's last sentence, that trembling
and frightened sentence as he whispers to Stanley in a sad tone out of a
crushed spirit: "Stanley, don't let them tell you what to do." As we
contemplate this horrifying scene, many questions come to mind:

Whose Stanley? Why did he come to live in this secluded coastal house?

And who are these two men?

Pinter does not answer questions like this, of course, but leaves us
with these empty pages of text to complement in our imagination, and the
true that the Pinter Theatre, and Beckett as well, the essence of which is
not to try to perceive what is happening in front of him on stage, but
rather the quality and form of the responses of that spectator to what is
happening.

Q2

Look back in anger, in this play Osborne mocked and mimicked the
real-life style. In the fifties of last century men did not look to women as
equals. Osborne clarified this point through the performance. This is one
of many reasons made the play generates a huge response because these
issues were not supposed to be out into the open. Osborne challenges the
society by discussing and opening these issues. Osborne borrowed many
features of a style of theatre called (the well-made play) there are many
similarities of style but Osborne adds differences in content. There is no
relationship or conversation stable in all the play.

Jimmy Porter the major character of the play becomes the model for
the angry young man, a name chosen by the generation of artists and
working-class young men at that time after the second war world in
British society. The play takes place in Jimmy's flat which contain one
room. The furniture is very simple and old and the setting of the play
emphasized on the contrast between the pale reality world and the
idealistic of Jimmy.

The play takes a contrasting view of gender that reflects these

shifting dynamics. On one hand, the anger, disruptive and traditionally
masculine energy of Jimmy drives much of action and dialogue. And
also, women are provided agency, and female characters behavior in their
own desires, independently of men, (In particular, both Alison and
Helena leave Jimmy). Femininity in the play associated with upper-class
while the masculinity associated with lower class. This leads to conflicts
between the two sexes that also have an economic dimension. Sticking to
the traditional gender roles means sticking to British society's propriety
and politeness.

Sarah Kane's theatre addressed a number of issues, such as sex, love,

depression, loneliness and murder. So, it was strange for society to
discuss these issues with such boldness and cruelty at the same time. Her
theatre contains scenes of sex, murder and torture, all of which are
difficult to accept or present on stage, challenging her directors.

In Blasted play, Ken escapes from the world, in a hotel room, in two
people: «Ian» a journalist in his 40s, and suffers from the diseases of the
whole world, so we find a person with suicidal tendencies, does not stop
smoking, and his companion "Cate" at the beginning of her second
decade. A man and a woman, ken represents them for many human
transformations that take years to shorten in two days. The model of a
racist 40-year-old man who sees a woman as a tool in his hand or just a
sexual amusement, although he admits to love her, is presented. She
introduces the model of a vulnerable woman who is well aware of the
extent of the harm a man inflicts on her, and even admits to him openly,
but is associated with a son's association with his mother.

Sexual abuse happened between Ian and Cate. When Ian coerces her
to stay with him despite her refuse, he forces himself upon her and
pressing his body on her unawareness body. He obliged her to sleep with
him and practice sex with him. Another abuse happened when the soldier
enters the hotel room, he wanted to abuse and rape any women in the
room but when he did not find any women and he find pair of knickers,
he obliged Ian to wear it and then he put the pistol on Ian's head and rapes
him and eats his eyes. Sarah Kane merged war with sex and considered it
as violence coercion