A Study Guide for Harold Pinter's "Mountain Language," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
A Study Guide for Harold Pinter's "Mountain Language," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
THE STORY: Furthering the theme of political consciousness expressed so forcefully and eloquently in his earlier play One for the Road, the author's present play takes place in an anonymous country where individual liberties have been forfeited to the state. Set in a prison where the inmates are forbidden to speak their own language, the play is comprised of four terse, arresting scenes which make masterful use of nuance and subtle understatement (with sudden bursts of violence) to create an overwhelming sense of terror and shocking futility. In one scene uniformed officers taunt and belittle the women who have come to visit their men, who are political prisoners; in another a mother and son are allowed to speak only in the language of the capital, which they do not know; in the third scene a young woman accidentally sees a guard holding a limp, tortured man whom she knows to be her husband; and, in the final scene the old woman reunited with her bloody, trembling son and, though told she may now speak, she has been silenced so long that she cannot, or will not, do so. Quintessentially Pinteresque in its skillful use of pregnant pauses, resonant images and nightmarish utterances, the play is both enthralling theatre and a stirring reminder of what can happen when the power of the state becomes all-encompassing and the rights of the individual are forfeited, whether through neglect or weakness of will.
A Study Guide for Harold Pinter's "The Caretaker," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
A Study Guide for Harold Pinter's "The Birthday Party," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
Jacket description.back: In all of Pinter's plays, seemingly ordinary events become charged with profound, if elusive, meaning, haunting pathos, and wild comedy. In The Caretaker, a tramp finds lodging in the derelict house of two brothers; in The Dumbwaiter, a pair of gunmen wait for the kill in a decayed lodging house. Harold Pinter gradually exposes the inner strains and fear of his characters, alternating hilarity and character to create and almost unbearable edge of tension.
Stanley Webber is visited in his boarding house by strangers, Goldberg and McCann. An innocent-seeming birthday party for Stanley turns into a nightmare.The Birthday Party was first performed in 1958 and is now a modern classic, produced and studied throughout the world.
First presented by the Royal Court Theatre in London in September of 1996, Ashes to Ashes is a triumph of power and concision. In the living room of a pleasant house in a university town outside of London, Devlin, threatened by his wife Rebecca's recollections of an abusive ex-lover, questions her relentlessly in his need for a single truth. In her seamless blending of what she knows of violence with the wider violence of the world, Rebecca reveals an eerie communion with the dead victims of unnamed political barbarities.
The Improv Handbook is the most comprehensive, smart, helpful and inspiring guide to improv available today. Applicable to comedians, actors, public speakers and anyone who needs to think on their toes, it features a range of games, interviews, descriptions and exercises that illuminate and illustrate the exciting world of improvised performance. First published in 2008, this second edition features a new foreword by comedian Mike McShane, as well as new exercises on endings, managing blind offers and master-servant games, plus new and expanded interviews with Keith Johnstone, Neil Mullarkey, Jeffrey Sweet and Paul Rogan. The Improv Handbook is a one-stop guide to the exciting world of improvisation. Whether you're a beginner, an expert, or would just love to try it if you weren't too scared, The Improv Handbook will guide you every step of the way.
