The Birthday Party

sightless. The evening ends in confusion with an attempted strangulation, a possible rape and an obscure off- stage torture session. Next day the thugs carry Stanley away for medical treatment, or so they claim.

This muddled play failed to please audiences when it first appeared and its status as ‘ a masterpiece’ makes it tricky to produce even now. Parts of the script are more trouble than they’re worth. Luckily, the director Ian Rickson knows where they are and how to deal with them. McCann’s annoying habit of tearing newspapers into strips is played down. So is Goldberg’s temporary identity crisis in the second half. The long interrogation scene, often regarded as the most disturbing passage in all Pinter, is nothing more than a repetitive and humourless chunk of verbal slapstick. Here the actors rattle through it in double- quick time.

And then there’s the business with the drum. At the close of the first act, Meg presents Stanley with a child’s drum as a substitute for the piano he can no longer play. Stanley slings the toy over his neck and marches around like a soldier whacking it crazily. Later he treads on it by accident and destroys it. Clearly the drum represents something: thwarted parenthood, powerless infantilism, corrupted musicianship, the repetitive cacophony of a damaged intellect, the attention- seeking desperation