The birthday party

“THE BIRTHDAY PARTY”

BY HAROLD PINTER

Characters:

Petey, a man in his sixties

Meg, a woman in her sixties

Stanley, a man in his late thirties. Mr. Webber.

Lulu, a girl in her twenties

Nat Goldberg, a man in his fifties

McCann, a man of thirty

Act 1

• This act takes place during a morning in summer.Meg, a woman in his sixties, was preparing her husband’s breakfast while he (Petey) was coming where she was, they started sharing some kind of senseless questions. Once Petey was there having the cornflakes that Meg had prepared for him, he told her that two men had come up to him the previous day looking for someone and they needed a place to stay for a couple of nights. Meg asked manyquestion about those men but Petey had no answers at all. After that, Meg asked Peter if someone is up or not yet. Apparently they were talking about a boy, so Meg move to the other room and called for him saying: “Stan! Stanny!”… “I’m going to count one! Two! Three!... Some minutes later this supposed boy entered from upstairs. But he was not a boy; he was Stanley, a man in his late thirties. When heappeared Petey welcomed him. Stanley sat at the table to have breakfast; he is one of their boarders. Meg served him his breakfast proud of what she had prepared but Stanley complained about the quality of it and Meg got very angry saying that was impossible because it was delicious. She asked Petey about the breakfast and he agreed with her. Petey left them and went to work. There Meg and Stanleycontinued their discussion about breakfast. Meg got angry because Stanly referred to both the breakfast and her as “succulent” and she believed that those were no words for a married woman. Then they changed their topic and they started talking about Stanly capacity to play the piano. He said that maybe he was leaving for a new job in Berlin. And then he continued talking about his tour all overthe world. Immediately after talking about that they changed their topic again. Meg asked Stanley if he had listed about the latest news. She asked if he had listened about those two men who were coming that day in a van. While they were talking, someone knocked at the door. It was Lulu who entered to the house and gave a package to Meg. Meg and Lulu began talking about the house because Lulubelieved that it was a bit stuffy there and Meg replied that she had cleaned everything that morning. Lulu could not believe how she could spend the whole day in the house. Moreover, when Meg moved to go shopping, Stanly invited Lulu to go somewhere but Lulu refused. She left and Stanly remained there. While Stanley was cleaning his face in the bathroom, two other men entered. They were Goldberg andMcCann. Some minutes later, Meg returned to the house and found the two men talking. One of them was extremely polite with her at the moment of speaking. That one was Goldberg. They talked about Meg’s husband and the resident living there, Stanly. Then Meg also mentioned that she was preparing a birthday party, Stanly’s birthday. Goldberg offered to buy the drinks and Meg said that she was going toinvite Lulu to the party also. After some other comments about the party, the guests move to their room and Stanly arrived. When he got to know about the two men staying there and being part of the party, Stann got very angry. But then, Meg said that he should be happy because that day was his birthday and after that she gave Stanly the package. It was a present for him. The present was a toydrum. Stanley began to beat it, then marching around the table, beating it regularly, as if he were a young boy and becoming increasingly erratic, uncontrolled.

…The curtain falls with this scene…

Act II

• This act takes place during the evening of the same day.

It is evening. MCCANN is sitting at the table ripping a sheet of newspaper into five equal strips. After a few moments,...