This collection of essays focuses on one of Harold Pinter's most popular and challenging plays, The Dumb Waiter, while addressing also a range of significant issues current in Pinter studies and which are applicable beyond this play. The interesting and provocative dialogues between established and emerging scholars featured here provide close readings of The Dumb Waiter, within relevant cultural and historical contexts and from a range of theoretical perspectives. The essays range over issues of autobiography and theater, genre studies, and the impact of Pinter's political activism on his dramatic production, among others. The collection is also concerned with the meaning of the play when assessed against other example's of Pinter's work, both dramatic and non-dramatic writing. Each contributor shows a gift for presenting a complex argument in an accessible style, making this book an important resource for a wide range of readers, from undergraduates to postgraduates and specialist researchers. The collection offers essays that approach The Dumb Waiter, from an interdisciplinary perspective and as both a literary and dramatic text. Thus, the book should be of equal significance to those encountering Pinter within the context of English Studies, drama, and performance.

The Room and The Dumb Waiter In these two early one-act plays, Harold Pinter reveals himself as already in full control of his unique ability to make dramatic poetry of the banalities of everyday speech and the precision with which it defines character. 'Harold Pinter is the most original writer to have emerged from the "new wave" of dramatists who gave fresh life to the British theatre in the fifties and early sixties.' The Times

Antimony IX divers can't be seen, of course ... but don't have anything in mind when one of them is around you!

Rose and Bert rent a room that might almost be a paleolithic cave; the outside is terrifying and unknown. Rose never goes out, Bert only goes to drive his van with furious aggression. A young couple call, and then a blind black man. Bert comes home, massive with triumph at smashing every car that challenged his van. Finding the stranger he kicks him to death and Rose goes blind.

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.