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“RANDOM DOTTINESS”... The London premiere was produced by Codron and David Hall, and was directed by Peter Wood. Wood already had a reputation in the London theatre, having directed a very successful revival of Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh just before starting work on Pinter’s play.” From various points of view therefore, the production was affected by some of the uncertainties attending any premiere, but Pinter’s long experience as a theatre actor, the recent success of his first short play The Room, and the experienced personnel surrounding the production militated to some degree against these risks. However, in London the newspaper reviewers strongly criticized the play, and its run was cancelled after only eight performances. Ihe play is set on the English coast, in the living room of a boardinghouse in asmall seaside resort. Ihe house’s middle-aged owners — Meg, who runs the business, and her husband Petey, a seaside deckchair attendant — let rooms to guests. Two unexpected visitors, Goldberg and McCann, come to the house and terrorize a long-term resident, Stanley, an unemployed concert-party pianist. In the middle ofthe play, an impromptu birthday party is held for Stanley, and a young woman, Lulu, is assaulted during a party game when all the lights go out. At the end of the play, for reasons that remain obscure, Goldberg and McCann take Stanley away. The play is in three acts, in this single domestic interior setting, with dialogue that appears demotic and desultory, but which hints at powerful and violent emotions that threaten to break through its banal surface. The critic at The Daily Telegraph, William A. Darlington, wrote that having recently been to see performances in Russian at Sadler’s Wells theatre, he “had looked forward to hearing some dialogue I could understand. But it turned out to be one of those plays in which an author wallows in symbols and revels in obscurity. [...] The author never got down to earth long enough to explain what his play was about, so I can’t tell you.”® Darlington then described the seaside setting and the characters, all of whom except Petey he called “mad,” whether from “thwarted maternity” in Meg’s case or “nymphomania” in Lulu’s. So, the play was being criticized for not having an evident topic or argument, and for the lack of coherent psychology in its characters, whose actions thus seemed irrational. There was action on stage (distinguishing the play from the inaction that had puzzled Beckett’s first audiences for Waiting for Godot), and Darlington recognized the sinister quality of Goldberg and McCann that would go on to be the play’s most remarked feature. But the critic could not assess the significance of the play, because he was expecting a message in it that he did not find. 5 Billington: Fighting Talk. ° William A. Darlington: Mad Meg and Lodger, The Daily Telegraph, 20 May 1958, 10. +63 +
