In an effort to not inundate the subreddit with "I got my tickets!!" threads, I'm starting this to keep all the discussion here. Hopefully this works!
Mods: If this isn't okay, let me know. Hopefully this can be pinned!
What shows are you going to? Where are your seats?
Apologies if this is not allowed!
Some time ago I bought a ticket for Betrayal at the Harold Pinter Theatre, starring Tom Hiddleston. Unfortunately I won't be able to go, so I am happy to sell it below face value to someone here! It's an excellent seat.
- Performance: Betrayal
- Date: Thursday, 14 Mar 2019 at 19.30
- Seat: Premium Stalls, Row L, mid seat.
- Price: Paid Β£120, selling for Β£100.
- Delivery: Can meet in person or send it via post.
Thanks!
Released in 1992 according to it's IMDB page, it still exists somewhere in this world evidenced by it's 14 reviews on IMDB. I looked around online though, and could not find any copies of it for sale or videos of it on any streaming and uploading platforms. Perhaps contacting BBC or the production company would be the next step? This TV Movie is a bit special because Pinter added characters to the movie in order to extend the running time. The play exemplifies Theater of the Absurd and generally just has some very odd, comedic, and sort of terrifying moments, so it would be amazing if the internet could gain access to it and spread Pinter's unique style.
Sexy Beast is a great movie. Watched it again last night for the first time in years and noticed how similar it is to a play that came out a year earlier.
Celebration is Harold Pinter's late masterpiece. It has a lot in common with Sexy Beast. Aside from the dialogue, it shares gangsters trying to relax, the comedy of menace, the wives, references to office work, the whimsical rhythm of tension and release. It may or may not have been a direct influence, perhaps it's one of those co-incidences, like Blade and the Matrix.
Here's a great version of Celebration done by Channel Four. It has Colin Firth, nailing it, along with Michael Gambon and some other British stage actors.
Ben Kingsley's style of delivery comes from the Beckett / Pinter tradition of absurdism. After the war, in Europe, there was exhaustion with ideology and propaganda, language filled with grand promises, and a style emerged that was full of characters like Don Logan - in existential pain, very articulate, rattling off dialogue in these extraordinary rhythms. Trying to drill holes in language, to see what, if anything, lay behind it.
That famous monologue in Jaws - Robert Shaw talking about the Indianapolis - also owes a lot to this tradition. Shaw was in Pinter's Caretaker in the 60's, delivering this incredible monologue, here.
The absurdist tendency in dialogue I think has fallen away - we are back to a place of morality and ideology - a belief that the characters should say what they mean, be good or bad people, to make sure the audience are given the right message. Comedies like The Thick of It are kind of absurdist, but I think the theme is a bit easy to identify, there is meaning being communicated in a fairly linear way, it is obviously about something.
I was late to the party, but watched The Night Manager the other day, and was really refreshed by the character of Corky. He has some of these qualities - threatening, very witty, like a mask, language torn free of ideology and morality. Here's the scene where he questions Tom Hiddleston.
Fun fact: the original stage production of Celebration in 1999 had Danny Dyer in one of his first ever roles; he was a protege of Harold Pinter.
Anyone reccomend any plays, character's or reading that could help with this idea? Thank you
