The Birthday PartyThe Birthday Party at The Duchess Theatre, Catherine Street, London The Birmingham Rep revival of Harold Pinter's 1958 modern classic The Birthday Party comes to London's Duchess Theatre with multi-award winning actors Eileen Atkins and Henry Goodman as 'Meg' and 'Goldberg' in this new production directed by Lindsay Posner. Filled with the extremes of comedy and menace, the ordinary and absurd, this compelling and intriguing drama launched Pinter as one of the most significant contemporary dramatists. Harold Hobson, the Sunday Times critic at the time, famously said "Mr Pinter, on the evidence of this work, possesses the most original, disturbing and arresting talent in theatrical London". Stanley, an out of work pianist is the sole resident of a dingy seaside boarding house run by the doting Meg and her husband Petey. With the arrival of the sinister but avuncular Goldberg and the brooding and taciturn McCann, the mood changes. They have come for the reclusive Stanley. Soon everyone, including the unsuspecting girl next door, becomes caught up in Stanley's peculiar birthday party with its atmosphere of icy fear and escalating terror. Eileen Atkins is best known for her film roles in Jack and Sarah, The Hours, Gosford Park, Cold Mountain and Wolf. She is also a multiple Olivier winner, with awards for Cymbeline and The Unexpected Man. Her other stage credits include The Killing of Sister George and on Broadway, The Retreat from Moscow, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. One of the most celebrated actors of his generation Henry Goodman has won Oliviers for The Merchant of Venice and Assassins. His many London stage credits include Art, Guys and Dolls, Angels in America, Feelgood, Follies and Chicago. Lindsay Posner's recent West End credits include David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago with Minnie Driver and Matthew Perry, Oleanna with Julia Stiles and Aaron Eckhart and most recently A Life in The Theatre with Patrick Stewart and Joshua Jackson. Harold Pinter's playwrighting credits include The Room (1957); The Dumb Waiter(1957); A Slight Ache(1958); The Hothouse (1958); The Caretaker (1959); A Night Out (1959); The Collection (1961); The Lover (1962); Tea Party(1964); The Homecoming (1964); The Basement (1966); Landscape (1967); Silence (1968); Sketch Night (1969); Old Times(1970); Monologue (1972); No Man's Land (1974); Betrayal (1978); Family Voices (1980); and with Victoria Station and A Kind of Alaska under the title Other Places(1982); One for the Road(1984); Mountain Language (1988); The New World Order (1991); Party Time (1991); Moonlight (1993) and Ashes to Ashes(1996). For his extensive contribution to theatre, film and television, Harold Pinter has also received a significant number of awards to reflect his work. The cast also includes Geoffrey Hutchings as 'Petey', Finbar Lynch as 'McCann', Paul Ritter as 'Stanley' with Sinead Matthews as 'Lulu'. Design is by Peter McKintosh, lighting design by Hartley T A Kemp, and sound by John Leonard. Full website coming soon.... |