New York City
Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party is a spine-chilling comic riff on free-floating menace when two strangers arrive at an English boarding house.
The Birthday Party takes place at Meg and Petey’s seedy English boarding house, where breakfast consists of cornflakes, fried bread and tea. Stanley, their only boarder, is having his birthday. But their peaceful, if mundane, existence is threatened by the arrival of two mysterious strangers. Who are they looking for? Why have they brought a van and a wheelbarrow? After a few glasses of whiskey and a game of blindman’s buff, Stanley’s birthday party turns into something both sinister and disorienting. Emily Mann directs.
“Pinter is undoubtedly the most influential and important craftsman in English theatre.”
– The Times Literary Supplement
“The most fascinating, enigmatic and accomplished dramatist in the English language.” – Jack Kroll, Newsweek