A Celebration and The Room: Two Plays
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Overview
Collected here in one volume are the two hallmark plays by Harld Pinter, Celebration, first performed in 2000, and his first play, The Room, first performed in 1957. Both plays are invested with the elements that make Pinter's work unique: the disturbingly familiar dialogue, subtle characterization, and abrupt mood and power shifts among characters, which can be by turns terrifying, moving, and wildly funny.Synopsis
Jack Kroll in Newsweek has called Harold Pinter "the most fascinating, enigmatic and accomplished dramatist in the English language." Since his first full-length play, The Birthday Party (1958), and continuing with The Homecoming (1965), Pinter has trained a sharp eye on the strange dynamics of modern family life. In his newest play, Celebration, he continues to examine the darker places of relationships. Celebration is an acerbic portrait of a sated culture choking on its own material success. Startling, full of black humor and wicked satire, Celebration displays a vivid zest for life. Also included in this volume is Pinter's classic play The Room. Both plays are invested with the elements that make Pinter's work unique: the disturbingly familiar dialogue, subtle characterization, and abrupt mood and power shifts among characters, which can be by turns terrifying, moving, and wildly funny.
The New Yorker - John Lahr
In Pinter's plays, words are probes launced into the world, variously, to mask, to mystify, to mock, or to murder. He sets out his entire smorgasbord or gorgeous verbal moves in Celebration, which, like all good festive occasions, he keeps light and lively.