Party Time

by Harold Pinter

Party Time had 2 performances about 18 years ago (between the 5th of October 2006 and the 20th of October 2006) at Riverside Arts Centre

Any production of a Pinter play is a journey of exploration. Little in the way of obvious action takes place but much is seething beneath the surface waiting to be explored.

This play focuses on the superficial hedonism of a fashionable party at Gavin's elegant London home whilst on the streets a demonstration appears to be raging. Inside there is a cloistered, fragile safety whilst outside a noisy revolution.

The play can be seen as a parable for a vacuum sealed privileged world, cut off from the realities of life. Pinter seems to be saying that privilege co-exists with investment in state power and control. People's lives are more and more governed by a materialism in which it is uncool to get het up about injustice and corruption.

Gavin is a very powerful, high ranking government official, responsible for the round up of dissidence that is going on in the streets outside, which makes access to his party difficult for his super rich guests.

The majority are members of an exclusive, elegant new health club which they over-enthusiastically praise. They happily gossip about their sexual affairs and the rapacious activities of a nymphomaniac slut and brag about their summer island retreats and yachts.

Disrupting the atmosphere of smug self-satisfied harmony is the running battle between Essex man bruiser Terry, employed to carry out his social superior's dirty work and his trophy-wife, Dusty, who nags him about the fate of her missing brother, Jimmy.

At the end of the play, all becomes clear as a very bright light reveals Jimmy as the victim of State oppression and torture to which the narcissist party-goers have turned the blindest of eyes.

Pinter offers us a deadly account of our moral myopias; he takes the piss out of a wealthy elite, totally indifferent to decisions taken in their name. He also suggests that underneath the drawing room opulence and elegance private relationships echo public brutality.

For a successful production of the play it is vital to establish the edgy safety of the party and the well-heeled self satisfied, smug members of the club and the cries and pain of the outside unseen forces.

The actors must find the vital Pinter style and the essential rhythms of the dialogue and the unspoken sub-text beneath the superficial, mannered delivery. They rhythm of the dialogue, the silences, the smooth sophisticated manners, the fashionable dress and hair styles contrast with the oppression and torture and abuse of prisoners which is prevalent outside. Vocally and visually the actors portraying the smart, sophisticated party-goers are in direct contrast to Jimmy's frail, tortured form.

The play offers actors a chance to play some excellent roles, to dress elegantly and to handle some stunning dialogue and subtext.

The setting should be opulent and elegant and the lighting and sound atmospheric, reflecting the repression, abuse and sinister secrets operating beyond a half-open door.

Pinter has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his plays and his deep concern with politics. He is essentially a theatre animal as well as an impassioned citizen.

He offers us a play which is a deadly assault on a moral myopia and the sins of State oppression and torture.

Pinter has said his plays are all about the weasel under the cocktail cabinet which Party Time epitomises.