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The Birthday Party (Masterplots II: Drama)

At a glance:

The Play

The Birthday Party is set in an unnamed English seaside town where Meg Boles, in her sixties, runs a failing boardinghouse and her husband, Petey, is a deck-chair attendant. Their only boarder is Stanley Webber, an unemployed pianist in his late thirties, whom the apparently childless Meg treats as if he were her little boy. She feeds Petey and Stanley what she considers to be a “nice” breakfast: cornflakes and fried bread. When Meg tells Stanley that two men are going to be staying there, he becomes alarmed and refuses to believe that they will come. He...

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