The Dumb Waiter
by Harold Pinter
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At a glance:
- Author: Harold Pinter
- First Published: 1960
- Type of Work: Absurdist
- Time of Work: Roughly the 1950’s
- Setting: Birmingham, England
- Characters: Ben, Gus
- Genres: Drama, Absurdist literature
- Subjects: 1950's, Crime or criminals, Alienation, England or English people, Assassins, hit men, or contract killers, Existentialism, Isolation, Machinery
- Locales: Europe, Birmingham, England, United Kingdom
The Play
The Dumb Waiter takes place in a windowless basement room with two beds against the back wall and a closed serving hatch between them. A door to the kitchen and lavatory is stage left, and a door to a passage, right. Ben lies on the bed left reading a newspaper. Gus sits on the other bed laboriously tying his shoelaces. Gus rises, yawns, and slowly walks toward the door, left. Stopping, he looks at his shoe and shakes his foot. As Ben watches, Gus unties his shoe. Removing it, he brings out a flattened matchbox and replaces the shoe. After a few steps, he stops...
(The entire page is 2436 words.)
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