Background To The Study Of English Literature

1. Background To The Study Of English Literature COMEDY OF MENACE

2. INTRODUCTION : • Comedy of menace is the body of plays written byDavid Campton, Nigel Dennis, N. F. Simpson, and Harold Pinter. • The term was coined by drama criticIrving Wardle, whoborrowed it from the subtitle of Campton's playThe Lunatic View: A Comedy of Menace, in reviewing Pinter's and Campton's plays inEncorein 1958.

3. ‘Comedy of Menace’ is much different from sentimental comedy and anti-sentimental comedy. • ‘Comedy = Humor. • Menace = Threatening fear in mind.’ • A work of art of a play in which people feels fear or the situation may become so much threatening that people or audience who watches the play may don’t know that what is happening and why it falls under the category of terrific matter.

4. The menace is produced throughout the play from potential or actual violence or from an underline sense of violence throughout the play. • The actual cause of menace is difficult to define: it may be because, the audience feels an uncertainty and insecurity throughout the play. • The Birthday Party and Look Back in Anger perfectly reveal the individual and social problems and doubts that great Britain was moving through during the post-war era.

5. Both this two famous plays indicate the spirit of times and become vehicle or instrument for dramatic action.

6. HAROLD PINTER (1930-2008): • Harold Pinter was born on 10th December, 1930 and he refers to the Jewish family. • Although Pinter has not strong relation with his father because his father was much conscious about discipline and to some extent he believed in being perfectionist. • Comedy of menace has been started by David Campton.

7. Pinter’s was tailor. So later Pinter said that “The condition of being bombed has never left me”. •  He has got Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005. One of the most famous British dramatist and he has made silver jubilee in his writing career and known as a playwright, director and actor. • As we knows about Charley Chaplin; has directed his short films and has played main role into his directed film. Pinter was multiple working people and was better in representation of “Comedy of Menace”.

8. Pinter has begun his career as a playwright with a production of “The Room” (1975). Thereby he has published his second play “The Birthday Party” (1975). • Let us introduce his work which was written during nineteenth century:- • The Birthday Party (1975). • The Homecoming (1964). •  Betrayal (1978). •  The Servant (1963). • The Go-Between (1971). • The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981). • The Trial (1993). • Sleuth (2007).

9. Harold Pinter criticizes some important political, economical system of England. • Irving Ward- a critic who quotes that In Harold Pinter’s play “The Birthday Party” has the effect of menace. • Harold Pinter has been died from liver cancer on 24th December, 2008. 

10. BIRTHDAY PARTY -Harold Pinter • Best example for comedy of menace. • Birthday party is one of his best known and frequently performed plays • Harold Pinter's 'The Birthday Party' tells the story of several characters at an English seaside boarding house. • Seemingly innocent situations spiral out of control as the characters' monotonous lives descend into chaos

11. In the setting of a rundown seaside boarding house, a little birthday party is turned into a nightmare on the unexpected arrival of two sinister strangers. • The play has been classified as a comedy of menace,characterised by Pinteresque elements such as ambiguous identity, confusions of time and place, and dark political symbolism.

12. The Birthday Party has been described (some say "pigeonholed") by Irving Wardle and later critics as a "comedy of menace” and by Martin Esslinas an example of the Theatre of the Absurd. • It includes such features as the fluidity and ambiguity of time, place, and identity and the disintegration of language.

14. DAVID CAMPTON (1924–2006): • David Campton(2nd May 1924 – 9 September 2006) was a prolific British dramatist who wrote plays for the stage, radio, and cinema for thirty-five years. • "He was one of the first British dramatists to write in the style of the Theatre of the Absurd”. • He was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys.

15. Campton worked with Stephen Joseph in developing theatre in the round in Britain and played a major role in establishing theatre-in-the-rounds in both Scarborough, North Yorkshire and Staffordshirein the English West Midlands. • He worked as writer, actor and also regularly ran the box-office and front-of-house. 

16. One of his famous books

17. Campton was always keen to encourage those interested in drama, even amateurs. • At age seventy-six, Campton directed and appeared in one of the plays he had previously written for Stephen Joseph at Scarborough, Passport to Florence, with a group of amateurs in Leicester. • This may have been his final performance on stage. • He died on 9 September 2006

18. AWARDS: • First prize in a competition sponsored by the Tavistock Repertory Company. • British Arts Council bursary (1958). • British Theatre Associationprizes (1975, 1978, 1985)

19. WORKS: • Full-length plays • Dead and Alive (produced 1964, published 1983) • The Lunatic View: A Comedy of Menace (1958), which includes: • A Smell of burning' • Then ... • Memento Mori • Getting and Spending (produced 1957) • The Life and Death of Almost Everybody (1970; published 1971) • Carmilla (produced & published 1975)

21. Dramaticsketch: • Resting Place (produced 1969, as part of the revue entitled Mixed Doubles).