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Topic Summary

Posted by: Pinter listings
« on: November 27, 2011, 05:15:46 PM »

A rediscovered Pinter revue, from here
www.guardian.co.uk/culture/theatreblog/2011/nov/25/harold-pinter-umbrellas-sketch

"After a 51-year pause, Harold Pinter's Umbrellas is put on... this rediscovered sketch is probably too slight to work as a straight piece. So Giles Croft of the Nottingham Playhouse got the audience to direct it

"... the rediscovery of a short revue sketch by Harold Pinter occasioned a unique experiment at Nottingham Playhouse. The sketch, entitled Umbrellas, was first performed in Nottingham in a 1960 revue entitled You, Me and the Gatepost, after which it was filed away and forgotten about until a scholar working... came across a copy stored in the British Library.

... It is not easy finding a context for a work that lasts approximately three minutes (less, if one discounts the pauses, of which there are 12 in just a page and a half of dialogue.

...Pinter's stage direction explicitly states that the two characters, named simply A and B, are seated on a hotel terrace and do not move... A has a houseful of umbrellas. B does not have an umbrella, but A isn't going to part with any of his. "It's about status," suggests Ian Bartholomew, the actor playing B. "The umbrella is a status symbol. The fact that it isn't raining is irrelevant."