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PRODUCTION: The Birthday Party (Drama) PRODUCTION DATE: October 1971 DIRECTED BY: Robert G. Newton STAGED: The Park Centre. Burgess Hill SYNOPSIS: In a small house at a coastal resort lives a man, his mentally wayward wife and their boarder who has been with them for a year. He is a strange chap, unkempt and in flight from we know not what. Enter an even stranger sleek Jewish man and his muscle bound Irish henchman. The mentally immature wife accommodates them with a room and then decides that it is time for the boarder to have a birthday. At the party she arranges, the new guests play cruel games with the boarder and they break his glasses, make a buffoon of him, and push him over the psychotic precipice. PLAYWRIGHT: Harold Pinter 'The Birthday Party' (1957), was initially a flop, despite a positive review in the Sunday Times. But after the success of 'The Caretaker' in 1960 which established him, 'The Birthday Party' was revived and this time was well received. BHTC NOTES: Club members Elizabeth Batton and Sheila Wells (playing the part of Meg Boles) remember this as an excellent production and in particular, Anthony White's portrayal of Stanley Webber (the lodger).
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