The Room

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For the unrelated 2003 Tommy Wiseau film, see The Room (film)

The Room, the first play written by Harold Pinter, has strong similarities to Pinter's second play, The Birthday Party. Both take place in run-down buildings claiming to be a "boarding house" which become the scene of a visitation by apparent strangers.

In The Room, after one of the two main characters, Rose Hudd, is visited by a young couple, Mr. and Mrs. Sands, who are looking for a flat, a blind black man, named Riley, who has purportedly been waiting in the basement, suddenly arrives upstairs to Rose's room, to deliver a mysterious message to Rose. The play ends in violence after Rose's husband, Bert, returns.

The Room is invested with the elements that became elements of Pinter's work including the familiarity of dialogue that is disturbing, the subtle characterization of characters with whom the audience learns nearly nothing, and a mood can funny, moving, and menacing simultaneously.

Pinter wrote The Room over several days in 1957 at the suggestion of Pinter's friend Henry Woolf for his production as part of a postgraduate program in directing at the University of Bristol, Bristol, England.

[edit] Production History

The Room was first produced by Henry Woolf and presented at The Drama Studio, at the University of Bristol, in May 1957 with the following cast:

• Bert Hudd - Claude Jenkins
• Rose Hudd - Susan Engel
• Mr. Kidd - Henry Woolf
• Mr. Sands - David Davies
• Mrs. Sands - Auriol Smith
• Riley - George Odlum

This production was performed as part of the National Student Drama Festival, held at the University of Bristol the following year, in 1958, when it was first reviewed by the London Sunday Times drama critic Harold Hobson, who helped to found the Drama Festival with some of his colleagues.

The play was presented later at the Hampstead Theatre Club on January 21, 1960 as part of a double bill with 'The Dumb Waiter' and the following cast:

• Bert Hudd - Howard Lang
• Rose - Vivien Merchant
• Mr. Kidd - Henry Woolf
• Mr. Sands - John Rees
• Mrs. Sands - Auriol Smith
• Riley - Thomas Baptiste

The play transfered on March 8th 1960 as part of the same double bill with 'The Dumb Waiter' to the Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square. At the Royal Court however there were cast changes Bert Hudd- Michael Brennan) Rose- (Vivien Merchant) Mr Kidd-(John Cater) Mr Sands-(Michael Caine) Mrs Sands-(Anne Bishop) Riley-(Thomas Baptiste)

The Director (Anthony Page) and Designer (Michael Young)

[edit] External links

• The Room premiere in the "Plays" section of HaroldPinter.org (the official website of Harold Pinter).
• Selected UK and foreign productions of The Room at HaroldPinter.org.

The Plays of Harold Pinter

Plays : Ashes to Ashes, The Basement, Betrayal, The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, Celebration, The Collection, The Dumb Waiter, The Dwarfs, Family Voices, The Homecoming, The Hothouse, A Kind of Alaska, Landscape, The Lover, Moonlight, Monologue, Mountain Language, A Night Out, Night School, No Man's Land, Old Times, One for the Road, Party Time, Remembrance of Things Past (with Di Trevis), The Room, Silence, A Slight Ache, Tea Party, Victoria Station, Voices (with James Clarke) Sketches : Apart from That, Applicant, The Black and White, Dialogue for Three, Interview, Last to Go, The New World Order, Night, Precisely, Press Conference, Request Stop, Special Offer, That's All, That's Your Trouble, Trouble in the Works