Theatre of the Absurd was a term used to refer to a set of plays written primarily in France from the mid-1940s

through the 1950s. In these plays, the dramatists used illogical situations, unconventional dialogue and minimal plots to express the apparent absurdity of human existence. There existed no formal absurdist movement in the theatre. Dramatists whose works fell under the category had a pessimistic vision of humanity struggling vainly to find a purpose in life and to control its fate. The existential philosopher, Albert Camus, and other philosophers such as JeanPaul Sartre used the term absurdto express their inability to find any rational explanation for human life. The dramatic works of certain European and American dramatists of the 1950s and 1960s have been referred to as the Theatre of the Absurd. This was so because they essentially subscribed to the theory proposed by Albert Camus, in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus. The works of well-known dramatists such as Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov, Harold Pinter and a few others have been classified under the Absurd Theatre. A British scholar Martin Esslin, in his critical study of Samuel Beckett and French playwrights Eugne Ionesco, Jean Genet and Arthur Adamov, first used the term Theatre of the Absurd. Since the ideas dictated the structure of the plays, such playwrights did away with logical structures such as those exist in conventional theatre. Dramatic action, as conventionally associated with theatre and plays is in small doses, although the players continue to perform. It is one way of conveying that whatever they did, nothing will change their existence or fate. For instance, there is no specific storyline or plot in Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot.The play revolves around two tramps, who are apparently lost and who are filling their days waiting for somebody called Godot. Who was Godot, when he would come and whether he would come at all are issues to which they have no answer. The absurdity of life and living is subtly brought out. As mentioned earlier, dialogues are usually unconventional. The language is dislocated and there are generous doses of clichs, puns and repetitions. A classic example is Ionescos The Bold Soprano, where two characters keep repeating the obvious until it sounds like nonsense. The effect is to bring out the inadequacies of verbal communication. The two characters discuss banal matters and end up discovering that they are man and wife. It is one of the most classic example of how Ionesco used his genius to bring the out the inadequacies of verbal communication and the theme of self-estrangement. The ridiculous behavior and talk of the two characters lends the play a comic surface, but deep beneath lies the message of metaphysical distress. The Absurd Theatre began to decline in the mid-1960s. Although it shocked the audiences when it first appeared, many of its characteristic features were absorbed in mainstream theatre, when the Absurd Theatre declined. The techniques used are

now common in modern theatre. "What do I know about man's destiny? I could tell you more about radishes." -Samuel Beckett

Theater of the Absurd came about as a reaction to World War II. It took the basis of existential philosophy and combined it with dramatic elements to create a style of theatre which presented a world which can not be logically explained, life is in one word, ABSURD! Needless to say, this genre of theatre took quite some time to catch on because it used techniques that seemed to be illogical to the theatre world. The plots often deviated from the more traditional episodic structure, and seem to move in a circle, ending the same way it began. The scenery was often unrecognizable, and to make matters worse, the dialogue never seemed to make any sense. SAMUEL BECKETT: Samuel Beckett is probably the most well known of the absurdist playwrights because of his work Waiting for Godot. Beckett's plays seem to focus on the themes of the uselessness of human action, and the failure of the human race to communicate. He was born on April 13,1906, which was both Friday the 13th and Good Friday. He had quite a normal upbringing in an upper-middle-class Irish family, and excelled in both school and the sport of cricket. He attended the University of Dublin Ireland where he received his M.A. in modern languages, he then taught for a short time, explored parts of Europe and eventually settled in Paris. It was in Paris that he met writer James Joyce. It was this literary exposure that encouraged Beckett to seek publication. It is interesting to note that many of the conversations between Beckett and Joyce were conducted in silence. In the 1930's and 40's Beckett published many works in the form of essays, short stories, poetry, and novels, but very few people noticed his work. In fact he only sold ninety-five copies of the French translation of his novelMurphy, in four years. His postwar era fame only came about in the 1950's when he published three novels and his famous play,Waiting for Godot. Waiting for Godot is probably the most famous absurd play to date. The characters of the play, are absurd caricatures who of course have problems communicating with one another, and the language they use is often times ludicrous. And, following the cyclical pattern, the play seems to end in the same state it began in, with nothing really changed. Follow this link for more information on Samuel Beckett.

EUGENE IONESCO: "The universe seems to me infinitely strange and foreign. At such a moment I gaze upon it with a mixture of anguish and euphoria; separate from the universe, as though placed at a certain distance outside it; I look and see pictures, creatures that move in a kind of timeless time and spaceless space emitting sounds that are a kind of language I no longer understand or ever register."

Along side Beckett in the theatre genre of absurdity, is playwright Eugene Ionesco. Ionesco's main focus is on the futility of communication, so the language of his plays often reflects this by being almost

completely nonsensical. He approaches the absurdity of life by making his characters comical and unable to control their own existence. Ionesco was born in Romania, but grew up in Paris with his mother. After thirteen years in Paris, he returned to Romania where he had to learn his native language. He attended the University of Bucharest, then taught high school French, then in 1936 got married. It was completely by accident that Ionesco became a playwright, while learning to speak the English language, he took the illogical phrases he found in the primer he was using and these phrases became the dialogue for The Bald Soprano, his first play. It is a little strange to think that Ionesco found his calling in playwrighting because at the time, he was known to dislike theatre because of the contradiction presented by the reality of the performers and the fiction of the stage. After The Bald Soprano, Ionesco went on to write other absurd works such asRhinoceros in 1959, and Journeys to the Home of the Dead in 1981. Find Eugene Ionesco interesting? Just follow this link.

HAROLD PINTER: Although Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco are two of the most famous absurdist playwrights, Harold Pinter is now the leading English language playwright in the genre. In his plays, Pinter never finds in necessary to explain why things occur or who anyone is, the existence within the play itself is justification enough. In general, lack of explanation is what characterizes Pinter's work, that and the interruption of outside forces upon a stable environment. What seems to set him apart though is that unlike Beckett and Ionesco, Pinter's world within the drama seems to be at least somewhat realistic. Pinter started out in the theatre world as an actor, he attended both the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Central School of Speech and Drama, then found a professional acting career under the stage name David Baron. He remained an actor until he mentioned and idea he had for a play to a friend at Bristol University. His friend became interested in the idea and requested a script within a week. Pinter laughed at the idea, but within the week presented his friend with the script for The Room, which was then performed in May 1957. Pinter's career as a playwright continued on with such works as The Dumbwaiter in 1957, and Mountain Language in 1988. Pinter is still going strong in English theatre where he continues to write, direct and act. English playwright who achieved international renown as one of the most complex and challenging post-World War II dramatists. His plays are noted for their use of understatement, small talk, reticence and even silenceto convey the substance of a character's thought, which often lies several layers beneath, and contradicts, his speech. The son of a Jewish tailor, Pinter grew up in London's East End in a working-class area. He studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1948 but left after two terms to join a repertory company as a professional actor. Pinter toured Ireland and England with various acting companies, appearing under the name David Baron in provincial repertory theatres until 1959. After 1956 he began to write for the stage: The Room (1957) and The Dumbwaiter (1957), his first two plays, are one-act dramas that established the mood of comic menace that was to figure largely in his early plays. His first full-length play, The Birthday Party(1958; filmed 1968), puzzled the London audiences and lasted only a week, but later it was televised and revived successfully on the stage. After Pinter's radio play A Slight Ache (1959) was adapted for the stage, his reputation was secured by his second full-length play, The Caretaker (1960; filmed 1963), which established him as more than just another practitioner of the then-popular Theatre of the Absurd. His next major play, The Homecoming (1965), helped establish him as the originator of a unique dramatic idiom. Such later plays as Landscape (1969), Silence (1969), Night (1969), and Old Times (1971) virtually did away with

physical activity on the stage. Pinter's later successes included No Man's Land (1975) and Betrayal (1978). From the 1970s on, Pinter did much directing, of both his own and others' works. His Poems and Prose 19411977was published in 1978. Pinter's plays are ambivalent in their plots, presentation of character, and endings, but they are works of undeniable power and originality. They typically begin with a pair of characters whose stereotyped relations and role-playing are disrupted by the entrance of a stranger; the audience sees the psychic stability of the couple break down as their fears, jealousies, hatreds, sexual preoccupations, and loneliness emerge from beneath a screen of bizarre yet commonplace conversation. In The Caretaker, for instance, a wheedling, garrulous old tramp comes to live with two neurotic brothers, one of whom underwent electroshock therapy as a mental patient. The tramp's attempts to establish himself in the household upset the precarious balance of the brothers' lives, and they end up evicting him. The Homecoming focuses on the return to his London home of a university professor who brings his wife to meet his brothers and father. The woman's presence exposes a tangle of rage and confused sexuality in this all-male household, but in the end she decides to stay with the father and his two sons after having accepted their sexual overtures without protest from her overly detached husband. Dialogue is of central importance in Pinter's plays and is perhaps the key to his originality. His characters' colloquial speech consists of disjointed and oddly ambivalent conversation that is punctuated by resonant silences. The characters' speech, hesitations, and pauses reveal not only their own alienation and the difficulties they have in communicating but also the many layers of meaning that can be contained in even the most innocuous statements. In addition to works for the stage, Pinter wrote radio and television dramas and a number of successful motion-picture screenplays. Among the latter are those for three films directed by Joseph Losey, The Servant (1963), Accident (1967), and The Go-Between (1971), as well as ones for The Last Tycoon (1974), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), and the screen version of Pinter's playBetrayal (1982). --Encyclopedia Britannica Harold Pinter and the Absurd theatre N. Pratima Harold Pinter was born on October 10, 1930. He has presented the characteristics of the Absurd theatre in the background of the English ethos. The essence of the European Absurd theatre finds a new dimension in the plays of Pinter. He has shown the inherent drawbacks and tension in the social life of today. His dramatic style and techniques have certainly given a novel direction to the drama today. The theatre with which are associated Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, Jean Genet and Harold Pinter, the stage is invariably occupied by a few characters and each one of them expresses his ideas vehemently. The modern stage has taken many turns the main being the Poetic theatre, the Angry theatre and the Absurd theatre. Harold Pinter is in the forefront in bringing forth changes in the British theatre. Whatever forms theatre has taken in the present period, only that theatre has survived which catered to the likes of the audience avoiding all that which the audience do not favour. During the 1950s the verse drama came into vogue, but it did not succeed in refining the tastes of the theatre-goers. The verse drama of Yeats, Eliot and Fry gained limited popularity only. The European drama was given a vital shape by Samuel Beckett, Jean Paul Sartre, Eugene Ionesco. Arthur Adamov, Bertolt Brecht and others, for it emerged with a wider perspective and could deal with a variety of human problems. The New Theatre could not foster the verse drama, but it absorbed the Angry drama and the Absurd drama instead. John Osborne, Arnold Wesker and

John Arden are the vital forces of the Angry theatre. But the Angry theatre did not do justice with the problem of human suffering in the modern world. The theatre of the Absurd fared better than the Angry theatre, because it flourished in many forms, developing its own traditions since Becketts play Waiting for Godot. Pinter along with a number of other merited playwrights has given a new shape and direction to the contemporary drama. Pinter has maintained that his plays are not intricate and are easy to grasp. He has denied the presence of any allegorical meaning in his plays. Brevity is the hallmark of Pinters dialogue which naturally gives rise to many shades of meaning. The reader of Pinter s plays cannot always arrive at the exact meaning of the cryptic sentences, and one can draw many alternative ideas from them. Pinters plays have a suggestive power which is missing in the works of many contemporary dramatists. Following the traditions of the Absurd theatre Pinter has debunked the excessive stress on language and logic. The influence of Beckett on his plays has been recognised by Harold Pinter. Like Beckett, Pinter waits for the dawn of a better world. For the Absurdistshumanity is waiting for the appearance of the ideal order and it shares the psychology and existentialist idealism of the two tramps Estragon and Vladimir in Becketts play Waiting for Godot. The question when will Godot come is not different from the question when will a better society come into existence, both in connotation and significance. Pinter has taken the Beckettian models of presenting the existential suffering of humanity, but his depiction of the despair experienced by the individual is certainly different from that of the other writers of the Absurd theatre. The Absurdist playwrights do not follow the Aristotelian rules of writing plays, but this does not decrease the effectiveness of the absurdist plays. In fact, the Absurd theatre gives a psychological shock to the audience by showing the absurd ideas and absurd activities of persons who do not know how to come out of the abyss of anxiety. Pinters plays provide an indepth analysis of the concept of the Absurd theatre. Pinters play The Room is about two people and it was written in four days. Pinter has given a glimpse of his style and the stage-setting in this play. Rose and Bert are an old couple living in a small room of a big mansion. Though they live together, yet each one experiences a loneliness untouched by the ideas and attitudes of the other. Each lives in a world insulated from the others, but is capable of apprehending the feelings and fears of others. Rose convinces Bert that their room provides security from the insecure world outside. In this play the conversation of the landlord named Kidd is utterly vague, and the dialogue of the couple Clarissa and Toddy Sands who are in search of a room is equally ambiguous. The blind negro in this play symbolises the shady past and guilt of Rose. The characters in The Room are victims of suppressed motives and are menaced thy some unspecific evil power. Pinters famous play The Birthday Party shows the attempts of Stanley to evade all the connections of his past life and begin a new life. But Stanley does not succeed in this attempt and he is literally dragged away by his erstwhile partners from whom he tried to escape. Stanley loses his willpower and becomes a pathetic figure, an embodiment of the anxiety and fear felt by the individual in the modern world. Pinters two plays A Slight Ache and A Night Out did not receive much attention from the critics when compared with The Birthday Party and The Room. But the problems and events dealt by Pinter recur in a diluted and unimpressive form in these two plays. Pinters another play The Dumb Waiter is an exposition of the nature of menace and how the menacing persons are in turn menaced by others. It is in The Dumb Waiter that Pinter has used silence as an integral part of the dialogue. The Dwarfs is a radio-play regarded as most enigmatic, but it is not devoid of the Pinter touch. The Caretaker is another celebrated play of Pinter which has been filmed under the name The Guest. In The CaretakerPinter has shown the search of the individual for compassion and help in a world which is devoid of finer sentiments. The attitude of the public towards Pinters plays took a favourable turn when he started working for television. Unlike the dramatists of the past wider opportunities and larger audience become available to those who work for radio, television and cinema. Along with other

dramatists Pinter has accepted the television and cinema enhance the scope of drama, for the dramatist can reach wider sections of mankind. Pinters contribution to the Absurd theatre has become more significant today. It is wrong to say that the Absurd theatre ends in absurdity and despair. The Absurd theatre concentrates on the rampant absurdity faced by the individual willingly or unwillingly. When the absurdities dominate the life style of individuals this will throw them into a state of despair from which there is no escape. Pinter has maintained that even if the absurdities of life are opposed in thought if not in action, the individual has still a chance to free himself from the contradictions which effecthis personal and social life. The heroes of Pinter as well as those of the other absurdist playwrights are aware of the all-powerful net of absurdity within which the individuals are caught, and in spite of their will to escape its meshes find no way out. The gloom and despair found in the Absurd theatre is indicative of the irrational and futile pursuits of the present day societies and states. Beckett. Osborne, Brecht, Pinter and others try to show a way out of the aimlessness haunting the modern societies. In the plays of Pinter the atmosphere is charged with fear and threat to the natural harmony of life. Though Pinter depends on the form of comedy than that of tragedy, this does not decrease the hidden menace against the characters who want to escape from the forces of evil. Pinter likes to show the inevitable contradictions faced by people in todays world. The tentacles of evil forces drag the individual into the mire of corruption and nefarious activities. Pinters plays have been rightly called the comedies of menace. The heroes of Pinter are pessimistic and function as tools in the hands of unbenign powers. The undercurrent of social malaise pushes the individual hither and thither and he loses the sense of direction and purpose in the plays of Pinter. Like the existentialist playwrights Pinter has given expression to the hapelessness and anxiety felt by the individual in the modern society dominated by despotic groups and crime syndicates. The dilemma faced by the individual in the 20th century is presented in the Absurd theatre of Pinter. Pinters plays take one directly into the controversial areas of modern life wherein the individual has to fallow without any protest the dictates of such persons and institutions which have no regard for the aspirations of the common man. Theater of the Absurd, an Introduction Martin Esslin, a theater critic, coined the term Theater of the Absurd to describe a number of works being produced in the late 1950s and early 1960s that defied any traditional genres. The most famous playwright associated with this movement include Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, and of course, Harold Pinter. The term "absurd" was originally used by Albert Camus in his 1942 essay Myth of Sisyphus, wherein he described the human condition as meaningless and absurd. The key element to an absurdist play is that the main characters are out of sync with the world around them. There is no discernable reasoning behind their strangeness, though a threatening sense of change shakes their existence to the core. Influences on the absurdist theater go as far back as the Elizabethan tragicomedies of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The tragic plays Macbeth and Hamletoffer segments of comedy that shift the play's perspective, if only for the briefest moments. For example, Hamlets wit and the porter scene in Macbeth offer moments of comedy to alleviate the drama's intensity. Other influences on the

absurdist playwrights include the work of Sigmund Freud, and the Surrealist movement of the 1920s and 1930s, which introduced the avant-garde to mainstream media. However, the largest influence was World War II and its aftermath. Like Pinter, who was a child during the war, many Englishmen and women felt disillusioned once the war was over. They were angry and upset with the world, but found it difficult to express their collective opinions. In such a damaged world, it was no longer feasible to use traditional methods of storytelling on stage. The human condition was too complex and fragmented, and the old forms of language were hence inappropriate for exploring it. To shake audiences from their more conventional viewing habits, the playwrights of the Absurdist Theater used traditional settings to ease the audience into their plays, and then shocked them with surreal imagery, uncommon circumstances, or fragmented language. Language within the Absurdist Theater often transcended its base meaning. As in The Birthday Party, nothing is as it seems and no one speaks the whole truth. Also, the use of silence as language was often utilized in these plays. The drama of the absurdist theater is dreamlike, almost lyrical. Like the Surrealists before them, the absurdist playwrights use imagery, subtext, mythology, and allegory to express a deeper meaning which is often never fully explained. In fact, the playwrights of the Theater of the Absurd allowed their plays to speak for themselves. Pinter explained this absurdist concept best in his 1962 speech Writing for the Theatre, which was presented at the National Student Drama Festival in Bristol. He said, I suggest there can be no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. The thin line between truth and lies is perhaps the defining characteristic of the Theater of the Absurd.

The Caretaker: Critical Appreciation The Caretaker was first produced in London in 1960 and was Harold Pinters first major success as a dramatist. It has three characters, the brothers Aston and Mick and the tramp Davies. Aston, who it is revealed has suffered from mental illness and undergone electric shock treatment, invites Davies into his house after rescuing him when hes about to be beaten up Mick, a builder and sadistic type, who has difficulty communicating with his brother, appear to resent this intrusion and virtually terrorises Davies. However, Davies is eventually invited to take up the position of caretaker, but his selfish and inconsiderate behavior towards Aston leads to his being told by him to go. An attempt to gain the support of Mick faiis and the play ends with Davies appealing to Aston to be allowed to stay, an appeal that looks doomed to fail. The play resembles other Pinter dramas in which conflict is created by outsider figuresfor example, Teddy in The Homecoming and Spooner in No Mans Landgaining entry into anothers home, trying to establish themselves, but eventually being forced to leave.

Theatre of the Absurd Pinter has been associated with the theatre of the absurd and through this is a play that destabilises such fundamental elements of dramatic structure as plot, character and the conventions governing the use of language, it does not do so in as radical a way as Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot, in which famously nothing happens twice. Whereas Becketts drama virtually discards conventional dramatic forms and theatrical devices, Pinter, in The Caretaker at least, does not completely reject them. There is something that resembles a plot, through one might find it puzzling, and there are characters who have some connection with reality even though it might be difficult to understand their actions and motivations. Use of Language Pinters major dramatic innovation was in his use of language. A standard response to his drama has been to say it is about the breakdown in communication. However in conventional drama what is striking is how amazingly effective language is as a means of communication. In contrast to his Pinters characters often speak in broken sentences, utter non -sequitors, repeat themselves, pause for no apparent reason, dont listen to what is said to them or appear to understand it. It could be argued this is a break with the artificiality of conventional dramatic language in favour of realism. Yet realism is insufficient as an explanation of Pinters language. At certain points the language becomes highly stylised. The play may expose the artificiality of speech and plot in conventional drama but its doubtful that it does so in the interests of dramatic realism as such. Perhaps the key to having some grasp of how The Caretaker works is to focus on the relation between language, meaning and psychology. In Pinters drama meaning is not necessarily revealed in the words a character uses. It is thus not enough to say, What do these words mean? Rather one should ask questions like: Why does this charact er say this at this time or What is the characters motive for saying this? or What are the underlying interests that govern this speech or exchange? This severs he conventional relationship between language and meaning. For example, there is a particularly fractured exchange between Davies and Aston in the scene in the second act after Aston suggests to Davies that he might be caretaker. Looking at the language in conventional semantic terms might lead to the conclusion that it exemplifies only bumbling inarticulacy. Yet if one looks beyond the semantics of language in orthodox linguistic terms in order to consider the question of possible motivation the exchange is open to interpretation: Davies does not want to commit himself to taking the job of caretaker that Aston apparently offers him; hes playing for time; he cant understand why anyone should want to do him a good turn; if he says yes hes worried he may fall into the trap. In this play, therefore, the language the characters use does not necessarily have any direct relationship to what they might mean. Also, in Pinters drama, language use cant be easily separated from the question of power as virtually all relationships are depicted as power struggles of one sort or another. Lack of Coherent Plot A feature of innovative modern drama is its refusal to present the audience with a coherent plot that makes sense of the action. The Caretakerdoesnt open with Davies and Aston. The first person we see is Mick, whom we later learn is Astons brother and who is sitting on the bed, but as soon as he hears voices he gets up and leaves. We are given no information as to why he behaves in this way. Nor do we know why Aston invites Davies in and later offers him the job of caretaker. If one takes an absurdist view of the play, associating Pinter with such dramatists as Beckett and lonesco, then there may be no explanation for such happenings. Alternatively the audience is being challenged to interpret events in the same way that it is being challenged to interpret language. One cant be sure ones interpretation is the right one, but at least the action

it open to interpretation, unlike most alsurdist drama. Does Micks leaving before Aston enter The Room indicate something about the nature of their relationship? Though Aston and Mick are brothers they dont seem capable of communicating. Could this be connected with why Aston invites Davies to be caretaker? The possibility that there might be answers to such questions is a factor in keeping the audience involved in the action of the play and this, no doubt, contributed to the plays appeal to a wider audience and thus to its success on both sides of the Atlantic despite its dramatic innovations. Humour Another reason, however, for the plays popular success was its humour. Davies is a great, if unconscious, comic character, clearly he is someone who has been continually rejected and abused, and he is able to hang onto any vestiges of dignity only by over-compensating to a ludicrous extent. Thus he is never to blame; it is always the other person. To feel any sense selfesteem he must see himself always as superior to others, which accounts for his racism and denigration of virtually everybody with whom he comes into contact. The discontinuity between his own elevated sense of himself and the fact that hes a complete social failure is intrinsically comic, as is apparent min his account of experiences such as his visit to the monastery to get a pair of shoes where he is told to piss off by a monk. Much of the hum our of the play is generated by such discontinuities of register since one would not expect a monk to use this kind of colloquial language of abuse. The highly comic scenes between Davies and Mick are similarly based on discontinuities of register are not only comic; they can be used to exercise power. Mick can easily assert dominance over Davies and Mick are similarly based on discontinuities of register, as when Mick discusses his plans for the house in the exaggerated descriptive language of interior decorating magazines. However, these discontinuities of register are not only comic; they can be used to exercise power. Mick can easily assert dominance over Davies by switching to a register that Davies cant function in: Of course, wed have to come to ma n small financial agreement, mutually beneficial, or moving quickly from one register to another so that Davies is at a loss as to how to respond. Davies The Caretaker Possibly the most significance feature of the play at the level of event is that both brothers offer Davies the job of caretaker. Why should they do that, especially to someone like Davies? This question is not answered in the play, but this does not mean that it is necessarily unanswerable, only that any answer will be an interpretation. A possible interpretation could be founded on the fact that the brother cant communicate with each other: The one has mental problems which seem to have been exacerbated by his experience of electric shock treatment; the other appears able to function only in an aggressive dominating mode that is quite inappropriate for communicating with Aston. Yet both brothers are inextricably connected through their ownership of the house: they need to be able to cooperate if any progress is to be made in getting it into any kind of order. But since they cant exchange a meaningful word with each other nothing gets done. What is needed in such a situation is a mediator: a third party who can act as a go-between. In that context one can-understand why they both offer Davies the job as caretaker. Micks offer is the most surprising as initially he responds extremely aggressively to this intruder, but it is soon becomes clear that he can easily exercise domination and control over him and that he is therefore no threat. Davies, however, does not appreciate that he should play a mediating role. Used to a world made up the dominating and the dominated, he thinks he can play one brother off against the other. Convinced that Mick is the more powerful brother and never comfortable with Aston, to whom, as someone mentally damaged, he naturally feels superior, he aligns himself with Mick and believes that together they can drive out Aston. After having been offered the position of caretaker by Mick, Daviess relationship with Aston seriously deteriorates. Despite Astons

continual efforts to establish some kind of rapport with Davies for example, he provides a pair of shoes for himDavies continues to create conflict with Aston tells him hell have to go, Davies responds: Not me, man! You! indicating the delusion he is under that Mick wants to get rid of his brother. When Mick finds out about the breakdown of Daviess relationship with Aston, Davies is no longer of any use as a go-between and Mick ends his relationship with him, on the pretext that he was under the false impression that Davies was a first -class experienced interior decorator. Davies faces the prospect of being expelled from his refuge and the two brothers of returning to their former state of non-communication and isolation. Lonely, Isolated Lives Though there is much in this play that one cant be sure about, what seems reasonably certain is that it was in the interests of all three characters to cooperate with each other. The alternative of all three living isolated lives seems unproductive and futile, yet they never the less fail to achieve that cooperation. Could things have worked out otherwise? Or is the ending tragic in the sense that such an outcome was inevitable? For things to have worked out otherwise all the characters would have needed to change in order to exploit this opportunity to alter their situations. For Aston and Mick such change is particularly difficult for each seems to be governed by forces that are beyond their control, Aston by the effects of mental illness, Mick by a personality disorder that means he can operate only aggressively. Yet both of them do change to some degree: each reaches out to another person, namely Davies, by offering him the position of caretaker. Its doubtful if much more can be expected from them. Davies, however, does seem to have freedom to change on response to this opportunity to improve his situation. He is not restricted by mental or personality problem in the way that Astron and Mick seem to be. Yet though Davies has a theoretical freedom to change, the tragedy of the situation is that this freedom is only theoretical: Davies cant transcend the influences and circumstances that have shaped him. Experience has caused him to think of every situation in a narrow self-interested way. He cant reach out to the otherness of Aston; he has to categorise him in such a way as to ensure his own sense of superiority. Davies has been as irretrievably shaped by the circumstance of his life just as much as Aston and Mick are shaped by mental or personality factors. Audiences clearly have been able to relate to the situation the play dramatists, judging both by its popular success and by the continued success of new productions. Perhaps one reason why audiences relate to it is that one can identify with the Daviess theoretical freedom to become a different person and change his life; yet, at the same time one can also identify with the fact that the effects of the past are virtually inescapable, cancelling out that freedom to change. There is a perhaps a universality about that predicament which audiences consciously or unconsciously recognise.