The Birthday Party is “Comedy of menace”

Harold Pinter (1930-2008) is a great modern British dramatist .The label , a comedy of menace , was first used in 1957 by David Campton1 in the sub-title of his play “The Lunatic View “, and was a year later applied to the plays of Pinter in a magazine article .This is certainly an appropriate title for The Birthday Party. A comedy of menace is a play in which the laughter of the audience in some or all situations is accompanied ,or immediately followed, by a feeling of some impending disaster. Throughout such a play , the audience feels uneasy even while laughing, because of its perception of some threat , explicit or implicit, to the principal character and to the audience itself .In other words the audience is made aware , in the very midst of its laughter, of some menace .The menace proceeds from potential or actual violence in the play or from an underlying sense of violence throughout the play .Or , the menace may proceed from a feeling of uncertainty and insecurity , The play has different of the elements of the drama, it is ,therefore, metaphysical and also symbolical. The play seems to have no story as such. However, if one dives deep , one will be able to find the different levels of meaning in the play.