Harold Pinter
I will be reading and discussing in class the play A Slight Ache by Harold Pinter.
Play Summary
Flora and Edward sit at the breakfast table chatting of flowers and wasps and of the slight ache which Edward feels in his eyes. Their conversation, which seems so simple and is yet so strangely revealing, then shifts to the mysterious matchseller who has been standing by their back gate for many weeks. Somehow his presence intimidates them, particularly Edward, whose ache becomes aggravated as they discuss who the matchseller may really be, and they resolve to call him in for a direct confrontation. Flora goes out to invite him to come into the house, and when he appears he proves to be an old man, dressed in rags, and so feeble that it is doubtful whether he can see or hear. Seating him in a chair Edward speaks to him in an unnaturally jovial and somehow terrifying manner and soon Edward, without a word of reply from the matchseller, is so unstrung that he cannot go on. Flora takes over the interrogation, and again the old man's silence spurs the spilling out of buried frustrations and fears. Edward returns, and this time there is a note of desperation in his attempts to break through and understand the meaning of the matchseller. But it is Flora who leads the old man off at last, as a young girl might take her lover to the garden. As she goes she hands his tray of matches to Edward. He has lost the struggle, the nameless competition in which he has been engaged, and now it is he who has become the matchseller.
References to the play
Harold Pinter's homepage
A Slight Ache at Wikipedia
Performance Reviews
Article 12th May 2005
A blog entry 3rd July 2007
Times Online -28th July 2008
A blog entry -22nd July 2008
A forum discussion
Play Summary
Flora and Edward sit at the breakfast table chatting of flowers and wasps and of the slight ache which Edward feels in his eyes. Their conversation, which seems so simple and is yet so strangely revealing, then shifts to the mysterious matchseller who has been standing by their back gate for many weeks. Somehow his presence intimidates them, particularly Edward, whose ache becomes aggravated as they discuss who the matchseller may really be, and they resolve to call him in for a direct confrontation. Flora goes out to invite him to come into the house, and when he appears he proves to be an old man, dressed in rags, and so feeble that it is doubtful whether he can see or hear. Seating him in a chair Edward speaks to him in an unnaturally jovial and somehow terrifying manner and soon Edward, without a word of reply from the matchseller, is so unstrung that he cannot go on. Flora takes over the interrogation, and again the old man's silence spurs the spilling out of buried frustrations and fears. Edward returns, and this time there is a note of desperation in his attempts to break through and understand the meaning of the matchseller. But it is Flora who leads the old man off at last, as a young girl might take her lover to the garden. As she goes she hands his tray of matches to Edward. He has lost the struggle, the nameless competition in which he has been engaged, and now it is he who has become the matchseller.
References to the play
Harold Pinter's homepage
A Slight Ache at Wikipedia
Performance Reviews
Article 12th May 2005
A blog entry 3rd July 2007
Times Online -28th July 2008
A blog entry -22nd July 2008
A forum discussion
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