1974 play by Harold Pinter
No Man's Land
is a play by
Harold Pinter
written in 1974 and first produced and published in 1975. Its original production was at the
Old Vic
theatre in London by the
National Theatre
on 23 April 1975, and it later transferred to
Wyndham's Theatre
, July 1975 ? January 1976, the
Lyttelton Theatre
April?May 1976, and New York's Longacre Theatre from October?December 1976. It returned to the Lyttelton from January ? February 1977. It is a two-act play.
Setting
[
edit
]
"A large room in a house in
North West London
" on a summer night and the following morning.
[1]
Characters
[
edit
]
- Hirst,
a man in his sixties
- Spooner,
a man in his sixties
- Foster,
a man in his thirties
- Briggs,
a man in his forties
[1]
Hirst is an alcoholic upper-class
litterateur
who lives in a grand house presumed to be in
Hampstead
, with Foster and Briggs, respectively his purported
amanuensis
and
man servant
(or apparent bodyguard), who may be lovers.
[2]
Spooner, a "failed, down-at-heel poet" whom Hirst has "picked up in a Hampstead pub"
[3]
and invited home for a drink, becomes Hirst's house guest for the night; claiming to be a fellow poet, through a contest of at least-partly fantastic reminiscences, he appears to have known Hirst at university and to have shared male and female acquaintances and relationships.
[2]
The four characters are named after cricket players.
[4]
It has been suggested that Spooner was originally inspired by the poet
Eddie Linden
, whom Pinter knew.
[5]
[6]
Plot synopsis
[
edit
]
Act 1
[
edit
]
In the 1970s, Hirst, an ageing man of means begins a night of heavy drinking in his drawing room with an anonymous peer whom he only just met at a pub. Hirst's talkative and somewhat disheveled guest, calling himself a poet, long-windedly explains how he is penetratingly perceptive, until he finally introduces himself as "Spooner". The pair becomes increasingly intoxicated, Hirst remaining quiet as Spooner rambles on, culminating in his taunting Hirst's masculinity and wife. Suddenly, Hirst rises and throws his glass, merely commenting "No man's land...does not move...or change...or grow old...remains...forever...icy...silent", before collapsing twice and crawling out of the room. Two
domestic employees
of Hirst's, younger men named Foster and Briggs, enter, talk aimlessly, and question Spooner, who now becomes the softspoken man in the room.
Eventually, Hirst reenters and struggles to remember a recent dream. All are now drinking, and Hirst mentions an
album of photographs
he keeps, commenting on the appearances of the people in the album. He does not seem to remember Spooner's identity, insisting that his true friends are kept safely in the album. Becoming less and less coherent, Hirst continues to ponder his dream?involving someone drowning?when Spooner abruptly says that he was the one drowning in the dream. Hirst drunkenly collapses again and Spooner now rushes in to Hirst's aid, brushing away the two younger men and claiming to be Hirst's true friend. The younger pair becomes defensive and accusatory, asserting their obligation to protect Hirst against "men of evil". Briggs helps Hirst out of the room, and Foster concludes to Spooner, "Listen. You know what it's like when you're in a room with the light on and then suddenly the light goes out? I'll show you. It's like this". He flicks off the lights, causing a blackout.
Act 2
[
edit
]
Alone the next morning, Spooner stands from his chair and attempts to leave, but the door is locked. Briggs, Hirst's manservant, soon enters; he delivers food and champagne, ignores Spooner's queries about the locked door, and calls the other men poets. Hirst himself then bursts in, delighted to see Spooner, whom he strangely mistakes for, or pretends is, an old friend. He speaks as though he and Spooner were
Oxbridge
classmates in the 1930s, and the two bizarrely discuss scandalous romantic encounters they had with the same women, leading to a series of increasingly questionable reminiscences and ending with Spooner directly accusing Hirst of having an affair with his wife.
Hirst separately launches into a rant about once-known faces in his photo album, and all four men are soon present once more, drinking champagne. An odd dynamic emerges where Spooner first pities the younger men's employment but then ends up requesting employment from Hirst himself. After all this, Hirst merely replies "Let's change the subject for the last time", which he instantly regrets, since this is taken to mean that Hirst will be unable to change the subject ever again. He thinks back to his youth, when he mistakenly thought he saw a drowned body in a lake. Spooner now comments, "No. You are in no man's land. Which never moves, which never changes, which never grows older, but which remains forever, icy and silent." Hirst responds "I'll drink to that!" and the lights fade slowly to black.
Production history
[
edit
]
The London premiere of
No Man's Land
, directed by
Peter Hall
, opened at the
Old Vic Theatre
(then home to the
National Theatre
), on 24 April 1975, starring
John Gielgud
as Spooner and
Ralph Richardson
as Hirst and with
Michael Kitchen
as Foster and
Terence Rigby
as Briggs.
[7]
It transferred to
Wyndham's Theatre
, in London's West End, on 15 July 1975 (Baker and Ross xxxiii). This production transferred to Broadway's Longacre theatre in New York from October through December 1976, with Richardson nominated for the 1977
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play
for his performance as Hirst.
[8]
Peter Hall's production returned to the National Theatre (NT), playing at the
Lyttelton Theatre
, from January through February 1977.
[7]
The original production with Richardson and Gielgud was filmed for the
National Theatre Archive
and has been shown on British television as part of
Pinter at the BBC
on
BBC Four
.
[9]
The production was also recorded and released by
Caedmon Records
and was nominated for Grammy Award.
A major revival from the
Almeida Theatre
Company that later transferred to the West End
Harold Pinter Theatre
(called the Comedy Theatre at the time), London, directed by
David Leveaux
, opened in February 1993, and starred
Paul Eddington
as Spooner and Pinter himself as Hirst;
Douglas Hodge
played Foster and
Gawn Grainger
played Briggs.
[10]
In the
Broadway
revival by the
Roundabout Theatre Company
directed by
David Jones
, which opened on 27 February 1994 at the
Criterion Centre Stage Right Theatre
, in New York City, with
Jason Robards
as Hirst,
Christopher Plummer
(nominated for a
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play
) as Spooner,
Tom Wood
as Foster, and
John Seitz
as Briggs.
[11]
In 2001, another major revival at the
NT
was directed by Harold Pinter, with
Corin Redgrave
as Hirst,
John Wood
as Spooner,
Danny Dyer
as Foster, and
Andy de la Tour
as Briggs.
[12]
In the summer of 2008, a production directed by
Rupert Goold
premiered at the
Gate Theatre
, in
Dublin
, with
Michael Gambon
(Hirst),
David Bradley
(Spooner),
David Walliams
(Foster), and
Nick Dunning
(Briggs). Goold's production transferred to the
Duke of York's Theatre
, in the West End, London, opening on 7 October 2008 and closing on 3 January 2009, the week after Pinter's death on 24 December 2008.
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
A production directed by
Sean Mathias
opened at
Berkeley Rep
in August 2013, with
Ian McKellen
,
Patrick Stewart
,
Billy Crudup
and
Shuler Hensley
. It opened on Broadway at the
James Earl Jones Theatre
, in repertory with
Waiting for Godot
, on 24 November 2013 (previews began on 31 October 2013). It closed on 30 March 2014,
[17]
but was restaged in the UK in 2016, with
Owen Teale
and
Damien Molony
replacing Hensley and Crudup. It played at the
Sheffield Lyceum
,
Newcastle Theatre Royal
,
Brighton Theatre Royal
and
Cardiff New Theatre
before transferring to
Wyndham's Theatre
in London's West End.
[18]
The play was staged as the closing production of
Steppenwolf Theatre Company
's 2022-2023 season in Chicago, under the direction of
Les Waters
with theatre co-founder
Jeff Perry (American actor)
playing Hirst.
[19]
Critical reception and interpretation
[
edit
]
In reviewing the London premiere, on 24 April 1975,
Michael Billington
, of
The Guardian
, observes that the play is "about precisely what its title suggests":
the sense of being caught in some mysterious limbo between life and death, between a world of brute reality and one of fluid uncertainty. ... the play is a masterly summation of all the themes that have long obsessed Pinter: the fallibility of memory, the co-existence in one man of brute strength and sensitivity, the ultimate unknowability of women, the notion that all human contact is a battle between who and whom. ... It is in no sense a dry,
mannerist
work but a living, theatrical experience full of rich comedy in which one speech constantly undercuts another.
[7]
Over a decade after having written
The Life and Work of Harold Pinter
(London: Faber, 1996), the first edition of his authorised biography of Pinter, Billington discusses his critical perspective on the play in his videotaped discussion for
Pinter at the BBC
, broadcast on
BBC Four
television from 26 October through 9 November 2002.
[20]
After admitting that
No Man's Land
is a "haunting weird play" that he himself "can never fully understand ? Who can? ? but it works on you", he reviews the genesis of the play's first line ("As it is?"), which came to Pinter in a taxicab while riding home from dinner out alone, and the thematic significance of the titular metaphorical phrase
no man's land
, and finds "something of Pinter" in both of the main characters, each one a writer whom Pinter may have to some degree feared becoming: one "with all the trappings of success but [who] is inured by fame, wealth, comfort" (Hirst); the other, "the struggling, marginal, the pin-striped writer" who "does not make it" (Spooner); though when Billington put his theory to Pinter, Pinter said (jokingly), "Well, yes, maybe; but I've never had two man-servants named Foster and Briggs."
[20]
In reviewing Goold's revival of the play at the
Duke of York's Theatre
in 2008, Billington points out that "Hirst, a litterateur haunted by dreams and memories, is, as he tells Spooner, 'in the last lap of a race I had long forgotten to run'. But, while his servants conspire to lead Hirst to oblivion, Spooner attempts a chivalric rescue-act, dragging him towards the light of the living. The assumption is that his bid fails, as all four characters are finally marooned in a no-man's land 'which remains forever, icy and silent'."
[2]
In this play replete with echoes of
T. S. Eliot
, Spooner may appear to have failed in his apparent efforts to ingratiate himself with and perhaps even to "rescue" Hirst from "drowning" himself in drink.
[21]
But Spooner still remains in the house at the end of the play, "in no man's land," along with Hirst (and Foster and Briggs), and the play ends in an impasse much like that of Pinter's 1960 play
The Caretaker
, to which critics compare
No Man's Land
.
[3]
[22]
As various other critics do,
[22]
Michael Coveney
is still asking: "Yes, but what does it all mean?
Kenneth Tynan
railed against the 'gratuitous obscurity' of Harold Pinter's poetic 1975 play when it was first produced by
Peter Hall
at the National starring
John Gielgud
as the supplicant versifier Spooner and
Ralph Richardson
as his host Hirst, patron and supporter of the arts. But the play is always gloriously enjoyable as an off-kilter
vaudeville
of friendship and dependency."
[13]
In
The Guardian
, Billington concludes that "This is a compelling revival much aided by
Neil Austin
's lighting and
Adam Cork
's subliminal sound," observing: "when audience and cast finally joined in applauding Pinter, [who was] seated in a box, I felt it was in recognition of an eerily disturbing play that transports us into a world somewhere between reality and dream."
[2]
Both Billington and
Paul Taylor
(in
The Independent
) give the production 4 out of 5 stars,
[2]
[3]
while
Charles Spencer
, reviewing the production in
The Daily Telegraph
, like other critics making inevitable comparisons with the original production, rates it as "equally fine, with
Michael Gambon
and
David Bradley
rising magnificently to the benchmark set by their illustrious predecessors," but points out that he too does not feel that he fully understands it: "Even after three decades I cannot claim fully to understand this haunting drama that proves by turns funny, scary, and resonantly poetic, but I have no doubt that it is one of the handful of indisputable modern classics that Pinter has written, and a piece that will haunt and tantalise the memory of all who see it."
[23]
In another feature on Goold's 2008 revival, following the responses of "three Pinter virgins" who did not understand or enjoy it ("Matilda Egere-Cooper, urban music journalist: 'Obscure and exhausting' "; "David Knott, political lobbyist: 'Don't expect to feel uplifted...' "; and "Susie Rushton, editor and columnist: 'Where's the joke?' "), the
Independent
'
s critic, Paul Taylor, reiterates his praise of
No Man's Land
, concluding:
Like many classic Pinter plays, "No Man's Land" is about the reaction to an intruder who threatens the status quo ante. The subtlety that gradually emerges in this play, though, is that Spooner, the seedy
Prufrockian
failed poet, is the
alter ego
of his host, the moneyed litterateur, Hirst, and that his predatory intrusion also represents an abortive attempt to reconnect Hirst to life and to his creativity and to save him from the bitter stalemate of old age. Mysterious, bleakly beautiful and very funny,
No Man's Land
demonstrates that though it may take a little while to latch on to the laws of Pinterland, it is well worth the effort.
[24]
What is less clear is the purpose of the play's undercurrent of homosexuality. In the opening scene there are repeated references to
scopophilia
and Spooner asks Hirst if he often hangs "around Hampstead Heath" and the pub Jack Straw's Castle, both notorious for homosexual activity in the 1960s and ‘70s. Most analysts have tended to ignore this subtext but it is there. With this and lines with double meaning like "You had a cottage?" as well as oblique but explicit references to baleful mothers, "quaint little perversions", women "especially in
Siam
or
Bali
", "Lord Lancer", a man called Bunty and male virginity, it seems likely that Pinter is playing a joke of some kind on more naive critics and admirers.
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Harold Pinter
,
No Man's Land
(New York:
Grove
, 1975) [n. pag., 8?9]. (Subsequent parenthetical page references throughout are to this ed.)
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Michael Billington
(8 October 2008).
"No Man's Land"
.
Guardian.co.uk
(Culture, Stage, Theatre)
.
Guardian Media Group
. Retrieved
10 October
2008
.
- ^
a
b
c
Paul Taylor
(9 October 2008).
"No Man's Land, Duke of York, London"
.
The Independent
.
Independent News & Media
. Archived from
the original
on 22 December 2008
. Retrieved
23 October
2008
.
- ^
(Billington,
Harold Pinter
245?46)
- ^
"Eddie Linden"
.
Friends of the Magdala
. Retrieved
19 March
2019
.
- ^
Trotter, Stewart.
"5,000 VIEWS, 22 PARTICIPATING NATIONS AND THE APPOINTMENT OF EDDIE LINDEN!!!"
.
The Shakespeare Code
. Retrieved
19 March
2019
.
- ^
a
b
c
"No Man's Land"
. HaroldPinter.org
. Retrieved
9 October
2008
.
First produced at the Old Vic, Waterloo by the National Theatre, 23 April 1975 transferred to Wyndhams Theatre July 1975 ? January 1976 Lyttleton Theatre April -May 1976 ? New York (see foreign) October ? December 1976 Lytt[el]ton Theatre January ? February 1977.
- ^
"No Man's Land (Richardson and Gielgud)"
(photograph)
.
Guardian.co.uk
.
Guardian Media Group
. 9 October 2008
. Retrieved
10 October
2008
.
- ^
"No Man's Land"
.
BBC Four
. 26 October 2002
. Retrieved
10 October
2008
.
There is a related
video clip
of Pinter's official biographer
Michael Billington
discussing the play as part of the online features relating to
Pinter at the BBC
(2 mins., 17 secs.).
- ^
"No Man's Land ? 1993"
. HaroldPinter.org. 2000?2003
. Retrieved
10 October
2008
.
- ^
"No Man's Land ? Roundabout Theatre Company, Criterion Centre Stage Right, 27th January, 1994"
. HaroldPinter.org. 2000?2003
. Retrieved
10 October
2008
.
- ^
"No Man's Land ? 2001"
. HaroldPinter.org
. Retrieved
10 October
2008
.
- ^
a
b
Michael Coveney
(9 October 2008).
"No Man's Land (Duke of York's)"
.
What's on Stage
. whatsonstage.com. Archived from
the original
on 11 October 2008
. Retrieved
23 October
2008
.
- ^
BWW News Desk (10 November 2008).
"Photo Flash: NO MAN'S LAND at the Duke of York....Photos by Jeremy Whelehan"
.
BroadwayWorld.com
. Wisdom Digital Media
. Retrieved
11 November
2008
.
- ^
"Friends Bid Pinter Farewell"
.
BBC News
. BBC. 1 January 2009
. Retrieved
4 January
2009
.
- ^
"West End Pays Tribute to Pinter"
.
BBC News
. BBC. 27 December 2008
. Retrieved
4 January
2009
.
(Includes
video clip
.)
- ^
"No Man's Land (Berkeley Rep)"
.
Ian McKellen Official Home Page
. Retrieved
27 June
2013
.
- ^
"Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart Tour The UK In Pinter's No Man's Land"
.
Britishtheatre.com
. Retrieved
16 December
2017
.
- ^
"No Man's Land"
.
www.steppenwolf.org
. Retrieved
23 July
2023
.
- ^
a
b
Michael Billington
(23 December 2002).
"No Man's Land"
.
Pinter at the BBC
.
BBC Four
. Archived from
the original
(
RealVideo clip
)
on 23 December 2002
. Retrieved
10 October
2008
.
- ^
Susan Hollis Merritt. "
'HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME': Pinter Past, Pinter Present, and Pinter Future". In Francis Gillen and Steven H. Gale (ed.).
The Pinter Review: Collected Essays 2003 and 2004
. Tampa: U of Tampa P, 2004. pp. 61?82, 63 & 63 n. 10 (75).
(Considers the significance of the allusions to works by
T. S. Eliot
, such as the
Four Quartets
, "
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
", and
The Waste Land
, "in the verbal imagery of the two dueling former and/or would-be poets in
No Man's Land
.")
- ^
a
b
Mark Espiner (9 October 2008).
"What to say about ... No Man's Land"
.
Guardian.co.uk
(Stage)
.
Guardian Media Group
. Retrieved
9 October
2008
.
Couldn't get to the revival of Pinter's classic but need to save face with your friends? Mark Espiner rounds up the reviews.
- ^
Charles Spencer
(8 October 2008).
"Review: No Man's Land"
.
The Daily Telegraph
.
Telegraph Media Group
. Retrieved
23 October
2008
.
[
dead link
]
- ^
"What's the Fuss about Pinter?"
.
Independent.co.uk
.
Independent News & Media
. 23 October 2008. Archived from
the original
on 24 October 2012
. Retrieved
23 October
2008
.
The Nobel Laureate's No Man's Land has earned rave reviews. But what do three Pinter virgins ? and our critic ? make of it?
References
[
edit
]
- Baker, William, and John C. Ross, comps.
Harold Pinter: A Bibliographical History
. London:
British Library
, 2005.
ISBN
978-0-7123-4885-0
. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 2005.
ISBN
978-1-58456-156-9
. Print.
- Billington, Michael
.
Harold Pinter
. 2nd rev. ed. 1996. London:
Faber
, 2007.
ISBN
978-0-571-23476-9
. Print. (Rev. and updated ed. of
The Life and Work of Harold Pinter
[London: Faber, 1996].)
- Pinter, Harold
.
No Man's Land
. London:
Eyre Methuen
, 1975.
ISBN
0-413-34220-4
(10).
ISBN
978-0-413-34220-1
(13). New York:
Grove
, 1975.
ISBN
0-8021-0102-X
(10).
ISBN
978-0-8021-0102-0
(13). Rev. ed. London: Faber and Faber, 1991.
ISBN
0-571-16088-3
(10).
ISBN
978-0-571-16088-4
(13). Print. (Parenthetical page references are to the Grove Press ed.)
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
Plays
| |
---|
Dramatic sketches
|
- The Black and White
(1959)
- Trouble in the Works
(1959)
- The Last to Go
(1959)
- Request Stop
(1959)
- Special Offer
(1959)
- That's Your Trouble
(1959)
- That's All
(1959)
- Interview
(1959)
- Applicant
(1959)
- Dialogue for Three
(1959)
- Umbrellas
(1960)
- Night
(1969)
- Precisely
(1983)
- God's District
(1997)
- Press Conference
(2002)
- Apart From That
(2006)
- The Pres and an Officer
(2018)
|
---|
Screenplays
| |
---|
Related articles
| |
---|