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The Caretaker

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Scott, Michael, ed. Harold Pinter: The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming : A Case Book. London: Macmillan Education, 1986. Print. No, it is better never to go. Better to be always just about to go. That way the hope is still alive. Is it better to be Tantalus or Prometheus? Is it better to have what you desire always within sight and always just out of reach? Or is it better to have snatched at the prize, to have known the victory of holding it in your hands, only to be caught and given your punishment of eternal torture that spans out forever without a shred of hope. For surely, Tantalus’s punishment only works as punishment if he retains some hope – just as Prometheus’s is premised on his being beyond salvation.

A strange play. A guy lets an old homeless man share his room after being harassed by someone until he gets up on his feet.Naismith, Bill. Harold Pinter. Faber Critical Guides. London: Faber and Faber, 2000. ISBN 0-571-19781-7. Print. Pinter, Harold. The Caretaker: A Play in Three Acts. London: Encore Publishing Co., 1960. OCLC 10322991. Print. Knowles, Roland. The Birthday Party and The Caretaker : Text and Performance. London: Macmillan Education, 1988. 41–43. Print. What's On: The Caretaker (archived past seasons). Sheffield Theatres, n.d. Web. 13 March 2009. (Run at Sheffield Theatres ended on 11 November 2006.)

Daniel Mays is the brother, who has been released from a mental institution, damaged but apparently calm. He is the still point in the production, and the most nearly frightening. His speech about electro-convulsive therapy, delivered with steady bewilderment, is lit so that he is in isolation from everything around him. This is the most compelling episode in the evening. He seems to be hovering above himself like a drone. Waiting to bomb.Aston is the person most obviously in need of care in this play – although, I do understand that everyone is in clear need of care here. This is a play of the lost and trapped. All the same, Aston is the only character to really offer any care to anyone else – and everyone else, even his own mother, lets him down in ways that are beyond belief, even when it would seem just as easy to provided him with care as to deny it him. Arden, John. Book review of The Caretaker, by Harold Pinter. New Theatre Mag. 1.4 (July 1960): 29–30. Basically, this is it, but of course the story isn’t too important here. What’s important, and what the play is about is the characters’ inability to communicate, their impotence, helplessness, and their all-permeating, almost tragic cluelessness. Each of the three characters is impotent, helpless (etc.) to some extent, but the level of their defenselessness varies greatly.

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