the birthday party

‘The Birthday Party ... is a skull-beneath-the-skin play, exposing the horrors and fears that lurk under the calm, dull surface of our everyday existence.’ - The Cambridge Review


Snug in the little bolthole he has found for himself in Meg’s seaside boarding house, Stanley can forget the failures of the past and indulge his comforting fantasies. But when two new lodgers come to stay, a chill shadow falls across his cosy life. Who are they? And why are they so keen to celebrate his birthday?

No one is safe. Harold Pinter’s first major play, The Birthday Party was met with general incomprehension when it was first performed in London in 1957, but now we recognise a classic post-war drama.

This production features an all-Koorie cast and reunites MTC's edgiest director, Julian Meyrick with the bemused evil of RMIT's Darrin Verhagen.

‘What’s remarkable is how Pinter’s voice and stylistic tics – the non-sequiturs, the banter that turns into bullying, the edgy jokes and disconcerting pauses – arrived fully formed in his first full-length work.’ - The London Telegraph

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