Student Worksheets (terminale)

  A.
Circle the adjectives that best describe each character, and the situation they're in.
Ben : patient, kind, professional, intelligent, crafty, menacing, understanding, proud, sneaky
Gus : smart, professional, dim-witted, sly, curious, anxious, tense, composed, slow, annoying
The situation : complicated, strange, easy, funny, confusing, interesting, time-consuming, disturbing

  B.
Using some of the adjectives above, relate them to the situation and to the characters by using tag questions. Use words and expressions like: a little bit, slightly, rather, very, etc. to intensify your meaning.
Ex. Ben is very ________, isn't he ? The situation seems rather _________, doesn't it ?

  C.
Using "the 5 W's" (Who, What, When, Where, Why) sketch out a description of the place and the characters in the play.

  Group discussion 1
1. What is the relationship between Ben and Gus ? Has it changed from the way it was in the past ?
2. What are some of the "unspoken" elements in the play ?
3. What role does the dumbwaiter have in the play ?
4. Who is their boss ? Discuss each character's relationship to this person and their loyalty to 'Him'.
5. Discuss the concept of totalitarianism and free will as it evolves during the play.

  Group discussion 2
What happens at the end of the play ? Use expressions like "I think..."; "I feel...", to justify your hypothesis.

  Group discussion 3
Discuss the following quote regarding Pinter's writing style :
"Pinter did what Auden said a poet should do. He cleaned the gutters of the English language, so that it ever afterwards flowed more easily and more cleanly. We can also say that over his work and over his person hovers a sort of leonine, predatory spirit which is all the more powerful for being held under in a rigid discipline of form, or in a black suit...The essence of his singular appeal is that you sit down to every play he writes in certain expectation of the unexpected. In sum, this tribute from one writer to another: you never know what the hell's coming next."
--David Hare in Harold Pinter:A Celebration Faber and Faber 2000 p 21

  Linguistic Comprehension :
Grammar tool : Giving orders. Read the selections from "The Dumb Waiter" and discuss the following :
Who gives the orders in this improbable dynamic duo ? Why ?
Find as many orders as you can within the selected texts. Use them later when creating your dialogue/or scene
Using the orders that you've found, transform them into indirect speech.
Ex. Ben : Make the tea, will you ? = Ben asked Gus to make the tea.

  Theatre Writing Activity :
"Pinter's dialogue is as tightly - perhaps more tightly - controlled than verse," Martin Esslin writes in The People Wound (1970). "Every syllable, every inflection, the succession of long and short sounds, words and sentences, is calculated to nicety. And precisely the repetitiousness, the discontinuity, the circularity of ordinary vernacular speech are here used as formal elements with which the poet can compose his linguistic ballet."
Pinter refuses to provide rational justifications for action, but offers existential glimpses of bizarre or terrible moments in people's lives.

ASTON - You said you wanted me to get you up.
DAVIES - What for ?
ASTON - You said you were thinking of going to Sidcup.
DAVIES - Ay, that'd be a good thing, if I got there.
ASTON - Doesn't look like much of a day.
DAVIES - Ay, well, that's shot it, en't it ?

(from The Caretaker)
Exercise 1 : Find a similar exchange from " The Dumb Waiter "
Exercise 2 : Write a dialogue that might be spoken between Ben and Gus using a maximum amount of questions. Use the present perfect progressive (for 2e-1er); tag questions (4e-3e); combine a variety of past tenses (all sections);
Exercise 3 : Re-write a scene using questions ONLY (select the best questions from the previous activity and if there aren't enough-- improvise ! - or add more..)
Exercise 4 : Discuss the quote above—do you agree or disagree with it? Use examples from the text to justify your answers. Then give your opinions on the effect that this play has had on you.

  Vocabulary Practice :
Underline vocabulary and/or images for battle, memory, obsession, war, evacuation.
Discuss the value of these images within the context of the play.

  Vocabulary Practice 2 :
Read the following quote and find examples within the play of the stylistic elements mentioned :
Pinter's dramas often involve strong conflicts among ambivalent characters fighting for verbal and territorial dominance and for their own remembered versions of the past; stylistically, they are marked by theatrical pauses and silences, comedic timing, provocative imagery, witty dialogue, ambiguity, irony, and menace ("Biobibliographical Notes"). Thematically ambiguous, they raise complex issues of individual human identity oppressed by social forces, the power of language, and vicissitudes of memory.[2] Like his work, Pinter has been considered complex and contradictory (Billington, Harold Pinter 388).
For further Discussion : Visit sites Wikipedia, HaroldPinter.org (Pinter's official website) and other websites relating to the following :
Find correspondances between Pinter and his contemporaries : Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, David Mamet (especially "The Duck Story")

• - Dicuss thematic similarities
• - Discuss Language styles & 'register'
• - Discuss Theatre styles : Theatre of Absurd (Beckett, Ionesco), Plays of Menace (Pinter)
• - Discuss the origins of the Theatre of the Absurd after World War II. What ideas does this type of theatre convey ?
• - Do you feel that the comparison between Pinter's theatre and the Theatre of the Absurd are justified ? Why or why not ?