Harold_Pinter_-_Comedy_of_Menace

Comedy of Menace Comedy of menace is a term first used by David Campton. It denotes a kind of play in which one or more characters feel that they are (or actually are) threatened by some obscure and frightening force, power personality, ect. The fear and menace become a source of comedy, albeit laconic, grim or black. The playwright's objective in mixing comedy and the threat of menace is to produce certain effects (like set up dramatic tension, or to convey certain social or political ideas) . In The Homecoming, the comedy of menace is implicated through the use of lanaguage. Language, in Pinter's hands, is a weapon. Put into the mouths of characters like Lenny and Max, it seeks to hurt others. The introductory scene shows both men using language to attack and defend. Max speaks of Jessie with both fondness and shocking disapproval-' 'She wasn't such a bad woman. Even though it made me sick just to look at her rotten stinking face, she wasn't such a bad bitch." Lenny tells Max to shut up and then says that Max's cooking is fit only for dogs. Sam enters and Max insults him about his driving and the fact that he is not married. Joey enters from a workout at the gym, and Max turns on him, saying that his trouble as a boxer is that he doesn't know how to attack or defend himself. Max also threatens to throw Sam out when he is too old to pay his way. Thus, by belittling and verbally abusing the other characters, Lenny and Max can keep them off guard and control them. When Lenny tells stories about the tart down by the harbour and the old woman that he beat up to intimidate Ruth, this is also seen as a comedy of menace. In an effort to gain power control, Lenny tries to capture Ruth’s attention, but she defeats him with her proposition in seducing Lenny in the give and take exchange scene: Lenny: Give me the glass Ruth: No Lenny: I’ll take it Ruth: If you take the glass…I’ll take you Lenny: How about me taking the glass without you taking me' Ruth: Why don’t I just take you' Ruth recognizes Lenny's emotional and sexual impotence upon meeting him. She uses his inferiority to gain the upper hand. The results from this, are menacing and comedic. Not only can she match the men's verbal skills, she has non-verbal sexual skills as well. Ruth shows a distinct talent for bending the men to her will. And she is able to tailor her interaction with them to best manipulate their individual personalities. Pinter's comedy of menace is comprises dark wit and deliberate ambiguises. In act one scene three, Max calls Ruth a "smelly scruffer," a '"stinking pox-ridden slut." and says that there hasn't been a whore in the house since Jessie died. Eeriely, Ruth seems to be unfazed by this verbal abuse. Joey apologizes for Max, saying he is an old man. In response Max hits Joey in the stomach with all his might. Joey staggers across the room, and Max begins to collapse with the exertion; Sam tries to help Max, and Max hits him in the head with his cane. Max then asks Ruth if she is a mother, seems pleased when she says she has three boys, and asks Teddy for a cuddle and Teddy accepts. The list of events in this scene is considerd both ambiguise and comedic beginning with Max commenting on Ruth's external appearance then ending by being pleased that Ruth has three boys and asking Teddy for a cuddle. It is aslo considered dark witt that Joey wants to become a professional boxer, yet collapses to the floor when his father punches him in the stomach. Although there are flare ups of anger and even violence, most of the brutality in The Homecoming is covered with a seemingly sophisticated veneer. When the actual physical violence does erupt, it seems comic. When Max knocks Joey, the aspiring boxer, to the floor with one punch, then hits Sam, and finally collapses himself, it is, on the surface at least, funny. When Sam collapses from an apparent stroke after blurting out that "Mac had Jessie in the backseat of my cab as I drove them along," it is funny because of the reaction of Max, who says, "What's he done' Dropped dead1'... A corpse on my floor' Get him out of here." In her comical nonchalance, Ruth seems not even to have noticed. Max's father is an exaggeratedly sentimental, bullying patriarch, but Pinter makes Max unique by sharpening the familiar shifts between physical violence and demonstrative tenderness, anger and maudlin sorrow. Extremes, and quick movement between extremes, always make for comic possibility, since laughter is based on surprise, and the text of this dark and sinister play is full of comic moments which this excellent ensemble cast exploits to the full. There is some inventive witty language, too. Accused by his brother of not going the whole hog with Ruth, inarticulate Joey explains that sometimes you can be happy ''without going any 'og". When her husband finally leaves in disgust, Ruth manages the priceless' 'Don't become a stranger". In conlusion, The Homecoming can be dificult to distinguish love from hate or lust from repulsion. But despite its dark wit and deliberate ambiguities, or rather because of them, the alienation at the core of Homecoming still feels disturbingly real.