dumb waiter

In the play the dumb waiter is a mechanism for delivering information, rather than food. Pinter never allows the audience to know who is manipulating or even operating the dumb waiter.

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The Anglo handyman knocks something together. A basic contraption which is high enough for the messages to be placed on a tray so that they can appear to convincingly descend to where the shutters are opened. Danny and Matthew get into complex discussions with the handyman, which I don’t understand. If the dumb waiter doesn’t work properly, then all the rehearsal is in vain. When the eventual structure is set up in the studio theatre, it looks rickety, but does the job.

Next the dumb waiter needs a dumb waiter to operate it. There are two candidates. One is a flaxen haired, hard drinking Norwegian. The other is a nineteen year old Uruguayan. The Norwegian doesn’t seem all that bothered. The Uruguayan gets the job.

We have a while to rehearse with the dumb waiter. Rehearsals are in the morning. Sometimes the human dumb waiter comes in with a cocaine hangover and a grumpy disposition, but she’s attentive, she knows the lines as well as the actors, and the play can depend on her.

The actors lose their nerve and regain their nerve. The audience seems to get it, in spite of the language gap. The show is extended. One night the director operates the dumb waiter so the dumb waiter can watch.

The Dumb Waiter goes on tour. In Paysandu, there are two grand pianos on stage which cannot be moved. The final black-out can only be achieved by the director giving a sign to the geriatric janitor, who hobbles down the side of the theatre and cuts the power for the whole theatre.

In Florida it’s the director’s 28th birthday. The power in the whole town goes, and the stars light up above. In San Jose the show plays an opera house. Wherever it goes, The Dumb Waiter gets audiences, laughs and puzzlement. Does the play resonate, a mere ten years after the fall of a military dictatorship? Perhaps. Perhaps it would resonate no matter what.

After every show, the dumb waiter is packed up and placed on a truck, to be taken to its next destination. By the final show, it’s on the point of collapse. When the short tour of the provincial backwaters is over, the dumb waiter is chopped up and used for an asado in the dumb waiter’s garden. The dumb waiter delivers chorizo and steak to the actors and the rest of the company. For the first and last time it fulfils its nominative function.