Lakhasly

Anti-Ritual, Critical Domestication and Representational Precision in Pinter's The Dumb Waiter

Lance Norman

The door right opens sharply. Ben turna, his revolver leveled at the door. Gus stumbles in. He is stripped of his jacket, waistcoat, tie, holster and revolver. He stops, body stooping, his arms at his sides. He raises his head and looks at Ben.A long silence. They stare at each other. (149)

1. How Does the End Mean?: Critical Conflict and The Dumb Waiter

As we approach the 50th anniversary of the debut of The Dumb Waiter (1960) the ending of Harold Pinter's play continues to elicit debate. Critics are still trying to comprehend the "long silence" that concludes Pinter's play. Action rises to the level of ambiguity in The Dumb Waiter. Is Gus the victim for whom the hitmen were waiting? Should Ben's leveling his gun at the door be understood as the prelude to murder? Or, does Gus walking through the door and Ben leveling his gun simply mean that Gus has walked through the door, and Ben has leveled his gun?

Perhaps ambiguity is not even the right way to characterize Pinter's ending. The critical canon seems to suggest that, if anything. the play (or at least its critics) are ambiguous about its ambiguity. The perpetuation of opposing views over what the ending of the play means suggests that such seemingly irresolvable critical debates may be encouraged by The Dumb Waiter's structure and meaning. A critical assessment of the play's final tableau must come to grips with what it means when Gus stumbles into the room and comes face toface with his partner. Ben, and how is meaning created by The Dumb Waiter's indeterminate conclusion.

Two major critical discourses have developed around The Dumb Waiter's concluding tableau. One strand conceptualizes the end of the play signifying beyond the play in both form and content. Content wise, Ben pointing his gun at Gus represents the murder that is to follow. Formally, Pinter's play signifies something beyond itself, and the play is a clear example of the myth and ritual structures from which drama derives.

The second strand emphasizes that the play is the sum total of its actions. Since the play does not end in a murder, any interpretation must understand the play as what happens, and not what an audience may think will happen next. In essence, since the play has ended, any consideration of what will come next disregards the play in favor of a narrative that derives from the viewer or reader's imagination. A striking element of those who understand the tableau as a self- contained action is the tendency to completely reject the understanding of the play (and those critics who understand the play) as a representation beyond itself. From this perspective, critics who move from present to future by focusing on what will happen in addition to what does happen misunderstand and deform the play.

In light of this overt confrontation over the structure and action of The Dumb Waiter over how The Dumb Waiter means - I wish to take another look at the critical discourse surrounding the play to integrate these seemingly intractable critiques. A macrocosmic view of The Dumb Waiter's critical conflicts suggests that the very struggle over how the play's concluding moments represent is an inevitable extension and performance of the play's structure and action.

This conflict over how the concluding tableau represents is in some sense a question over whether the play is one example of a general phenomena, or is a unique and specific entity that must be understood on its own terms. A general approach to The Dumb Waiter such as that proposed by ritual critics reveals how the play resonates beyond the sum of its parts. Such a frame categorizes the play as part of an archetypal pattern similar to that outlined by Sir James Frazer in his influential modernist anthropological study The Golden Bough. Frazer begins his book with the narrative of the Arician sacred grove. He explains that the grove was a sanctuaryguarded by a priest and murderer who must stand watch until he in his turn was murdered, and his murderer would become priest in his stead (1). Ritually, the priest the king the god must die so the priest/ king/god can be reborn and society can prosper.

In The Dramatic World of Harold Pinter, Katherine Burkman suggests that Pinter's drama is steeped in ritual, and replicates the "cyclical theory of culture which Frazer's book propounds," and on which drama is based (16). Such a gloss gives Burkman insight into the ritual connotations of what for her are far from ambiguous concluding moments of The Dumb Waiter, ending the play prior to Ben shooting Gus does not make the play any less ritualized or

inevitable:

The absence of a shot clarifies for the audience the nature of that silent moment of recognition for Ben. Ben too has been unable to satisfy the demands. of the dumb waiter. Surely his turn will come. The killer must be killed. Victim and victor are one. (44)

Placed in its ritual context, The Dumb Waiter is part of an archetypal

pattern. Seemingly, Ben and Gus are types who each fulfill a role in

the system that the play enacts. In Burkman's terms, Gus and Ben are

victim and victor antagonists inextricably joined to create the

complete tapestry of the play.

The virtue of a play that ends previous to Ben's murder of Gus is that the ending tableau offers a clear visual demonstration of the play as an interactive multi-faceted ritual. Ben the victor inside the room inside the system needs instructions from god(s) represented by Wilson and the dumb waiter (powerful forces existing outside the system, but influencing it) to necessitate and to give meaning to the sacrifice of Gus the victim. To bring the cycle to its conclusion to have Ben pull the trigger gives Ben an illusory agency and omnipotence.

If Gus's death was represented, the play would become less ritualized, and Ben would be given an apparent independence. His connection to Gus would fracture. As victor, he could go on to his next job rather than be perpetually locked in the room, in the conflict, and in the unfulfilled service with which the play concludes. Ben could leave the room and move on to what is next rather than maintain an irresolvable status quo.