Ashes to Ashes (play)

"Ashes to Ashes" is a 1996 play by English playwright Harold Pinter. It was first performed, in Dutch, by Toneelgroep Amsterdam, the Netherlands' largest repertory company, in Amsterdam, as part of its 1996–1997 season, and directed by Titus Muizelaar," [http://www.toneelgroepamsterdam.nl/default.asp?path=bktnx647 Ashes to Ashes] ", Toneelgroep Amsterdam Archived Webpage. Accessed 28 Sept. 2008.] who reprised his production, in Dutch with English surtitles, as part of a double bill with "Buff", by Gerardjan Rijnders, at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, from 23 through 27 June 1998.Merritt, "Ashes to Ashes" in New York" and "Harold Pinter's "Ashes to Ashes": Political/Personal Echoes of the Holocaust" 83.] Its English première by the Royal Court Theatre opened after the Dutch première, at the Ambassadors Theatre, in London, on 12 September 1996.

etting

"Time: Now. .... A house in the country."Harold Pinter, "Ashes to Ashes" (London: Faber and Faber, 1996; New York: Grove Press, 1997) 1 (and n. pag. front matter). Subsequent page references to the Faber and Faber ed. will appear within parentheses in the text.]

Characters

*Devlin
*Rebecca"Both in their forties" ( [vii] ).

Plot synopsis

The one-act play opens with Devlin and Rebecca (possibly middle-aged) talking in what appears to be a home living room on an early summer evening. Though throughout the play it sometimes appears Devlin and Rebecca may be married, in fact their roles are unclear and shifting, and infused with menace. Devlin seems at once Rebecca's husband or lover, her therapist, and her murderer. Initially their discussion seems to be more between a therapist (Devlin), and his neurotic patient than between two lovers or husband and wife. [Although many critics have observed this point, Merritt observes that Pinter, who sat in on rehearsals of the Roundabout production in early 1999, apparently approved the couple's wearing wedding bands on stage, noting also that Pinter deleted a reference to "husband" in one of his unpublished manuscripts of the play held in The Harold Pinter Archive in the British Library, in effect rendering that aspect of their marital relationship more ambiguous or at least less obvious ("Harold Pinter's "Ashes to Ashes": Political/Personal Echoes of the Holocaust" 83 n. 3).]

Devlin questions Rebecca in forceful ways, and she reveals personal information and dream-like sequences to him. In their first exchange, Rebecca tells of a man who appears to be sexually abusing her, and threatening to strangle her. Rebecca tells Devlin that she literally told the killer, "Put your hand round my throat"--an act that will be terrifyingly reversed later in the play. This exchange is followed immediately by Devlin asking "Do you feel you're being hypnotized?" "Who by?" asks Rebecca. "By me," answers Devlin. Such hypnotism would be a peculiar thing for a husband to be doing to his wife, though it could be done by a psychologist or psychiatrist.

Rebecca relates several dream-like sequences, which blur her own and Devlin's roles, and introduce several eerie themes and characters. First she tells Devlin that the threatening man referred to in the opening of the play apparently worked as a "guide" for a travel agency. She goes on to ask, "Did I ever tell you about that place...about the time he [the threatening man] took me to that place?" This place turns out to be "a kind of factory" peopled by a strange group of passive workers who work for the threatening man, and who "respected his...purity, his...conviction." Adding to the mounting terror, she tells Devlin, "He used to go to the local railway station and walk down the platform and tear all the babies from the arms of their screaming mothers."

This "atrocity" (the characters' word) becomes a central theme and image of the play.

Suddenly, Rebecca changes the subject with "By the way, I'm terribly upset." She complains that a police siren which she had just heard has disappeared into the distance. Devlin replies that the police are always busy, and thus another siren will start up at any time and "you can take comfort in that at least. Can't you? You'll never be lonely again. You'll never be without a police siren. I promise you."--as if to say that he can "promise" her comfort in the chaos of existence. Rebecca says that she hates the siren's "fading away; I hate it echoing away." An echo will appear at the end of the play, again with terrifying overtones.

Rebecca tells Devlin that she had been writing a note, and that when she put the pen she was using down, it rolled off the table:

REBECCA: It rolled right off, onto the carpet. In front of my eyes.
DEVLIN: Good God.
REBECCA: This pen, this perfectly innocent pen.
DEVLIN: You can't know it was innocent.
REBECCA: Why not?
DEVLIN: Because you don't know where it had been. You don't know how many other hands have held it, how many other hands have written with it, what other people have been doing with it. You know nothing of its history. You know nothing of its parents' history.
REBECCA: A pen has no parents.

In another monologue Rebecca describes herself looking out the window of a summer house and seeing a crowd of people being led by "guides" toward the ocean, which they disappear into like lemmings. Then while discussing a peculiar condition known as "mental elephantiasis," in which "when you spill an ounce of gravy, for example, it immediately expands and becomes a vast sea of gravy," Rebecca says that "You are not the "victim" [of such an event] , you are the "cause" of it." She then adds, "Because it was you who spilt the gravy in the first place, it was you who handed over the bundle." This "bundle" and its tragic contents will appear at the end of the play.

After a brief aside about what appear to be ordinary family matters (Rebecca's sister, her children, and her estranged husband), Rebecca tells Devlin "I don't think we can start again. We started...a long time ago. We started. We can't start "again." We can end again." "But we've never ended," answers Devlin, to which Rebecca responds, "Oh, we have. Again and again and again. And we can end again. And again and again. And again." This and several other things Rebecca says during the play evince a strong hostility toward Devlin. Devlin then asks why Rebecca has never told him about "this lover of yours," but Rebecca veers into another dream sequence, where she is standing atop a building, and sees a man, a boy, and a woman with a child in her arms in a snowy street below. In a breathtaking but very simple turn in the text, the baby is suddenly transformed into Rebecca's arms, and she listens to its heart beating. Devlin then approaches Rebecca, and begins to enact the strangulation scene described by Rebecca at the beginning of the play--with one key difference. This time she does not ask him to put his hands around her throat, and instead Devlin says "Ask me to put my hand round your throat," which she does not reply to.

In the play's conclusion, during which everything Rebecca says is eerily echoed, she recounts having walked onto a train platform with a baby wrapped up "in a bundle." The scene is reminiscent of women and their children during the Holocaust, as when she says, "They took us to the trains" and "They were taking the babies away." Finally, Rebecca (or the woman with whom she has identified from that past historical event) is forced to give her baby in the bundle to one of the men, and she gets on the train and "we arrived at this place" (recalling that earlier Rebecca asked Devlin of the threatening man, "Did I ever tell you about that "place"...about the time he took me to that "place"? [Italics added] ).

A woman asks where her baby is, followed by these final haunting lines:

REBECCA: And I said what baby
ECHO: what baby
REBECCA: I don't have a baby
ECHO: a baby
REBECCA: I don't know of any baby
ECHO: of any baby
"Pause."
REBECCA: I don't know of any baby
"Long silence."
BLACKOUT

Production history

World première

"Ashes to Ashes" was first performed, in Dutch, by Toneelgroep Amsterdam, the Netherlands' largest repertory company, in Amsterdam, as part of its 1996–1997 season, and directed by Titus Muizelaar, who reprised his production, in Dutch with English surtitles, as part of a double bill with "Buff", by Gerardjan Rijnders, at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, from 23 through 27 June 1998.Merritt, "Ashes to Ashes" in New York" and "Harold Pinter's "Ashes to Ashes": Political/Personal Echoes of the Holocaust" 83.]

The translation and dramaturgy were by Janine Brogt, the set was designed by Paul Gallis, and lighting was designed by Henk Bergsma, and the cast included:

The cast included:

*Pierre Bokma (Devlin)
*Lineke Rijxman (Rebecca)

London première

The London première was directed by the playwright Harold Pinter and designed by Eileen Diss for the Royal Court Theatre, at the Ambassadors Theatre, in London, opening on 12 September 1996, with the following cast:

*Stephen Rea (Devlin)
*Lindsay Duncan (Rebecca) [http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_ashestoashes.shtml "Ashes to Ashes": Première] , "HaroldPinter.org". Accessed 28 Sept. 2008. (Includes excerpt from a contemporaneous review published in "The Independent on Sunday".)]

Lighting was designed by Mick Hughes, costumes designed by Tom Rand, and sound designed by Tom Lishman.

New York première

The American première, directed by the late Karel Reisz, was part of the 1998–1999 Laura Pels Theatre Season at the Gramercy Theatre, produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company, in New York City, from 7 February to 9 May 1999. [http://www.roundabouttheatre.org/98-99.htm#ashes "Ashes to Ashes: New York Première"] , "Roundabouttheatre.org", 1998–1999 season (archived performances). Accessed 28 Sept. 2008.] Lindsay Duncan reprised her role as Rebecca, and David Strathairn played the role of Devlin. Set and costume design was by Tony Walton, lighting design by Richard Pilbrow, and sound design by G. Thomas Clark.

London revival

"Ashes to Ashes" was revived in Spring 2001 in a double bill with "Mountain Language", directed by Katie Mitchell, at the Royal Court Theatre, which went on to be performed at the Harold Pinter Festival at the Lincoln Center Festival 2001, in New York City, in July and August 2001. [http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_language7.shtml "Mountain Language and Ashes to Ashes"] , "HaroldPinter.org". Accessed 28 Sept. 2008. (Includes full texts of contemporaneous reviews by Rachel Halliburton in "The Evening Standard" and Alastair Macaulay in the "Financial Times".)]

Notes

References

*Merritt, Susan Hollis. "Ashes to Ashes" in New York". "The Pinter Review": Collected Essays 1997 and 1998". Ed. Francis Gillen and Steven H. Gale. Tampa: U of Tampa P, 1999. 156–59. ISBN 187985211X (hardcover). ISBN 1879852128 (softcover).
*–––. "Harold Pinter's "Ashes to Ashes": Political/Personal Echoes of the Holocaust". "The Pinter Review: Collected Essays 1999 and 2000". Ed. Francis Gillen and Steven H. Gale. Tampa: U of Tampa P, 2000. 73–84. ISBN 1879852136 (hardcover). ISBN 1879852144 (softcover).
*Pinter, Harold. "Ashes to Ashes". London: Faber and Faber, 1996. ISBN 0571190278 (10). ISBN 9780571190270 (13). New York: Grove Press, 1996. ISBN 0802135102 (10). ISBN 9780802135100 (13).

External links

*" [http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/title_ashestoashes.shtml Ashes to Ashes] " at "HaroldPinter.org" (Official Website of Harold Pinter).