The Dumb Waiter

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The Dumb Waiter is a one-act play by British playwright Harold Pinter. A modernist tragicomedy, it tells the story of two assassins while they wait in a basement room for their target to appear. In their apathy, they quarrel about trivial issues and question the hit. Soon their sense of reality begins to falter, and strange events unfold inside the basement. The play’s absurd series of events is characteristic of Pinter’s work, which exposed the irrational features and backward logic of modern stories and dilemmas.

ABOUT THE TEAM

Involved are creatives, Stephen Papps, Michael Lawrence & Eddie Peni producing through (potent pause) PRODUCTIONS, well known for staging Pinter classics.

Past (potent pause) PRODUCTIONS Pinter productions include: The Homecoming, Old Times, The Hothouse, The Birthday Party and The Caretaker.

This is a classic one act play that isn't performed a lot, especially in NZ, it usually runs a long side ‘The Lover” or "A Slight Ache".

This time we feel it warrants a production in it’s own honour and it has always been esteemed as a singular great piece of Pinter’s writing.

Stephen Papps:

TV & Film includes: Russian Snark (Misha), Emperor (Higgins), Head High (Landlord), Fresh Eggs (Chalky), Hillary (Bowden), Eruption (Rory), Spartacus (Ovius), Park (Keith Park), Life’s a Riot (Rod Rowlands), The Brokenwood Mysteries (Noel), End of the Golden Weather (Firpo) Best Actor NZ Film Awards.

Theatre Includes: Social Animal (All), Mike and Virginia (Harry), Heroes (Phillipe), Henry V / As You Like it, Pop up Globe, (York/Nym/Jacques), King Lear (Kent), The Hothouse (Lobb), Stage Kiss (Harrison), The Pitmen Painters (Harry), Midnight in Moscow (Boris), Hound of the Baskervilles (Dr Watson), The Thirty nine Steps (Various), The Homecoming (Teddy, Auckland Arts Festival), Success (Jules Donovan), Blowing it (All), The Birthday Party (Goldberg).

Michael Lawrence:

TV & Film includes: Rude Awakenings, Closer (SF), The Bach, Toy Love, Feathers of Peace, Tohunga, Price of Milk, Duggan, Xena, High Tide.

Theatre includes: Performed for Theatre Corporate, Mercury Theatre, Auckland Theatre Company and many Independent companies including Potent Pause Productions (originating in 2001).

Snowflake (Andy), Plumb Theatre, Simpatico (Carter), London, UK - Off West End Best Actor nomination, The Public Eye (Charles Sidley) London, UK, Creditors (Gustav), The Chairs/ Les Chaises (Old man) Auckland Arts festival, performed in English & French, True West (Lee), Decadence (Steve/Les), The Homecoming (Lenny), Sexual Perversity in Chicago (Bernie) London, UK, Miss Julie (Jean), Old Times (Deeley), A Streetcar Named Desire (Mitch), The Beauty Queen of Lenaane (Pato), Julius Caesar (Mettalus), Death of a Salesman (Biff), Burn This (Pale), East (Mike), Twelfth Night (Antonio).

Directed: The Homecoming (AOF), Oleanna (Maidment Studio), The Hothouse (Maidment Studio), Strange Children (Herald Theatre), Blasted (Silo theatre), The New Man (Silo theatre).

Edward Peni :

Director: Edward Peni is a Tamaki Makaurau based Theatre practitioner and Pinter enthusiast, who has worked across the creative field as an actor, stage manager, director and producer. He has worked with all the major theatre companies within Auckland including Silo Theatre, Auckland Theatre Company, NZ Opera, Auckland Arts Festival, Potent Pause productions and Te Pou Theatre. 

Recent producer credits include 'O Nofoa' with Te Pou Theatre (2017) as well two successful seasons of 'Skin Hunger' as part of the Auckland Fringe Festival 2022 and Summer at Q 2023. Edward has worked with Michael Lawrence as actor in Harold Pinter's The Hothouse (2008 & 2018) as Lush, as well as co-directing Potent Pause's successful production of Pinter's seminal work, The Homecoming which was presented at the Auckland Old Folks Association in 2022. 

Harold Pinter (1930-2008) : After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Central School of Speech and Drama, he worked as an actor under the stage name David Baron. Following his success as a playwright, he continued to act under his own name, on stage and screen. He last acted in 2006 when he appeared in Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape at the Royal Court Theatre, directed by Ian Rickson.

He wrote 29 plays, including The Birthday Party, The Dumb Waiter, A Slight Ache, The Hothouse, The Caretaker, The Collection, The Lover, The Homecoming, Old Times, No Man’s Land, Betrayal, A Kind of Alaska, One For The Road, The New World Order, Moonlight and Ashes to Ashes. Sketches include The Black and White, Request Stop, That’s Your Trouble, Night, Precisely, Apart From That and the recently rediscovered Umbrellas.

He directed 27 theatre productions, including James Joyce's Exiles, David Mamet's Oleanna, seven plays by Simon Gray (one of which was Butley in 1971, for which he directed the film adaptation three years later) and many of his own plays, including his last, Celebration, paired with his first, The Room, at The Almeida Theatre, London in the spring of 2000.

He wrote 21 screenplays, including The Pumpkin Eater, The Servant, The Go-Between, The French Lieutenant's Woman and Sleuth.

In 2005 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Other awards include the Companion of Honour for services to Literature, the Legion D’Honneur, the European Theatre Prize the Laurence Olivier Award and the Moliere D'Honneur for lifetime achievement. In 1999 he was made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature. Harold Pinter was awarded 18 honorary degrees.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

The money would go towards covering our main costs ,the materials and build of the Dumb waiter, obviously an integral part of the play and also some form of monetary reimbursement for the actors and director during the rehearsal period.

This is, in our view, a project that we feel very privileged to have got given the ok to perform and produce, as it's very difficult to normally acquire these rights.

It is also a quirky little piece on it's own and a wonderfully worded work of drama, probably one of Pinter's best written, we are looking forward to producing and performing it.

The Dumb Waiter performance dates:

One one six Theatre, Whangārei
25^th, 26^th &  27th of January 2024 @ 7pm

Auckland Old Folks Association Hall (AOF)

1^st, 2^nd & 3^rd of February 2024, @ 7pm, 4th of February 2024, @ 2.30pm & 7pm- 8^th, 9^th, 10^th & 11th of February 2024 @ 7pm…Bookings iTICKET