The Dumb Waiter: commentaries
Post your thoughts on the following suppositions -
1. Why call the play 'The Dumb Waiter'? Any significance besides the bare obvious, that there is a dumb waiter involved? any symbolism in an 'absurd' play?
2. Who could Ben/Gus resemble from the contemporary world? (think stories, films, graphic novels)
3. To what extent is the langugage of the play a communication tool?
4. What do you make of the ending of the play?
5. Who could be the people up-stairs? What could their conversation be about?
posted by belag @ Sunday, November 18, 2007
12 Comments:
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1. Why call the play "The Dumb Waiter"?
- The actual dumb waiter that appers in the text of the play is a symbolical way of presenting the relationship between Ben and Gus: they almost don't communicate with each other, as if they couldn't understand each other's words. According to me, Gus is a schizofrenic who imagines things and makes up his own charachters, and the dumb waiter is a symbol of his broken connection to reality. Ben is a product of Gus's fantasy, and that's why he appears to be inhumane and never indulges into conversations that would reveal something about his personality.
2. Who could Ben/Gus resemble from the contemporary world?
-I think that Gus could be Jamal Debboize; and Ben - Robin Williams.
3. To what extent does language play a communication tool?
-The language in the play is one technique that Pinter uses to point to the absurdity of the situation and the instability of Gus's world.
4. What do you make of the ending of the play?
-The image of Ben pointing a gun at Gus is again a product of Gus's paranoya. That's why Gus doesn't die and the play has an open end.
5. Who could be the people upstairs?
-Reality... the real world.
The fact that Gus cannot fulfill the orders that are delivered to him through the dumb waiter signals Gus's disconnection with the actual world and his miscommunication to everyone outside his own little confused and histerical world.
Why call the play 'The Dumb Waiter'? Any significance besides the bare obvious, that there is a dumb waiter involved? any symbolism in an 'absurd' play?
- Yes, I would agree with Ace Z. and Julia. Ben and Gus thmeselves are dumb-waiters, serving their purpose, never suposed to be asking questions. (Gus does ask questions, and that is the reason behind his "downfall" if you could say that).
2. Who could Ben/Gus resemble from the contemporary world? (think stories, films, graphic novels)
- Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta out of "Pulp Fiction" no doubt about this one.
3. To what extent is the langugage of the play a communication tool?
- Well,it's not a communication tool. Its a cumbersome process between two people that anerve themselves by the use of language.
4. What do you make of the ending of the play?
- A make a infinitelly long scene where Gus and Ben look at each other. Nothing else.
5. Who could be the people up-stairs? What could their conversation be about?
- Who says there are people up there? I personally believed that there is a God upstairs, something that displays no effort in getting his ways done.
mmmm...good...
1. Because a waiter has no control over the dishes he presents or the people he presents them to. He is much like a messanger or a middle man. This is true with Ben and Gus as well. They do not decide who they kill or how they do it.
2. Peyton Manning (QB for the Indy Colts) would make a good Gus and Warren Sapp (DT for the Oakland Raiders) would make a good Ben. I know that most of you have no clue who these guys are, but I do not know many actors as the only TV I watch is American football.
3. Language is only used to get across the most basic of concepts in the play. We learn the most about Ben and Gus through actions and events. We learn they are assassins by seeing that they sport guns, we learn that Gus is the next hit through him getting tossed back into the room stripped of his weapon. Most of their verbal communication consists of veiled comments about their orginization or stupid comments about what they read in the newspaper.
4. I think that Gus just knew too much. He is constantly asking questions to Ben, so we know he is curious enough. He probably just asked the wrong questions about his orginization and now needs to be "desposed" of.
5. They were probably just normal people who thought that there was a cafe under them. After a while they learn that this is not the case, but have fun with Ben and Gus by messing with them.
Why call the play the dumb waiter?
-The title has probably been given to this play as an illumination fo whats to come, or a foreshadow. It serves in a way to tell us that someone like Ben and Gus or both of them will be used by someone they consider to be dumb to do waiting duties.
Who could Ben and Gus resemble from the contemporary world?
-In my opinion they could be Ben Afleck and Matt Damon in Dogma. They, in the same way as Ben and Gus argue the whole time and discuss nonimportant things.
To what extent is the language in the play a communication tool?
-The language is part of the element of the play that helps give off the mood. How Ben and Gus argue the whole time and say unimportant things, or their exclammations to one another. All of this helps make the play's characters and its mood as well more realistic and believeable.
What do you make of the ending of the play?
-Finding out that one of them was supposed to kill the other, made the play even more interesting and helped clear out some parts of the play that were not clear to me before.
Who could be the people upstairs?
-I think that there really are waiters upstairs and this is just a part of Ben's act. I think that he brought Gus here just to make the situation more realistic and less suspicious.
1. Ben and Gus are dumb waiters (waiters who are dumb) since they try to fulfill the demands of the people sending orderse via the dumb waiter. Also, their profession asks them to be unaware of the motives behind the assasinations as well as the people ordering them.
2. I imagine Gus being John Cleese and Ben being Michael Pallin from Monty Python.
3. Language in the play is failing to provide a means of communicationm, yet the conversation resembles a everyday dialogue between two collegues.
4. I like that the scene is not violent since such an edning would ruin the atmosphere built up throught the play.
5.The people up stairs could range from kids playing with the dumb waiter, to undercover cops or just waiters who have a disfunctioning dumb waiter that goes to a wrong floor. The people are not important, the role that they play is.
FILIP C
1. Besides the fact that "the dumb waiter" represents the machine in the hotel room, it could also be a symbol of Ben and Gus as characters. Gus could represent "the dumb waiter" in a sense that he is constantly manipulated and controlled by Ben (everything Ben tells Gus to do, he does but always with the addition of a question). For Ben, on the other hand, he is controlled by their "boss", which we never actually meet. Thus "the dumb waiter" could be a nickname for both Ben and Gus.
2. In the contemporary world, I think someone like Matt Damon (as played in "The Bourne Identity") could play Ben and Ben Stiller as Gus(like in "Meet the Parents").
3. I think language is not really important. Th only thing we get from the language is unimportant talk between Ben and Gus, for example the talk of the "kettle". Everything that is important comes through the actions the characters do, for example taking out their guns. This further allows us to realize that they are actually hit men.
4. I think in the end we can recognize that the action taken towards Gus is that he probably was most definitely killed by Ben.
5. I think the people upstairs are some people (maybe that also work for Ben and Gus's boss) that are trying to throw Ben and Gus off and get them to mess up the job. Thus their "boss" can see if they are fully concentrated and ready to do their job or are merely there to get paid and get "it" (the killing) over with.
1. The "Dumb Waiter" is simply a machine that completes orders, but still in order to start someone must push the button. On the other hand, Ben and Gus can be seen as puppets who simply follow someone's orders, but what makes them humans, is their curiosity and uncertainty. The "Dumb Waiter" follows a regular pattern, while Ben and Gus want to know the reasons and motives.
2.Ben might be played by Antonio Banderas, and Gus by Adam Sandler.
3.Gus is the one who creates the whole conversation ( monologue) and he rarely gets answers from Ben. Gus's curiosity makes him talk and ask annoying questions.
The language is used as a communication tool in such a way that carries the orders from the boss to Ben and Gus.
4.The end is not clear, the play ends unexpectedly, but it seems like Ben does kill Gus.
5.We don't know who are the people up-stairs. They're simply there to add to the absurdity of the play, and to confuse Gus even more. It is interesting that Ben is the one who talks to them, so it seems like he trying to hide something from Gus
( this conversation might be the reason (an order) for Ben to "kill" Gus")
1. A dumb waiter = an assassin who completes assignments without ever deeply analyzing what is (s)he actually doing. If we assume that "The Dumb Waiter" is Ben, it follows that Gus dies in the end.
2. C-3PO and R2-D2. They are always bickering.
3. I really feel this play talks about "zivotni filosofii" although I cannot prove that. I have not read the play enough times to discover it.
4. Ben kills Gus. Society taking care of the Übermensch. I REALLY THINK GUS IS THE SMART GUY.
5. Not important. We should stick with what we have, what is out there. It is as unproductive as thinking that Godot is God.
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