The Dumb Waiter

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THE DUMB WAITER by Harold Pinter THE DUMB WAITER was first presented at the Hampstead Theatre Club on 21st January, 1960, with the following cast: BEN Nicholas Selby GUS George Tovey THE DUMB WAITER was subsequently presented at the Royal Court Theatre on 8th March, 1960, with the same cast. Scene : A basement room. Two beds, flat against the back wall. A serving hatch, closed, between the beds. A door to the kitchen and lavatory, left. A door to a passage, right. BEN is lying on a bed, left, reading a paper. GUS is sitting on a bed, right, tying his shoelaces, with difficulty. Both are dressed in shirts, trousers and braces. Silence. GUS ties his laces, rises, yawns and begins to walk slowly to the door, left. He stops, looks down, and shakes his foot. BEN lowers his paper and watches him. GUS kneels and unties his shoe-lace and slowly takes off the shoe. He looks inside it and brings out a flattened matchbox. He shakes it and examines it. Their eyes meet. BEN rattles his paper and reads. GUS puts the matchbox in his pocket and bends down to put on his shoe. He ties his lace, with difficulty. BEN lowers his paper and watches him. GUS walks to the door. GUS puts the packet in his pocket, bends down, puts on his shoe and tie the lace. He wanders off, left. BEN slams the paper down on the bed and glares after him. He picks up the paper and lies on his back, reading. Silence. A lavatory chain is pulled twice off, left, but the lavatory does not flush. Silence. GUS re-enters, left, and halts at the door, scratching his head. BEN slams down the paper. BEN. Kaw ! He picks up the paper. What about this? Listen to this ! He refers to the paper. A man of eighty-seven wanted to cross the road. But there was a lot of traffic, see ? He couldn't see how he was going to squeeze
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