About the Plays:

The Caretaker was named by the Royal National Theatre of Britain as one of the top 100 plays of the 20th century.

The Dumb Waiter has long been a favourite of acting teachers for male/male scenes.

The Caretaker & The Dumb Waiter contains two plays by Nobel prize-winner Harold Pinter. In all of Harold Pinter's plays, seemingly ordinary events become charged with profound, if elusive, meaning, haunting pathos, and wild comedy. He gradually exposes the inner strains and fear of his characters, alternating hilarity and character to create and almost unbearable edge of tension.

The Caretaker is a full-length comedic drama about a wayward homeless man who enters and changes the lives of two brothers living together in a cluttered London apartment. This strikingly original drama enjoyed long runs in both London and New York. It was with this play that Harold Pinter had his first major success, and its production history since it was first performed in 1960 has established the work as a landmark in twentieth-century drama. (Cast: 3 male)

What people say The Caretaker:

"…powerful drama with a climax that tears at the heart." — The New York Times

"…wonderful, beautiful theatre." — New York Daily News

"…an important work of theatrical art." — New York Post

The Dumb Waiter: One of Off-Broadway's most successful entries (where it was presented with The Collection under the overall title of The Pinter Plays) this mysterious and suspenseful one-act dark comedy concerns two hired killers who wait apprehensively in a grubby, windowless basement room for word of their next macabre assignment. Gus and Ben are on the job, listening for their latest victim. Into the waiting silence rattles the dumb waiter with extraordinary demands for dishes they cannot supply – and who is operating the dumb waiter in an empty house? In a while their victim will come and they will know what to do. (Cast: 2 male)

What people say The Dumb Waiter:

"The Dumb Waiter is a suspense play, mysterious almost mystic." — New York World-Telegram & Sun

"…a distinguished gift for sheer, old-fashioned theatrical effectiveness, including the use of melodramatic suspense and the hint of sinister forces lying in ambush." — New York Post

"For anyone who's never seen this odd and important play ...The Dumb Waiter is far from clanky; it's precise, efficient and eerie, human and funny." — Los Angeles Times

About the Playwright:

Harold Pinter (1930-2008) was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, theatre director, poet, and Nobel laureate. He wrote 29 plays including The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming, and Betrayal, 15 dramatic sketches, 21 screenplays, as well as books of poetry and fiction, and directed 27 theatre productions. He continued to act under his own name, on stage and screen. His genius was recognized within his lifetime as a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005 (the highest honour available to any writer in the world), 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, in addition to 18 other honorary degrees.