The Lover
The Lover is a 1962 one-act play by English playwright Harold Pinter (1930-2008) [1]. Pinter leads the audience to believe that there are three characters in the play: the wife, the husband and the lover. But the lover who comes to call in the afternoons is revealed to be the husband adopting a role. He plays the lover for her: she plays the whore for him. The play contrasts bourgeois domesticity with sexual yearning.
The play was first presented by Associated-Rediffusion Television, London, 28 March 1963.
The first stage production was at the Arts Theatre, London, 18 September 1963.
Published by Methuen in 1964.
Performance history in South Africa
1980: A Baxter Theatre Production was directed and designed by Ken Leach in a double bill with The Dumb Waiter, opening 25 January 1980, starring Richard Cox and Jacqui Singer.
1992: Lanon Prigge, Tamara Rabinowitz and Alasdair Gordon-Findlayson starred in the Rhodes University Drama Department Honours student production, directed by Julia Boltt, in September 1992.
Translations and adaptations
Sources
Wikipedia [2].
Theatre programme (Baxter), 1980.
Barrow, Brian & Williams-Short, Yvonne (eds.). 1988. Theatre Alive! The Baxter Story 1977-1987
Photographs of the cast (Rhodes production) held by NELM: [Collection: Rhodes University. Drama Department]: 2008. 51. 4. 8. 4. 3.
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