The Lover (play)

{{Infobox play

| name = The Lover

| image = The_Lover_(play).jpg

| image_size =

| caption = Opening title ITV, 1963

| writer = Harold Pinter

| chorus =

| characters =

| mute =

| setting =

| premiere = {{Start date|df=yes|1963|03|28}}

| place = ITV

| orig_lang = English

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| subject =

| genre = One-act play

| web =

}}

The Lover is a 1962 one-act play by Harold Pinter, originally written for television, but subsequently performed on stage.{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2008/jan/30/theatre6|title=Theatre review: The Lover/The Collection / Comedy Theatre, London|first=Michael|last=Billington|newspaper=The Guardian |date=30 January 2008|via=www.theguardian.com}} The play contrasts bourgeois domesticity with sexual yearning.{{Cite web|url=https://www.englishtheatre.de/archives/article/the-lover-by-harold-pinter/|title=THE LOVER by Harold Pinter|website=www.englishtheatre.de}}

As with the drama of Anton Chekhov, some of Pinter's plays support "serious" and "comic" interpretations; The Lover has been staged successfully both as an ironic comedy on the one hand and as a nervy drama on the other.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RdoD8_Wj30QC&q=harold+pinter+serious+and+comic+like+chekhov&pg=PA77|title=The Cambridge Companion to Harold Pinter|first=Peter|last=Raby|date=20 September 2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521658423|via=Google Books}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/entertainment/theatre/a-moment-s-pause-for-pinter-s-black-comedy-double-bill-1-1374332|title=A moment's pause for Pinter's black comedy double bill|first=Lee-Ann|last=Richards|website=Romford Recorder}} As is often the case with Pinter, the play probably contains both.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VCr0oLAA5HoC&q=harold+pinter+serious+and+comic&pg=PA36|title=The Dramatic World of Harold Pinter: Its Basis in Ritual|first=Katherine H.|last=Burkman|date=21 October 1971|publisher=Ohio State University Press|isbn=9780814201466|via=Google Books}}

Plot

Pinter leads the audience to believe that there are four characters in the play: the wife, the husband, the wife's lover and the husband's whore. 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. As the play goes on the man (first as the lover and then as the husband) expresses a wish to stop the pretend adultery, to the dismay of the woman. Finally, the husband suddenly switches back to the role of the lover (he switched also before it)

Original production

The play originally premiered in a 60 minute TV production directed by Joan Kemp-Welch for Associated-Rediffusion, transmitted by ITV on 28 March 1963.{{Cite web|url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/968178/index.html|title=BFI Screenonline: Lover, The (1963)|website=www.screenonline.org.uk}}

Husband/Lover - Alan Badel
Wife/Mistress - Vivien Merchant
Milkman - Michael Forrest

Original London stage production

It opened at the Arts Theatre on 18 September 1963 in a production by the author, as part of a double bill with his play The Dwarfs; and closed on 5 October.{{Cite web|url=http://www.thisistheatre.com/londonshows/lovercollection.html#1963b|title=The Lover and The Collection by Harold Pinter on stage in London - theatre tickets and show information|website=www.thisistheatre.com}}

Richard - Scott Forbes
Sarah - Vivien Merchant
John - Michael Forrest

;Critical reception

The Financial Times wrote "The little play works simply beautifully, like a perfectly adjusted piece of miniature machinery, except that machinery is dead and this play is scintillating alive."{{Cite web|url=http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_lover.shtml|title=www.haroldpinter.org - Plays|website=www.haroldpinter.org}}

References

External links

{{IMDb title|qid=Q127870074}}
{{Screenonline TV title|id=968178}}
[https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/iulmyt/pdf/traduccion_artes/19_negrete.pdf D4DR] The Lover at Spanish Version Essay

Category:1962 plays

Category:1963 television plays

Category:Plays by Harold Pinter