The janitor

Data
Title:	The janitor
Original title:	The Caretaker
Author:	Harold Pinter
Publishing year:	1959
Premiere:	April 27, 1960
Place of premiere:	Arts Theater in London
people
	Davies; Aston; Mick, his younger brother;

The caretaker (English: The Caretaker ) is a play by Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter . Released in 1959, it had its world premiere on April 27, 1960 at the London Arts Theater with Donald Pleasence as Davies, Peter Woodthorpe as Aston and Alan Bates as Mick, directed by Donald McWhinnie, and moved to the larger Duchess Theater a month later. 444 performances of the premiere production were given. The German-language premiere in the translation by Michael Walter took place on October 29, 1960 at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus with Otto Rouvel as Davies, Klaus Knuth as Aston and Karl-Heinz Martell as Mick, directed by Friedhelm Ortmann .

content

The young Aston, who, as the play will turn out, struggles with mental problems, brings the vagabond Davies with him to his shabby shack full of junk and invites him to stay here for the night. He just saved him from a fight in a nearby café and Davies - whose true identity is never really clear, once he calls himself Davies, then again Bernard Jenkins - barely arrives, pulls over the café staff, the blacks and all the foreigners. Tired and burned out as he is, he accepts the offer, not without first giving Aston a detailed account of where his things have gone and how he tried to get a pair of shoes in a monastery in north London. Aston offers him a pair of used shoes, which he refuses. Finally, the two of them pull out a bed from the junk and Davies goes to sleep, exhausted. Aston repairs either an old toaster or an electrical plug throughout the conversation - and eventually the entire piece. He will not succeed in either by the end. He also claims that he wants to build a shed in the back garden with the wood standing around in the room.

The next morning, Aston leaves the house, but offers Davies to stay. He immediately rummages through things, but is surprised by a stranger, confronted and confused with strange games and questions about his identity. It's Mick, Aston's younger brother, who seems to own the house and who is allegedly thinking of converting the whole complex into a modern apartment with a penthouse. When Aston comes back and Davies brings a bag that Davies had left in the café, Mick plays his games with the old man again until he finally disappears. The bag isn't Davies' at all, Aston admits it's a different one, but has brought a shirt and house jacket for the old man. He declines the shirt, but takes the jacket. Suddenly Aston offers him to be caretaker for him. Davies hesitates.

When Davies comes back to the booth, Mick is there and plays his little game with him again, but then takes him into his confidence and asks him for his opinion about his brother, with whom something is not quite right. This also turns out to be a trap, as you never really know where you are with Mick. Then, however, he suddenly offers Davies the caretaker position.

Davies is starting to feel good at Aston, but one morning he complains about the cold and the wind in the room. And he still doesn't have any new shoes. In a long monologue, Aston tells him the story of his confusion, how he was finally forced to undergo electroshock treatment and how his mother disappointed him.

Two weeks later, Davies is still there complaining to Mick about Aston. In return, Mick explains in detail how he intends to remodel the house. When Aston returns, Mick disappears. Aston has a pair of shoes for Davies who, however, is dissatisfied again, complains and moans, until Aston disappears without a word.

The next morning there is another big argument between the two, Davies lets himself be carried away into insulting Aston as a former inmate of an insane asylum and as a loon, Aston throws him out, but Davies pulls a knife and invokes Mick's offer. Aston is not even impressed and kicks him out.

Davies comes back with Mick, Aston is not there. When Davies talks to Mick about his brother, he realizes that he underestimated the cohesion between the two. Mick starts one of his games with him again, finally calls him a wild animal and a barbarian, throws him a coin and smashes Aston's little Buddha statue in front of his eyes. Aston is coming back, Mick is leaving. Davies tries again to ingratiate himself with Aston, offers help with the apartment and the shed, but loses out. Finally he stands helpless in the room and knows that he has lost the fight.

Emergence

Pinter has emphasized on several occasions that there were no real role models for the characters, but that on the one hand he drew from impressions and events of his time as a young actor in London and on the other hand admired the characters and Samuel Beckett's free theatrical conception. For this reason, too, Pinter's early plays, including the caretaker, have repeatedly been counted among the theater of the absurd, although Pinter himself did not want to make any statements about it, as he was hardly ever ready to provide any hints or interpretation aids on his plays .

effect

The critics and theater management were very skeptical before the premiere, as all of Pinter's plays had failed in the previous seasons. However, at the premiere it turned out that something big was going on here. The audience was enthusiastic and the reviews were outstanding. The caretaker ran to a full house, had to be relocated to the larger Duchess Theater after a few weeks, became a big hit of the London theater season in 1960 and stole the show from another theater production that should have been the hit of the year: Orson Welles had Ionesco's grotesque The Rhinos with Laurence Olivier in the lead role staged for the Royal Court Theater . The young pinter and his caretaker, however, made the running. The Caretaker has been translated into many languages and a huge success worldwide, making Pinter a famous young playwright.

Harold Pinter did not direct the play himself until 1991, while Donald Pleasence played Davies again - 31 years after the premiere. Other great actors such as John Hurt (1972), Jeremy Irons (1973), Jonathan Pryce (1980) or Michael Gambon (2000) were to be seen in the ever new London productions of the play.

Film adaptations

1963 The Caretaker (GB, director: Clive Donner , book: Harold Pinter, camera: Nicolas Roeg , with Donald Pleasence as Davies, Robert Shaw as Aston and Alan Bates as Mick - Harold Pinter has a brief appearance as a guest, a role that it did not exist in the play; the film was produced by Elizabeth Taylor , Richard Burton and Noël Coward , among others .)
1966 The Caretaker (GB, TV film as "ITV Play of the Week"; Director:?, With Roy Dotrice as Davies, John Rees as Aston and Ian McShane as Mick)
1971 Viceværten (Denmark, TV film, director: Palle Wolfsberg, with Paul Hagen as Davies, Bent Mejing as Aston and Baard Owe as Mick)
1973 Der Hausmeister (Germany, TV film, script and director: August Everding , with Heinz Rühmann as Davies, Gerd Baltus as Aston and Michael Schwarzmaier as Mick)
1984 Le Gardien (France, film for TV, director: Yves-André Hubert, script: Eric Kahane, with Jacques Dufilho as Davies, George Claisse as Aston and Alain Fourès as Mick)
1984 De Huisbewaarder (Belgium, TV film, directors: Vincent Rouffaer and Walter Tillemans, with Julien Schoenaerts as Davies, Bert André as Aston and Leslie de Gruyter as Mick)
2004 Fastighetsskötaren (Sweden, TV movie, director: Thommy Berggren , script: Thommy Berggren and Olov Jonasson, with Ingvar Hirdvall as Davies, Johan Rabaeus as Aston and Peter Andersson as Mick)

Book edition

Harold Pinter: The Birthday Party; The janitor; The return home; Cheated , Reinbek near Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2001, ISBN 3-499-12905-1

literature

Michael Billington: Life and Work of Harold Pinter, London: Faber And Faber, 1997, ISBN 978-0-571-23476-9
Heinz Eikmeyer: Anxiety and fear in the dramas of Harold Pinter, series New Studies in English and American Studies Volume 51, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1990, ISBN 978-3-631-43050-7
Martin Esslin : Harold Pinter, Velber: Friedrich 1967, ISBN 3-423-06838-8
Rüdiger Imhof: Harold Pinters Dramentechnik, Bonn: Bouvier, 1976
Bill Naismith: Harold Pinter "The Caretaker", "Birthday Party", "The Homecoming" (Faber Critical Guides), London: Faber And Faber, 2000, ISBN 978-0-571-19781-1
Karl-Heinz Stoll: Harold Pinter. A contribution to the typology of the new English drama, Düsseldorf: Bagel, 1977, ISBN 3-513-02130-5