Comedy of menace

A comedy of menace is a play in which the laughter of the audience in some or all situations is immediately followed by a feeling of some impending disaster. The audience is made aware of some menace in the very midst of its laughter. The menace is produced throughout the play from potential or actual violence or from an underline sense of violence throughout the play. The actual cause of menace is difficult to define: it may be because, the audience feels an uncertainty and insecurity throughout the play.

Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party is a comedy of menace. The play is actually the mingling of comedy with a perception of danger that pervade the whole play. Stanley, the central protagonist always finds his life beset with danger. Meg is the owner of the boarding house away from the society where Stanley stays temporarily as a tenant. Meg arranges a birthday party in Stanley's honour though Stanley denies it being his birthday. Two gentlemen called Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Mc Cann come to stay in the same boarding house for a couple of nights. Their appearance fills Stanley's mind with unexplained fear and tension. Stanley attempts to disturb the strangers so that they will be forced to go away. The feeling of menace is reinforced when Stanley scares Meg by saying that some people would be coming that very day in a van. They would bring a wheelbarrow with them to take someone away. Eventually no one comes but Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Mc Cann take stanley with them. In fact Goldberg and Mc Cann represents parts of Stanley's own subconscious mind. Nothing is stated or hinted about Goldberg and Mc Cann  and about their attitude towards Stanley. At best they seem to be agents of some organisation which has sent them to track down Stanley.

The Birthday Party and Look Back in Anger perfectly reveal the individual and social problems and doubts that great Britain was moving through during the post-war era. Both this two famous plays indicate the spirit of times and become vehicle or instrument for dramatic action.