by Douglas Messerli
Harold Pinter A Slight Ache in 3 Plays (New York: Grove Press, 1962)
Pinter's
brilliantly absurd parable of people born to the estate—particularly of their
paranoia, boredom, and lost dreams—is played out in a simple and quite humorous
narrative: Edward (Emlyn Williams in the first stage production) wakes up with
"a slight ache" in his eyes as if he hasn't slept; as he attempts to
tell his wife, Flora, (Alison Leggat), of his condition, a wasp becomes trapped
in the jam pot, and she becomes terrified of its possible bite. Edward insists
that wasps do not bite. They sting.
Yet, a "wasp" does
indeed nip away at Edward much as the jury haunts Philocleon in Aristophanes'
ancient comedy. Like Philocleon, Edward has been a Justice of the Peace. And
much like that monster, we quickly perceive, despite Edward's insistence that
he, as always, slept "uninterruptedly," he clearly suffers from
irregular sleep, obsessional thinking, and is utterly paranoid.
A nearby matchseller has been watching him,
Edward in convinced, keeping an eye on his estate, both his home and himself.
Edward: He's back
again.
Flora: But he's
always there.
Edward: Why? What is
he doing there?
Flora: But he's
never disturbed you, has he? The man's been standing
there for weeks.
You've never mentioned it.
Edward: What is he
doing there?
Flora: He's selling
matches, of course.
But Edward cannot be convinced. The road
on which they live is not at all likely to be traveled by people interested in
matches. And why does this matchseller arrive at seven o'clock each morning?
Determined to watch him devotedly, it does not take much before Edward is
obsessed with the poor man, and, finally, becomes determined to invite him
inside to get to "the bottom of things."
The ridiculous one-sided conversations
between Edward and the matchseller (who speaks not one word) results in a tale
about an acquittal that again points up his relationship to the Greek lawyer;
his story is about a man whom Edward describes as a poacher who he comes upon
laying, possibly injured, in the road. When Edward dismounts to check the man
out, he falls, the pony taking off down the valley, he "up to [his] ears
in mud." He continues:
Years later, when I
was a Justice of the Peace for the county, I had
him front of the
bench. He was there for poaching. That's how I
know he was a poacher.
The evidence though was sparse, inadmissible,
I acquitted him,
letting him off with a caution. He'd grown a red beard,
I remember. Yes. A bit
of a stinker.
Before long, of course, he is cursing the
dirty, smelly, old man before him, accusing him of sins he himself is guilty.
What he reveals about himself is a life of accumulation and dispassion,
speaking like a true paranoid, of "lists of people anxious to do me
down." But most of all, he reveals the pointlessness of his own life. And
even as he speaks, the old man begins to transform, finally growing young
again. Is he the young Edward before his has become the monster he is now?
You look younger. You
look extraordinarily...youthful.
....I would like to
join you...explain...show you...the garden...explain
The plants...where I
run...my track in training...I was number one
sprinter at
Howells...when a stripling...no more a stripling...licked...
men twice my
strength...when a stripling...like yourself.
Before Edward's aching eyes, the
matchseller, whom he has attempted to convict (this time in a "home
court), has turned the tables, so to speak, and—symbolically at least—has been
acquitted of his supposed crimes.
Flora, who has named the matchseller
Barnabas—evoking the disciple who, along with Paul, oversaw the church at
Antioch and later, at the Council of Jerusalem, helped to permit Gentiles into
the Christian Church—comes to take him into her garden, her polished house. As
she takes him by the hand, she passes over his tray of matches to a speechless
Edward, who might well, like Philoclean proclaim:
And so I
have charged my conscience with the acquittal of an accused
being! What
will become of me? Sacred gods! forgive me. I did it despite
myself; it
is not in my character.
Los Angeles, December 26, 2008
Reprinted from
Reading with My Lips (September 12, 2024).
