Mountain Language

Mountain Language is a one-act play written by Harold Pinter, first published in The Times Literary Supplement (TLS) on 7–13 October 1988. It was first performed at the Royal National Theatre in London on 20 October 1988 with Michael Gambon and Miranda Richardson. Subsequently, it was published by Faber and Faber (UK) and Grove Press (USA). Mountain Language lasts about 25 minutes in production.

Background

According to a letter from Pinter to The Times Literary Supplement, where it was first published and advertised, that publication's "advertisement . . . stat[ing] that the play was 'inspired' by [Pinter's] trip to Turkey with Arthur Miller and is a 'parable about torture and the fate of the Kurdish people' ... [are] ... assertions ... made without consultation with the author [Pinter]"; he continues: "The first part of the sentence [that it was inspired by Pinter trip to Turkey with Miller] is in fact true. The play is not, however, 'about the fate of the Kurdish people' and, above all it is not intended as a 'parable'." As Grimes points out, "Pinter evidently believes his political plays are too direct to be seen as metaphors or parables" (90). As Pinter insists in that letter, the text has more universal relevance: "this play is not about the Turks and the Kurds. I mean, throughout history, many languages have been banned––the Irish have suffered, the Welsh have suffered and the Urdu and the Estonians' language banned." The dialogue does contain some identifiably contemporary British or Western cultural references, thereby showing its applicability to the Great Britain of the present, but the text of the play contains no explicit geographical place setting and no explicit time setting, rendering its setting in place and time simultaneously indeterminate and thus also broadly relevant.