Mountain Language (1988)

By

Harold Pinter (1930- )

Mountain Language is a very short one-act play by the English playwright Harold Pinter. The first scene shows a young woman and an elderly woman as they go to visit one of their relatives who was accused of speaking the forbidden mountain language. The older woman was bitten by one of the dogs in the prison, and yet the officer and sergeant torture her and her companion with stupid questions and harass the latter sexually. We see in the second scene that the elderly woman was in the prison to visit her son. The woman tries to talk to her son with the mountain language she is used to, for she doesn't know the capital language, yet the officer starts jabbing her with a stick. Still, she manages to tell her son that his wife and three kids are waiting for him. In the third scene we see that the young woman was sent through the wrong door, and she has a short conversation with the sergeant. The fourth scene shows that the prisoner was obviously punished, and yet the guard informs him that the new rules allow the elderly woman to speak the mountain language.

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This play was written after Pinter visited Turkey and saw the situation of the Kurdish people, yet it also depicts the miserable situation in many countries and totalitarian systems. The censorship of a whole community's language is simply one example of the system's suppression. I previously reviewed another one of Pinter's plays, namely Betrayal which has social themes. Mountain Language belongs to the political theatre which Pinter has significant contributions to especially through plays like One for the Road. Furthermore, Pinter is a political activist himself and he states his political opinion through his speeches and even the interviews made with him. I particularly liked the character of the young woman in this play, for she is still able to ridicule the system by imitating its language. At one point in the play she is told that there must be something wrong with the computer but when a certain person takes care of it everything will be alright, so she asks: "Can I fuck him? If I fuck him, will everything be all right?" This might not be the best of reactions, you might say, but it is the only one available. Obviously this system encourages people to speak its language and endorse only its ideas. The officers' sexual harassment and demeaning remarks to the young girl conveyed to her that using her body is the only language that works.

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For me, the play includes three of the most powerful instances in which Harold Pinter uses his famous technique of pauses and silences. The first one is when the young woman tells the officer that the elderly woman was bitten by a Dobermann pinscher, and the former asks her about the dog's name. The young woman just chooses to remain silent instead of honouring such a stupid question with an answer. The second time is when the prisoner explains to the officer that his mother has to speak the mountain language simply because she can't speak the capital language. The officer remains silent because he refuses to understand; the rules for him are the most important thing and whether these rules are applicable or not does not matter for him. The third and the most important time is after the prisoner was punished. He informs his mother of what the guard told him; that the rules changed and she is allowed to speak mountain language, yet his mother refuses to talk. Her reaction is understandable here for she saw how her son was punished and she expects nothing but terrorism from that totalitarian system.

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The play is very short; reading it and even performing it on stage takes less than half an hour. Like One for the Road, it is sad and dim, but it is definitely recommended if you like the political theatre and also if you don't mind its being very direct.

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<<< Price and Book Info >>>

Price: £4.90 from Amazon
Paperback: 64 pages
Publisher: Faber and Faber (17 Oct 1988)
ISBN-10: 0571154131
ISBN-13: 978-0571154135