Selah Dessert Theater to Present ‘The Birthday Party’

STRUTHERS, Ohio – Selah Dessert Theater will present “The Birthday Party” on Nov. 7-9, 15-16 and 22-23. 

The curtain time is 8 p.m. The theater is on the second floor of Selah Restaurant, 130 S. Bridge St.

Written in 1958, the play is an early work of the Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter and an example of Theater of the Absurd. Initially, the piece received poor reviews but is now Pinter’s most widely performed play. 

It features the signature Pinter pause during performances and showcases Pinter’s ability to evoke impending doom and ominous threats while simultaneously creating humor from absurd language and situations.

Underlying themes include the banality of daily domestic life, and how we are all forced to conform to social norms or live shut off from the outside world.

The story takes place in a rundown boarding house on the English seaside, run by Petey, played by Terry Shears, and his daft wife, Meg, played by Cheryl Lilko-Games, who have one boarder: Stanley, played by Michael Dempsey. Stanley, a musician, is an unkempt, enigmatic character hiding from life and his past. A strange Jewish man named Goldberg, played by Eric Kibler, and Goldberg’s Irish henchman, played by Adam Donnish, arrive, looking for Stanley, but we don’t know why.

Meg decides it must be Stanley’s birthday, and a party is planned. Party games descend into heavy drinking and chaos, with Stanley being taunted and harassed by the new boarders, who push Stanley to a psychotic break.

“Pinter is one of the most influential playwright’s of the 20th century,” said Mary Ruth Lynn, director. “His work is rarely performed in small or community theaters, but I feel it’s important to share great plays with our theater audiences.” 

Tom O’Donnell is the assistant director.

Tickets are $19.50 and include reserved seating and dessert at intermission. Tickets are available at SelahDessertTheater.com.

A preshow dinner can be reserved at SelahRestaurant.com.

The theater is accessible by stairs only.

Pictured at top: Cheryl Lilko-Games and Terry Shears in a scene from “The Birthday Party.”

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.