I need some explanation about the dialog peculiarities in Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party and The Dumb Waiter.

Pinter’s style of ambiguity so strong to the point of
frustration. In a lot of his plays, he presents dialogues which seem incomprehensible
but are largely similar to actual dialogues in real life. For example, in dialogues in
your real life, you don’t have the need to elaborate on every detail if a friend of
yours is familiar with what you’re talking about. You and your friend may have inside
jokes which could be conveyed with uttering a single word and no context is needed. The
two of you might make references or tangents without so much as a segue. In some plays,
this is what Pinter was experimenting with. In other plays, such as Hamlet, we are given
ample historical background and soliloquies during which the characters completely
reveal their justifications and motives. Pinter eliminates all of this. His plays tend
to be totally isolated; usually confined to one room as if the room is isolated from the
past and future. The play just begins. We just get dialogue. It’s as if the audience is
walking into the middle of a conversation and wondering what is going on – for the
entire play.

Adding to this uncertainty, there are elements
of Absurdism, both in the comedic and existential sense. In The Birthday
Party, Goldberg and McCann’s dialogue with Stanley goes from intimidation to
teasing and in the end it is unclear if they are there to hurt him or to somehow make
him better. We, the audience, can only guess their motives and what the outcome might
be. All we have is a very odd situation and mostly realistic, occasionally non sequitur
dialogue. The whole play fluctuates between playfully strange events and tension rising
to uncertainty (i.e., Stanley playing the drum.)

In
The Dumb Waiter, we have kind of the same thing; moments of odd
comedy spliced with uncomfortable tension. Gus questions things; this infuriates Ben.
For Ben, the world is black and white. Or, maybe for Ben the world is only one color
because he needs no justifications; he merely carries out his work. Gus questions things
repeatedly, including the nature of killing. The play ends, and we speculate that Ben
must eliminate Gus; but we can’t be sure. The audience/reader might react like Gus’
character, asking questions and only getting more Absurdity or worse;
silence.

What does it all mean? Well, it’s an experiment of
dialogue with no context. And it is an allegory of modern life; the uncertainty of
truth, unreliability and the modernist theme that the individual must seek closure from
the power structures which dictate what he or she does in life, which tends to be
counterproductive. The pre-Modern individual would find closure with religion,
relationships, art, etc. Not the case with Pinter's characters. (These are
generalizations but predominant themes in these
periods.)

Ben is an automaton, ready to kill Gus if he is
told to by the “powers that be.” Gus is more human, asking questions. More allegory;
some questions won’t be answered, because of hierarchies, bureaucracies, or just plain
bad communication.