Harold Pinter's The Room is a tragicomic play about an anxious woman whose humble life is disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious messenger whose presence portends death. Written in 1957, The Room was Pinter's first play.
Living in a single-room apartment in a large rooming house, Rose Hudd, a sixty-year-old woman, dotes on her taciturn husband, Bert. She talks about her wish to avoid the cold and dark outside. When Bert leaves to drive his van for work, a young couple arrives, hoping to speak to the landlord about a room for rent. Rose is concerned to learn from the couple that a man in the unlit basement told them her room was going vacant. Rose talks with the landlord, who explains...