Ashes to Ashes (play)

Ashes to Ashes is a 1996 play by English playwright Harold Pinter. It was first performed, in Dutch, by Toneelgroep Amsterdam, the Netherlands' largest repertory company, in Amsterdam, as part of its 1996–1997 season, and directed by Titus Muizelaar, who reprised his production, in Dutch with English surtitles, as part of a double bill with Buff, by Gerardjan Rijnders, at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, from 23 through 27 June 1998. Its English première by the Royal Court Theatre opened after the Dutch première, at the Ambassadors Theatre, in London, on 12 September 1996.

"Both in their forties" (n. pag. [ii]).

"Time: Now" (n. pag. [ii])

Place: "A house in the country […] Early evening. Summer" (1).

The one-act play opens with Devlin and Rebecca, described as "Both in their forties", talking in what appears to be a home living room on an early summer evening. As the play develops, it becomes clear that Devlin and Rebecca are probably married, although their relationship to each other is not defined explicitly; it must be inferred. Initially, Devlin seems Rebecca's husband or lover, her therapist, and potentially her murderer. Some critics have described their discussion as more between a therapist and his patient than between two lovers or between a husband and a wife.

Devlin questions Rebecca in forceful ways, and she reveals personal information and dream-like sequences to him. In their first exchange, Rebecca tells of a man who appears to be sexually abusing her and threatening to strangle her (1–27). Rebecca tells Devlin that she told the killer, "Put your hand round my throat" (3)—an act which Devlin acts out directly towards the end of the play (73–75), asking Rebecca to "Speak. Say it. Say 'Put your hand round my throat.' " (75). The first exchange is followed immediately by Devlin asking "Do you feel you're being hypnotized?" "Who by?" asks Rebecca. "By me," answers Devlin, adding "What do you think?", to which Rebecca retorts, "I think you're a fuckpig" (7–9).

In response to Devlin's further inquiries about her "lover", Rebecca relates several dream-like sequences involving the man who she has quoted initially (7–27). She tells Devlin that this "lover" worked as a "guide" for a "travel agency" (19). She goes on to ask, "Did I ever tell you about that place . . . about the time he took me to that place?" This place turns out to be "a kind of factory" peopled by his "workpeople" who "respected his . . . purity, his . . . conviction" (23–25). But then she tells Devlin, "He used to go to the local railway station and walk down the platform and tear all the babies from the arms of their screaming mothers" (27).

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