Victoria Station (play)

"Victoria Station" is a short play for two actors by the English playwright Harold Pinter. It was first performed at the National Theatre, London, on 14 October 1982. The performers were Paul Rogers as the Controller and Martin Jarvis as the Driver.

Set in the control room of a cab company, "Victoria Station" consists of a radio dialogue between the controller and one of his drivers, who is stopped by the side of 'a dark park' in Crystal Palace. The controller requires the driver to pick up a client from Victoria Station, but the driver declines to move, suddenly obsessed with an earlier client (unmoving in the back seat), whom he says he is in love with and refuses to be parted from. The relationship between the driver and the controller becomes co-dependent, as the driver finally begs, 'Don't leave me.' The play, which lasts under ten minutes, is mostly comic as the controller becomes more and more frantic at the driver’s recalcitrance, but the closing moments take on a darker tone as the controller leaves the office in menacing search of the driver.

Published as part of Pinter's volume "Other Places: Three New Plays by Harold Pinter", "Victoria Station" was among the short works included in a 2007 London production entitled "Pinter's People".

References

*" [http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_otherplaces.shtml Other Places] ". Inc. photo of cover of "Other Places", details of the London première, and the text of a production review published in the "Times Literary Supplement".
*" [http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/title_victoria.shtml Victoria Station] ". From the "Plays" section of haroldpinter.org.