Mountain Language
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Mountain Language is a play written by Harold Pinter. It was first performed at the Royal National Theatre in 1988. It deals with (as Pinter sees it) the oppression of the Kurdish people, language and freedom of expression by the Turkish state. However, the script contains no overt cultural references, so could have meaning applicable to several situations.
Pinter describes the power of language. By military decree the mountain people are forbidden to use their language, they fall silent. Once the decree has been lifted - they remain silent. Language is not just an arbitrary labelling device, it is part of what makes man. In the play a woman is being called a "whore" - and she acts like one. Names however, become irrelevant.
The influence of the political era is obvious, in the 1980s Margaret Thatcher forbade the television networks to broadcast the voice of the leader of the Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams. Pinter regarded this as censorship which he would attribute to totalitarian countries and not to Great Britain.
His political plays - although he considered them insulting by employing agitprop as a theme - were important to him and his criticism of the West, too.
Mountain Language has one-act and is about 25 minutes in length.