Mountain Language

Mountain Language is a one-act play written by Harold Pinter, first published in The Times Literary Supplement (TLS) on 7–13 October 1988.

It was first performed at the Royal National Theatre in London on 20 October 1988 with Michael Gambon and Miranda Richardson.

It was most recently performed as part of Theatre of Menace (2016) at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin, starring Alisa Belonogina, Paul Carmichael, Lana O'Kell, Jaime Peacock, Louis Tappenden and Natasha Ryan[1] According to a letter from Pinter to The Times Literary Supplement, where it was first published and advertised, that publication's "advertisement ... stat[ing] that the play was 'inspired' by [Pinter's] trip to Turkey with Arthur Miller and is a "parable about torture and the fate of the Kurdish people" ... [are] ... assertions ... made without consultation with the author [Pinter]"; he continues: "The first part of the sentence [that it was inspired by Pinter's trip to Turkey with Miller] is in fact true.

Pinter's play may allude to political and cultural contexts of Great Britain in the 1980s headed by the Conservative Party of Margaret Thatcher, which, for example, forbade the television networks from broadcasting the voice of the leader of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams.

[5] In 1996, the play Mountain Language was to be performed by Kurdish actors of the Yeni Yasam company in Harringey.