Word: duffs
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...danger is compounded because the eucalyptus continually sheds both its thin bark-which hangs from the upper portions of the tree in long, tendril-like strands-and its leaves. Together, bark and leaves form a thick and highly combustible layer of "duff" on the forest floor. The increased fall from dead and dying trees has now piled up to depths of 12 in. to 18 in. in some areas; there, the ground is covered by as much as 50 tons of debris per acre. In strong winds on a hot day, the duff could burn so furiously that huge updrafts...
...avoid that possibility, forestry experts say, one of two measures must be taken. Cutting down the dead trees would reduce the danger by 85%. That would take three to six months and cost $5,000,000. Another way out is to reduce through controlled burning the amount of duff under the trees. In either case, however, delay could be perilous. Similar conditions, on a smaller scale, existed during a fire in 1970, and only the fact that the wind suddenly died down kept that blaze from becoming a holocaust...
MOST IMPORTANT is their isolation from each other. Duff's words hold the supreme irony: "We're together, that's what matters." In Landscape we watch Pinter portray the inability of humans to communicate with each other, not in a play with "whole" characters possessing relatively clear motives who at least talk to each other--as in Night School--but in two monologues, delivered by people whose past is for us largely an inseparable mixture of fact and fantasy, and whose motives are unknown...
With Silence, the dissolution of naturalistic play structures is complete. In Night School we had a "plot" a conventional set and recognizable characters. In Landscape, at least we knew Duff and Beth were married, and knew a little of their past. With his Landscape set, Franco Colavecchia did what Pinter did with words, creating the impression of a country kitchen with only the barest of sets: a table, two chairs, side walls and a hanging wall fragment at the rear...
MOREOVER, THE PROGRESS of human isolation is now complete as well. In Night School, though he loses Sally, Walter remains "connected," if only to his aunts. In Landscape, at least Duff and Beth are physically in the same room. Now, in Silence, each sits in a chair in his own separate area (distinguished by three wooden "floors"), totally isolated from the others, except in flashbacks depicting past relationships...