As in his other works, in Birthday Party Pinter weaves a rudimentary plot: a group living in a lower-middle-class English house, and at some point, a birthday party is organized for one of them.

Historical time is not defined, but is expressed through the flow of the characters. Also, the interest of each individual in the others is not declared, as the corrosive detachment of each from the others has already occurred.

With this indifference of everyone towards everyone else, the main goal of the author is also stated: to demonstrate that there has been a dissolution of the social fabric that once connected individuals in earlier times into a seemingly unified whole, a whole that faced every common problem with a sense of collective responsibility.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]