These are my notes in the front of my copy of The Birthday Party .
This is a symbolic drama. If it were definite, it would be less powerful, because this way it alludes to a wider set of possible situations. Also, the indefiniteness is disturbing. Because evidently what happens happens, but it's not clear what it is or why. In a way, it's the structure of a straightforward thriller with a lot of the information to make it make sense deliberately lacking. The thriller skeleton makes it comprehensible at least. If you imagine a thriller plot as a combination lock with all the numbers in the right place so that the lock will open, it's as if Pinter has scrambled all the numbers.
It's also like a kitchen sink drama gone mad.
It has struck me since writing the above that the toy drum Meg gives Stanley is a parody of a symbol: the whole point is we don't & will never know what it represents, like so much else in the play.
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