Harold Pinter biography | birthday, trivia | British Playwright | Who2 Harold Pinter Biography Writer Called “the great English provocateur” and “the brilliant young Turk of postwar theater” by Newsday, Harold Pinter was a groundbreaking playwright, screenwriter and poet of the late 20th century. His style mixed domestic turmoil, evasive dialogue and not-so-heroic characters with experimental storytelling styles. (Betrayal, his 1978 drama, told the story of a broken marriage backwards from finish to start.) The “Pinter pause” — a strained silence loaded with meaning and menace — became part of the vocabulary of modern theater. He wrote more than 30 plays in all, including The Room (1957), The Birthday Party (1957), The Caretaker (1959), The Homecoming (1964, and winner of a Tony Award for best play in 1967), One for the Road (1984) and Ashes to Ashes (1996).

He also wrote more than 20 screenplays, including The Last Tycoon (1974, with Robert DeNiro , The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1980, with Meryl Streep ), and The Handmade’s Tale (1987, with Robert Duvall ). Pinter was politically liberal and outspoken, and never stopped protesting: He was a conscientious objector after World War II, refused a knighthood from the Conservative government of John Major in 1996, and used his Nobel acceptance speech in 2005 for a scathing attack on United States foreign policy. He died in 2008 after battling esophageal cancer since 2002. Extra credit Pinter was right-handed, according to a BBC online chat in 2004… Pinter was a fan of cricket and became captain of the cricket club The Gaieties in 1972… Pinter turned down the knighthood in 1996, but was awarded a CBE in 1966 and also became a Companion of Honor, another royal designation, in 2002….

He was awarded the French Legion of Honor in 2007. Harold Pinter (Author of The Birthday Party) Literature & Fiction , Theatre , Poetry Influences edit data Harold Pinter, CH, CBE, was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, director, political activist and poet. He was one of the most influential playwrights of modern times. In 2005 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. After publishing poetry and acting in school plays as a teenager in London, Pinter began his professional theatrical career in 1951, touring throughout Ireland. From 1952, he acted in repertory companies throughout England for about a dozen years, using the stage name David Baron in the late 1950s. Beginning with his first play, The Room (1957), Pinter's writing career spanned over 50 years and produced 29 original stage plays, 27 screenplays, many dramatic sketches, radio and TV plays, poetry, one novel, short fict Harold Pinter, CH, CBE, was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, director, political activist and poet.

He was one of the most influential playwrights of modern times. In 2005 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. After publishing poetry and acting in school plays as a teenager in London, Pinter began his professional theatrical career in 1951, touring throughout Ireland. From 1952, he acted in repertory companies throughout England for about a dozen years, using the stage name David Baron in the late 1950s. Beginning with his first play, The Room (1957), Pinter's writing career spanned over 50 years and produced 29 original stage plays, 27 screenplays, many dramatic sketches, radio and TV plays, poetry, one novel, short fiction, essays, speeches, and letters. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Caretaker (1959), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted to film.

His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1970), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993), and Sleuth (2007). He directed almost 50 stage, television, and film productions and acted extensively in radio, stage, television, and film productions of his own and others' works. Despite frail health after being diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in December 2001, Pinter continued to act on stage and screen, last performing the title role in a critically-acclaimed stage production of Samuel Beckett's one-act monologue Krapp's Last Tape, for the 50th anniversary season of the Royal Court Theatre, in October 2006. Pinter's dramas often involve strong conflicts among ambivalent characters who struggle for verbal and territorial dominance and for their own versions of the past. Stylistically, these works are marked by theatrical pauses and silences, comedic timing, irony, and menace. Thematically ambiguous, they raise complex issues of individual identity oppressed by social forces, language, and vicissitudes of memory.

In 1981, Pinter stated that he was not inclined to write plays explicitly about political subjects; yet in the mid-1980s he began writing overtly political plays, reflecting his own heightening political interests and changes in his personal life. This "new direction" in his work and his left-wing political activism stimulated additional critical debate about Pinter's politics. Pinter, his work, and his politics have been the subject of voluminous critical commentary. Pinter received numerous awards. In addition to the Nobel Prize, he received the Tony Award for Best Play in 1967 for The Homecoming. He was given BAFTA awards, the French Légion d'honneur and 20 honorary degrees. Festivals and symposia have been devoted to him and his work. In awarding the Nobel Prize, the Swedish Academy noted, "That he occupies a position as a modern classic is illustrated by his name entering the language as an adjective used to describe a particular atmosphere and environment in drama: 'Pinteresque'". He died from liver cancer on 24 December 2008. He was buried the following week at Kensal Green Cemetery in North West London.

ï¿½The Hothouseï¿½ and the epiphany of Harold Pinter ï¿½The Hothouseï¿½ and the epiphany of Harold Pinter In an interview with Lawrence Bensky Pinter severely criticized The Hothouse: I have occasionally out of irritation thought about writing a play with a satirical point. I once did actually, a play that no-one knows about. A full length play written after (sic) The Caretaker. Wrote the whole damn thing in three drafts. It was called The Hothouse and was about an institution in which patients were kept: all that was presented was the hierarchy, the people who ran the institution: one never knew what happened to the patients or what they were there for or who they were. It was heavily satirical and it was quite useless. I never began to like any of the characters, they really didnï¿½t live at all. So I discarded the play at once. The characters were so purely cardboard. I was intentionally - for the only time, I think - trying to make a point, an explicit point, that these were nasty people and I disapproved of them. And therefore they didnï¿½t begin to live.

Whereï¿½as in other plays of mine every single character, even a bastard like Goldberg in The Birthday Party, I care for.1 However, years later, Pinter was less severely critical and allowed the play to be produced. The Hothouse, previously known only by way of Martin Esslinï¿½s remarks in The Peopled Wound, was successfully directed by the author, enjoying a West End transfer and eventual publication. Superficially the play bears the marks of an acknowledged influence, Samuel Beckett. Lambï¿½s duties as lock inspector resemble those of Murphy in the Magdalen Mental Mercyseat, and his ignorance concerning his predecessor is like that of Watt. More importantly, Pinter wrote The Hothouse in the winter of 1958, that is, just after the first productions and publications of Endgame in French and English (1957ï¿½58). In fact the New York production came to London in October 1958 just before Pinter began writing. The increasing heat from the radiators in The Hothouse reverses the notorious occurrence in the first Paris production of Endgame when the theatre radiators were accidentally switched off.

As things are running out in Endgame, so things are malfunctioning in The Hothouse - the typewriters, the intercom. Just occasionally Rooteï¿½s utterances remind us of the humour of Hamm (ï¿½I was brought up to expect respect, and by Christ Iï¿½ll get itï¿½ p. 85). Gibbsï¿½ monosyllabic catalogue of the slaughtered signalizes a young writer eager to acknowledge influence and affinity: ï¿½Lush, Hogg, Beck, Budd, Tuck, Dodds, Tate and Pett, sir, were hanged and strangled, variously.ï¿½ (p. 150). Of greater fundamental influence is the function of the sketch. This essay will examine the form and content of The Hothouse in relation to Pinterï¿½s early plays. Considï¿½eration of the latter will show how Pinter controlled sketch materials and dramatically realized a primary aesthetic-the role of the revue sketch as an existential epiphany.

Roote, the controller of the institution in The Hothouse, illustrates Pinterï¿½s early and continuing preoccupation with the combination of power, domination, sentimentality and breakdown. Roote has a madness and bluntness licensed by age, disposition and authority, whereas his chief assistant Gibb is an almost Dickensian model of the deferential, circumsï¿½pect and punctilious. After possibly killing one patient and certainly seducing another the bureaucratic bully has withdrawn, abstracted from time, into the protective seclusion of his office. Gibbs, who always has the ultimately superior power by virtue of an executive command of detail, even has to point out that it is Christmas day. Clearly Roote is related to Ben (The Dumb Waiter), Goldberg (The Birthday Party), Disson (Tea Party) and Edward (A Slight Ache).2 Each needs power deriving from authority which, in varying degrees, they cannot sustain without relapse or breakdown. Ben criticizes Gus, ï¿½You donï¿½t want to get slack on your jobï¿½ (p. 58). Roote comments ï¿½Things are getting much too slack around here, (p.

28). Both exercise delegated powers of command against potentially insubordinate assistants. Roote actually overcomes Lush by punching him to the floor, proclaimingï¿½I AM AUTHORISEDï¿½ (p. 133). Roote and Ben are at opposite ends of a chain of command. The Goldberg of The Birthday Party is somewhere nearer the middle and in Roote Pinter portrayed a kind of pukka counterpart. In both cases Pinter exploits the comic possibilities of mixed speech registers varying from formal officialese to colloquial idiom. On learning of a birth in the institution Roote declares: I donï¿½t mind the men dipping their wicks on occasion. It canï¿½t be avoided. Itï¿½s got to go somewhere. Besides that, itï¿½s in the interests of science. If a member of the staff decides that for the good of a female patient some degree of copulation is necessary, then two birds are killed with one stone! It does no harm to either party. At least, thatï¿½s how Iï¿½ve found it in my experience. (With great emphasis) But we all know the rule! Never ride barebacked.

Always take precautions. Otherwise complications set in. Never ride barebacked and always send in a report. After all the reactions of the patient have to be tabulated, compared with others, filed, stamped, and if possible verified! (p. 43). Goldbergï¿½s speech, one recalls, is characterized by his East End Jewish background but he also adopts the bureaucratic register at requisite moments. For example, in reassuring McCannï¿½s qualms about the ï¿½jobï¿½ we hear ï¿½in a quiet, ï¿½fluent, official toneï¿½: The main issue is a singular issue and quite distinct from your previous work. Certain elements, however, might well approximate in points of procedure to some of your other activities. All is dependent on the attitude of our subject... (p. 30) Yet bureaucratic control is, in both men, undermined by personal breakdown. Throughout The Hothouse Roote seems to be in doubtful control of himself and others, whereas Ben and Goldberg, though undergoing some shaky moments, regain composure. Goldberg revives with McCannï¿½s burlesque of the divine afflatus (The Birthday Party, p. 79).

Ben finds direction with orders, at last (The Dumb Waiter, p. 10). While Roote attempts to cover his desperation in the relative control of delivering the formal Christmas speech (pp. 143-145). Rooteï¿½s breakï¿½down is more akin to that of Disson and Edward, but without their psychic blindness. Edwardï¿½s dominance in A Slight Ache is everything but bureaucratic. He affects a domestic intellectual superiority which is increasingly weakened by the matchsellerï¿½s presence. To keep the overwhelming reality of what is happening to him at bay Edward talks and talks, fearful of the symbolic silence of the matchseller which reflects his own essential emptiness. In contrast Rooteï¿½s bluster, which dominates the play, culminates in the Christmas speechï¿½s catalogue of clichï¿½, the automatic speech of a mind seizing up. In Tea Party, Disson is initially in a position of strength as the highly successful business man. His proprietorial power is partly manï¿½ifested in formal bureaucratic language: . . .A manï¿½s job is to assess his powers coolly and correctly and equally the powers of others.

Having done this, he can proceed to establish a balanced and reasonable relationship with his fellows. In my view, living is a matter of active and willing participation, So is work... (p. 19). Excluding Ben, all these characters have recourse to a distorting sentimental recall to compensate, to some extent, for the collapse of the present. Goldberg has his childhood, his mother, his wife, his uncle; Edward recalls former idyllic states; Disson recalls old drinking pals; while Roote recalls quintessential Christmases: I remember the day my walls used to be hung with Christmas cards, I used to walk knee deep in presents, all my aunties and uncles popping in for a drink, a log fire in the grate, bells on the Christmas tree, garlands, flowers, floral decoration, music, flowers . . . (p. 126). Another aspect of mental breakdown in The Hothouse, the patients themselves, prompted reviewers into immediately recognizing its relaï¿½tionship to The Caretaker. The Hothouse provided an obvious backdrop, so to speak, for the experiences related by Aston.

In The Hothouse we see Lamb undergoing ï¿½voluntaryï¿½ electric shock treatment and interrogaï¿½tion (a scene extrapolated and amended to make the revue sketch ï¿½Applicantï¿½). Pinter recently revealed, for the first time publicly, that he himself had, as a young man, volunteered for such treatment, at ï¿½ten bob a time.3 Presumably part of this experience went into the scene in which Stanley is interrogated in The Birthday Party. In an interview with Mel Gussow Pinter recognized that certain features of The Hothouse, mainly Lushï¿½s long speeches, were ï¿½outpourings of wild bravura, speeches which remind me vaguely of Mick in The Caretaker.ï¿½4 There are many other points of comparison both major (the preoccupaï¿½tion with names and naming found throughout Pinterï¿½s work) and minor (the observation of an empty landscape, ï¿½Not a soul,ï¿½ p. 81 - compare The Room p. 7, The Dumb Waiter p. 51, and Landscape, p. 13).

Indeed Miss Cutts could be related to Lulu in The Birthday Party and to Sally in Night School in the way she combines the romantic self-exposure of the former and the social distance of the latter. In general, however, The Hothouse lacks the balance and rhythm of speech and tone, movement and utterance, the comic and the serious, found in a play like The Caretaker. It is seriously unbalanced by what Pinter came to disparage as the ï¿½cabaret turnsï¿½5 of his early work, the compensatory impulse towards the violent and sensational in stage terms. It is as if the immodest noise and extraordinary actions were a kind of compensatory defence preï¿½empting critics attacking him for the very plainness of the quiet still thing at the heart of his writing - ordinary existence. Though Pinter knew how to use the ï¿½theatricalï¿½ (conventions, routines, clichï¿½s, jokes, comic plays etc) to disturb a single realistic focus, The Hothouse almost caves in under the weight of its theatricality. It even has an exploding cigar.

The play is also seriously flawed formally, being little more than a series of unassimilated sketch materials. Ironically, it was precisely out of such materials, as will be shown, that Pinter fashioned an aesthetic foundation for his art. Lambï¿½s shock treatment and interrogation became a bizarre interview-ï¿½type sketch in ï¿½Applicantï¿½. Various speeches were excerpted and put together to make ï¿½Dialogue for Threeï¿½. The Hothouse opens with the boss-employee consultation reminiscent of the format which is found in the sketch ï¿½Trouble in the Worksï¿½. In this sketch Pinter exploits the related convention of deriving humour from technical or specialist vocabulary. This is found, for example, in A Slight Ache when Edward offers the matchsetter a drink (p. 25) and in The Hothouse in Lushï¿½s mock eulogy (p. 58).

LUSH: I mean, not only are you a scientist, but you have literary ability, musical ability, knowledge of most schools of phiï¿½losophy, philology, photography, anthropology, cosmology, theology, phytology, phytonomy, phytotomy - ROOTE: Oh, no, no, not phytotomy. Almost throughout Pinterï¿½s dialogue as a whole can be felt the vestigial combination of music-hall comic plus straight ï¿½feedï¿½ man. Tacked on to this sketch pattern of the opening of The Hothouse is the first of three comic sketch routines in which one character is prompted to confirm details of an offstage character, leading to the usual ï¿½donï¿½t know the man from Adamï¿½- type response. Roote ends the first sequence by defeating the comic expectation, ï¿½Yes, I remember him wellï¿½, thus triumphing over Gibbs as the confirmatory ï¿½feedï¿½ with superior knowledge (see pp. 23-25). This routine is repeated later in the first act (pp.

40-42) with similar details of much the same kind, this time culminating in the more usual punch-line ï¿½No - I donï¿½t think I know herï¿½. Pinter takes up the ploy again in act two (pp. 99-101) and on this occasion varies it by having the responses of Gibbs and Lush to Rooteï¿½s ï¿½What sort of man is he?ï¿½ vie antagonistically with quite contradictory detail. Part of this reappeared in The Collection (p. 28) as a detail of Harryï¿½s improbable evocation to challenge Billï¿½s all-too-real visitor-ï¿½What did he look like? Oh . . . lemon hair, nigger brown teeth, wooden leg, bottlegreen eyes and a toupee.

Know him?ï¿½ In the year immediately following The Hothouse Pinter submitted several sketches for radio and revues of the day.6 In three in particular - ï¿½The Black and Whiteï¿½, ï¿½Last to Goï¿½ and ï¿½All Thatï¿½ - Pinter intuitively grasped and realized the suitability of the sketch as a dramatic form for rendering an existential epiphany, albeit of a paradoxical kind. In the first published interview he ever gave Pinter discussed these revue sketches and pointed out how they registered his response to what he had observed; he said of the tramp women of ï¿½The Black and Whiteï¿½ that they ï¿½fitted naturally into a complete play which just happened to be four minutes longï¿½. Pinter evidently saw himself not as a revue-writer providing more entertainment, but rather as: a dramatist some of whose work just happens to fit into the framework of a revue. As far as Iï¿½m concerned there is no real difference between my sketches and my plays. In both I am interested primarily in people.

I want to present living people to the audience, worthy of their interest basically because they are, they exist, not because of any moral the author may draw from them.ï¿½7 This ï¿½presentationï¿½ compounds a four-fold existential encounter - beï¿½tween Pinter the man and those around him: Pinter the artist and his images: character encountering character on stage: the encounter of audience and stage. At each step lives are exposed in process. Particular beings, familiar yet inscrutable, are historically placed by their speech in a given ï¿½worldï¿½ yet have no necessary fixed relationship with it. Their very concreteness resists any sense of them being vehicles of an idea, concept or moral. The authenticity of their realization precludes any reference to dramatic archetypes. From this artistic point of view we may apply Sartreï¿½s famous dictum, ï¿½existence precedes essenceï¿½, but in an ironic way - in these sketches Pinter conflates the two in a heightened dramatic existentialism. The four minute sketches epitomize what lives have become, the routines and repetitions of day, week, month, year.

Art extrapolates, shapes and frames to render this essence of existences.8 Pinterï¿½s art here may be compared with the Joycean epiphany. Stephen Hero, we may recall, catches fragments of dialogue as he wanders around Dublin which prompt him into a kind of recognition. ï¿½This triviality made him think of collecting many such moments together in a book of epiphanies. By an epiphany he meant a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itselfï¿½.9 Substitute ï¿½existentialï¿½ for ï¿½spiritualï¿½ and we have something close to Pinterï¿½s art in these particular revue sketches. And yet the difference is crucial. ï¿½A spiritual manifestationï¿½ implies that the object is a vehicle for something else - the artistï¿½s understanding or realization. As S.L. Goldberg puts it, epiphanies areï¿½ . . .

the acts of mind, moments of time, coincidences of matter, whereby anything becomes an object of understanding by being understood, or in somewhat different terms, becomes a symbol by being apprehended imaginativelyï¿½.10 In contrast Pinterï¿½s existential epiphanies are intuitive apprehensions in which the artist surrenders to the object as externally there, a given, in process. The object is not used intellectually as a register for the artistï¿½s sensibility. In Pinterï¿½s sketches we are confronted by the absolute contingency of pure phenomena realized with a total impersonality. Humour is the modality which prevents us from absorbing the object through unalloyed feeling into the subjectivity of the ï¿½patheticï¿½ or the ï¿½tragicï¿½ etc. As Joyce recognized, the drama (in comparison with the lyric or epic) is the most impersonal of the arts. The ï¿½Dialogue for Threeï¿½ is rather different from these existential sketchï¿½es.

Demonstrably unlike the conventional revue sketch (eg ï¿½Interviewï¿½ or ï¿½Trouble in the Worksï¿½), it lacks the existential immediacy of ï¿½The Black and Whiteï¿½, ï¿½Last to Goï¿½ and ï¿½All Thatï¿½. The Hothouse was originally conceived as a radio play and ï¿½Dialogue for Threeï¿½ is clearly more suited to that medium. Indeed performance in any other medium would detract from it by making the speakers visible and tangible there before us. That is, as part of The Hothouse, the speeches that make ï¿½Dialogue for Threeï¿½ have a concrete identity in terms of the characters in the play. In the radio sketch these are disembodied voices merely - 1st Man, 2nd Man, Woman, as the published text tells us. As such they are used by Pinter to explore the intersecting planes of past and present at a point of anecdotal collision and fragmentation.

The concrete world of character and environï¿½ment - public school, the club, the north African army, the bedroom - is atomised, time and space are divided, and the voices are like random radio signals crossing in space, a haunting and memorable image of human isolation. ï¿½Dialogue for Threeï¿½ is in many ways a remarkable experimental piece and clearly foreshadows Landscape and Silence, while the ï¿½existentialï¿½ revue sketches prompt us into recognizing the germination of so many of Pinterï¿½s early plays. An example of a standard sketch is what might be called the newspaper sketch. This works from the situation in which one or two characters reading a newspaper intermittently engage and/or distract each other by quotation and comment, for comic ends. An example at hand is ï¿½Budding Geniusï¿½ in Monologues and Dialogues for All11 in which a wife reading the newspaper gradually draws in the husband, who is reading a book. Beginning with society page gossip, she gets on to details of child prodigies and this engages the husband concerning their own children, their mutual in-laws etc.

The Room, The Dumb Waiter, The Birthday Party, A Slight Ache, The Homecoming - all begin like a newspaper sketch. In The Dumb Waiter and The Birthday Party items of both bizarre and gossip-column news are introduced into the dialogue. Peteyï¿½s note that it is Lady Mary Splat who has had the baby is very close to the use of satirical names in the newspaper sketch (in ï¿½Budding geniusï¿½ the marï¿½riage of ï¿½AI Buckï¿½ and ï¿½Gloria Glamourï¿½ and the trial of ï¿½Basher Caputssiï¿½ are reported). Ben in The Dumb Waiter recounts the reports of the old man crawling under a lorry and a child murder to the incredulous Gus. ï¿½Itï¿½s down here in black and whiteï¿½ he says. ï¿½Itï¿½s here in black and whiteï¿½ the wife claims in ï¿½Budding Geniusï¿½ (p. 39). Of course, there is no question of a direct source here, both obviously arise from the genre situation.

However, Pinter is clearly working from the sketch basis. The Room, A Slight Ache and The Homecoming all use the newspaper (and magazine) not merely as a prop: it has dramatic function. Bert in The Room, is not just silent, he is engrossed in his magazine and his food, oblivious to Roseï¿½s oblique pleading that he stay in and not leave her. This implies the relative values of his milieu. Edwardï¿½s study of the ï¿½Telegraphï¿½ at the breakfast table is something which Flora must break by drawing his attention to the garden. It anticipates the issues of the play in which the intellectual Edward is distracted from his studious world and destroyed by what is outside it. The Homecoming begins with Lennyï¿½s consideration of the racing page interrupted by Max. In the ensuing dialogue we find that alternation and combination of insult, rivalry, domesticity, sentimentality, violence, threat and animality which characï¿½teize the play.

Lenny fancies ï¿½Second Wind for the three-thirtyï¿½ but it is Max who has the experienced ï¿½giftï¿½ of telling ï¿½a good filly . . . a stayerï¿½ - he confronts her later and indeed she ï¿½staysï¿½. The Birthday Party also revolves around the use of the newspaper and remains, at the beginning at least, quite close to the sketch covnentions. Petey and Meg, however, use the removed reality of news events as a substitute for the uneventfulï¿½ness of their own lives. McCannï¿½s tearing the newspaper into strips clearly symbolizes the inescapable intrusion of threat and violence into the home, while Peteyï¿½s final recourse to the newspaper and his deception of Meg indicate a refusal to face up to the reality of what has taken place. In contrast, the protracted opening of The Room defeats the comic expectation of the conventional sketch - that Rose will draw Bert from his magazine or that Bert will quote from the magazine to silence her.

In Roseï¿½s monologue, or rather her half-dialogue as in the ï¿½existenï¿½tialï¿½ sketches, a human history, or rather what a human history has amounted to, is laid bare. This takes us to the heart of Pinterï¿½s aesthetic, his need for a formal dramatic premise which will discount the necessity of exposition of cause and effect in the presentation of character. He is preoccupied by how it is, not why it is - which he sees as an impertinence on behalf of the dramatist, anyway.12 Given its brevity, a sketch has to be synchronic, evolving in the immediacy of the present moment, eschewing autobiograï¿½phy. Pinter repeatedly saw this movement as an ï¿½engenderingï¿½. Of course I canï¿½t remember exactly how a given play developed in my mind. I think that what happens is that I write in a very high state of excitement and frustration. I follow what I see on the paper in front of me - one sentence after another.

That doesnï¿½t mean I donï¿½t have a dim, possible overall idea - the image that starts off doesnï¿½t just engender what happens immediately, it engenders the possibility of an overall happening, which carries me through.13 Pinterï¿½s remarks on ï¿½engenderingï¿½ intuitively collate lines from Yeatsï¿½s ï¿½Byzantiumï¿½ and ï¿½Leda and the Swanï¿½, lines absorbed when he was young; ï¿½Those images that yet/Fresh images begetï¿½, ï¿½A shudder in the loins engenders there/The broken wall . . .ï¿½ All Pinterï¿½s plays started in imagination as a recollected image or utterance, someone in a room speaking, which remained as the opening of the completed drama. Clearly, as I have shown, the revue sketch was a creative matrix.

This is not the sole constituent of Pinterï¿½s early aesthetic, but it is of fundamental importance in the organic growth of his art ï¿½where image can freely engender imageï¿½.14 1In Pinter: A Collection of Critical Essays ed. Arthur Ganz, 1972 Englewood Cliffs, N.J., pp 27-28. 2The following plays are referred to in the course of the essay. Where two dates are given the former indicates composition (where known) or production, the latter London publication. The Room and the Dumb Waiter (1957/1960); The Birthday Party (1957/revised ed. 1965); The Hothouse (1958/1980); A Slight Ache (1958/corrected ed. 1968); The Caretaker (1957/revised ed.

1962); Night School (1960); Tea Party 1964; The Basement (1966) (all found in Tea Party and Other Plays (1967); The Collection (1961/1963); The Homecoming (1964/1965); Landscape (1967/1969); Old Times (1970/1971). For full details of chronology and bibliography see Steven H. Gale, Harold Pinter: an annotated bibliography (Boston, 1978). 3 Radio Times 27 March - 2 April 1982, p. 5. 4The New York Times, Sunday, December 30, 1979, p. 7. 5This important reappraisal first occurred in an interview with John Sherwood. Commenting on The Caretaker Pinter remarked ï¿½I feel itï¿½s a much simpler play, and it doesnï¿½t resort to the cabaret terms which Iï¿½ve been inclined to indulge in the past.

There are no sudden blackouts, no blind manï¿½s buff, no blind negroes walking about, The Rising Generation, No. 7. A Playwright - Harold Pinter, BBC European Service, 3 March 1960. 6ï¿½The Black and Whiteï¿½ and ï¿½Trouble in the Worksï¿½ were performed in the revue ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ One to Another, 15 July 1959. ï¿½Last to Goï¿½, ï¿½Request Stopï¿½ and ï¿½Special Offerï¿½ were performed in Pieces of Eight, 23 September 1959. These are available in Pinter Plays: Two, London, 1977. ï¿½Thatï¿½s your Troubleï¿½, ï¿½Thatï¿½s Allï¿½, ï¿½Applicantï¿½, ï¿½Interviewï¿½ and ï¿½Dialogue for Threeï¿½ were first presented on B.B.C.

Radio on the Third Programme between February and March 1964. These are available in Pinter Plays: Three; London, 1978. ï¿½Nightï¿½, written for a later revue Mixed Doubles (1969), is included in this volume 7ï¿½Mr Harold Pinter - Avant-Garde Playwright and Intimate Reviewï¿½ The Times, 16 November 1959, p. 4. 8Cf Walter Kerr, Harold Pinter, New York, 1967: ï¿½Harold Pinter seems to me the ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ only man working in the theatre today who writes existentialist play existentiallyï¿½ gyp. 3). 9Stephen Hero, London, 1956, p. 216 10 The Classical Temper, London, 1963, p. 34. 11Selected by Frederick George and Gerry Alexander, London, no date but the British Library Catalogue gives 1954. 12A point frequently made in early interviews.

I give just one pointed example here from an interview with John Russell Taylor: ï¿½I do so hate the becauses of drama. Who are we to say that this happens because that happened, that one thing is the consequence of another? How do we know? What reason have we to suppose that life is so neat and tidy... Life is much more mysterious than plays make it out to be. And it is this mystery which fascinates meï¿½, Sight and Sound, vol XXXV, No. 4, August 1966, p. 184. 13Bensky interview, loc cit p. 25. Harold Pinter Harold Pinter Harold Pinter Harold Pinter (born October 10 , 1930 ) is an English playwright and theatre director . He has written for theatre , radio , television and film . His early work is often associated with the theatre of the absurd . Pinter was born in Hackney in London , and briefly studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). He published poetry as a young man, and began working in the theatre as an actor . His first play , The Room, came in 1957.

The same year he began work on The Birthday Party, probably his first play that is widely performed today. Initially, it was a flop, but following the success of The Caretaker in 1960, it was revived, and this time was well received. These plays, and other early ones such as The Homecoming (1964), have sometimes been labelled as displaying the "comedy of menace". They often take an apparently innocent situation, and turn it into a threatening and absurd one by means of characters acting in ways which seem inexplicable both to the audience and, sometimes, to other characters. He began to direct more through the 1970s , becoming an associate director of the National Theatre in 1973. His later plays tend to be shorter, and on subjects which might be thought of as more political, often appearing to be allegories on oppression. It was around the 1970s that Pinter began to be more vocal on political matters, taking a distinctly left-wing stance. He continually strives to bring human rights violations and oppression to the public's attention. Letters from Pinter often appear in Britain's newspapers, such as The Guardian and The Independent .

In 1985 he travelled to Turkey with the American playwright Arthur Miller and met many victims of political oppression there. At an American embassy function honouring Miller, instead of exchanging pleasantries, Pinter spoke of people having an electric current applied to their genitals—which got him thrown out. (Miller, in support, left the embassy with him.) Pinter's experience of oppression in Turkey and the supression of the Kurdish language inspired his 1988 play Mountain Language. Pinter's first screenplay , The Servant, was written in 1962. He later wrote scripts for The Go-Between and The French Lieutenant's Woman , among others. He also published a screenplay based on Marcel Proust 's A la recherche du temps perdu , but this has never been filmed. In 1977 , Pinter caused a public scandal by leaving his wife, the actress Vivien Merchant for Lady Antonia Fraser , whom he eventually married in 1980 . Pinter is a great fan of cricket and is the chairman of the Gaieties Cricket Club. He was appointed CBE in 1966 and became a Companion of Honour in 2002 .

Table of contents USATODAY.com - List of playwright Harold Pinter's works List of playwright Harold Pinter's works By The Associated Press Better-known works by Harold Pinter, who won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday: PLAYS: •A Kind of Alaska (1982) •Victoria Station (1982) •One for the Road (1984) •Mountain Language (1988) •The New World Order (1991) •Party Time (1991) •Remembrance of Things Past (2000) POETRY •Poems and Prose 1949-1977 (1978) •Various Voices: Poetry, Prose, Politics, 1948-1998 (1998) •The Disappeared and Other Poems (2002) •War: Eight Poems and One Speech (2003) NOVELS •The Dwarfs: A Novel (1990) SCREENPLAYS Harold Pinter Harold Pinter Location of death: London, England Cause of death: unspecified Poems and Prose 1941�1977 (

1978) The Dwarfs: A Novel (1990, novel) Various Voices, Prose, Poetry, Politics 1948-1991 (1998) The Disappeared and Other Poems (2002, poetry) War (2003, poetry) The Room (1957, one act) The Dumbwaiter (1957, one act) The Birthday Party (1958) A Slight Ache (1959, radio play) The Caretaker (1960) Harold Pinter Biography (Playwright/Writer) Died: 25 December 2008 (esophageal cancer) Birthplace: London, England Best known as: The Nobel-winning author of The Homecoming Called "the great English provocateur" and "the brilliant young Turk of postwar theater" by Newsday, Harold Pinter was a groundbreaking playwright, screenwriter and poet of the late 20th century.

His style mixed domestic turmoil, evasive dialogue and not-so-heroic characters with experimental storytelling styles. (Betrayal, his 1978 drama, told the story of a broken marriage backwards from finish to start.) The "Pinter pause" -- a strained silence loaded with meaning and menace -- became part of the vocabulary of modern theater. He wrote more than 30 plays in all, including The Room (1957), The Birthday Party (1957), The Caretaker (1959), The Homecoming (1964, and winner of a Tony Award for best play in 1967), One for the Road (1984) and Ashes to Ashes (1996). He also wrote more than 20 screenplays, including The Last Tycoon (1974, with Robert DeNiro , The French Lieutenant's Woman (1980, with Meryl Streep ), and The Handmade's Tale (1987, with Robert Duvall ).

Pinter was politically liberal and outspoken, and never stopped protesting: He was a conscientious objector after World War II, refused a knighthood from the Conservative government of John Major in 1996, and used his Nobel acceptance speech in 2005 for a scathing attack on United States foreign policy. He died in 2008 after battling esophageal cancer since 2002. Extra credit: Pinter was right-handed, according to a BBC online chat in 2004… Pinter was a fan of cricket and became captain of the cricket club The Gaieties in 1972… Pinter turned down the knighthood in 1996, but was awarded a CBE in 1966 and also became a Companion of Honor, another royal designation, in 2002…. He was awarded the French Legion of Honor in 2007. Copyright © 1998-2017 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved. Advertisement Advertisement - Biography Harold Pinter Harold Pinter was born in London in 1930.

He lived with Antonia Fraser from 1975 until his death on Christmas Eve 2008. (They were married in 1980).

Playwright THE ROOM (1957); THE BIRTHDAY PARTY (1957); THE DUMB WAITER (1957); A SLIGHT ACHE (1958); THE HOTHOUSE (1958); THE CARETAKER (1959); SKETCHES: The Black and White; Trouble in the Works (1959); Last to Go; Request Stop; Special Offer (1960); That's Your Trouble; That's All; Interview(1964); A NIGHT OUT (1959); NIGHT SCHOOL (1960); THE DWARFS (1960); THE COLLECTION (1961); THE LOVER (1962); TEA PARTY (1964); THE HOMECOMING (1964); THE BASEMENT (1966); LANDSCAPE (1967); SILENCE (1968); SKETCH Night (1969); OLD TIMES (1970); MONOLOGUE (1972); NO MAN'S LAND (1974); BETRAYAL (1978); FAMILY VOICES (1

980); and with VICTORIA STATION and A KIND OF ALASKA under the title OTHER PLACES (1982); SKETCH Precisely (1983); ONE FOR THE ROAD (1984); MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE (1988); THE NEW WORLD ORDER (1991); PARTY TIME (1991); MOONLIGHT (1993); ASHES TO ASHES (1996); CELEBRATION (1999); SKETCH Press Conference (2002); SKETCH Apart From That (2006).

Screenwriter THE CARETAKER (1962); THE PUMPKIN EATER (1963); THE SERVANT (1963); THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM (1965); ACCIDENT (1966); THE BIRTHDAY PARTY (1967); THE GO-BETWEEN (1969); THE HOMECOMING (1969); LANGRISHE GO DOWN (1970) adapted for TV 1978; A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU (1972) not filmed; THE LAST TYCOON(1974); THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN (1980); BETRAYAL (1981); VICTORY (1982) not filmed; TURTLE DIARY (1984); THE HANDMAID'S TALE (1987); REUNION (1988); THE HEAT OF THE DAY (1988); THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS (1989); THE TRIAL (1989); THE DREAMING CHILD (

1997) not filmed; THE TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR (2000) not filmed; SLEUTH (2007) Director Plays THE COLLECTION (with Peter Hall) (1962); THE LOVER and THE DWARFS (1963); THE BIRTHDAY PARTY (1964); Robert Shaw's THE MAN IN THE GLASS BOOTH London (1967) and New York (1968); James Joyce's EXILES (1970); Simon Gray 's BUTLEY (1971); John Hopkin's NEXT OF KIN (1974); Simon Gray 's OTHERWISE ENGAGED London (1975) and New York (1977); William Archibald's THE INNOCENTS New York (1976); Noel Coward's BLITHE SPIRIT (1976); Simon Gray 's THE REAR COLUMN (1978); Simon Gray 's CLOSE OF PLAY (1979); THE HOTHOUSE (1980); Simon Gray 's QUARTERMAINE'S TERMS (1981); Robert East's INCIDENT AT TULSE H

ILL (1981); Jean Giraudoux's THE TROJAN WAR WILL NOT TAKE PLACE (1983); Simon Gray 's THE COMMON PURSUIT (1984); ONE FOR THE ROAD (1984); Tennessee Williams' SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH (1985); Donald Freed's CIRCE AND BRAVO (1986); Jane Stanton Hitchcock's VANILLA (1990); PARTY TIME and MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE (1991); THE NEW WORLD ORDER (1991); David Mamet's OLEANNA (1993); LANDSCAPE (1994); Ronald Harwood 's TAKING SIDES (1995); Reginald Rose's TWELVE ANGRY MEN (1996); ASHES TO ASHES 1996; Simon Gray 's LIFE SUPPORT 1997; ASHES TO ASHES in Italy (1997); ASHES TO ASHES in France (1998); Simon Gray 's THE LATE MIDDLE CLASSES (1999); CELEBRATION and THE ROOM

 (2000); NO MAN'S LAND (2001); Simon Gray 's THE OLD MASTERS (2004) Films BUTLEY (1974) Television Simon Gray's THE REAR COLUMN (1980); THE HOTHOUSE (1982); MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE (1988); PARTY TIME (1992); LANDSCAPE (1995); ASHES TO ASHES Italy (1998).

Actor Theatre Toured Ireland with Anew McMaster repertory company (1951-52) Donald Wolfit Company, King's Theatre, Hammersmith (1953-54) Rep at Chesterfield, Whitby, Huddersfield, Colchester, Bournemouth, Torquay, Birmingham, Palmers Green, Worthing, Richmond (1953-59) THE CARETAKER - Mick Duchess Theatre (1960) THE HOMECOMING - Lenny Watford Theatre (1969) OLD TIMES - Deeley Los Angeles (1985) NO MAN'S LAND - Hirst Almeida & Comedy Theatre (1992-3) THE HOTHOUSE - Roote Chichester Festival Theatre, Comedy Theatre (1995) LOOK EUROPE!

- Tramp, Almeida Theatre (1997) THE COLLECTION - Harry, Gate Theatre, Dublin (1997) & Donmar Warehouse (1998), ONE FOR THE ROAD - Nicolas, New Ambassadors Theatre, London (2001) & Lincoln Center Festival, New York, USA (2001), SKETCH Press Conference, Royal National Theatre (2002) Film THE SERVANT - Society Man (1964) ACCIDENT - Bell (1967) THE RISE AND RISE OF MICHAEL RIMMER - Steven Hench (1970) TURTLE DIARY - Man in Bookshop (1985) MOJO - Sam Ross (1997) MANSFIELD PARK - Sir Thomas (1998) THE TAILOR OF PANAMA - Uncle Benny (2000) Television A NIGHT OUT - Seeley (1960) HUIS CLOS by Jean Paul Sartre - Garcia (1965) THE BASEMENT - Stott (1967) ROGUE MALE by Clive Donner - Lawyer (1976) LANGRISHE,

 GO DOWN - Shannon (1978) THE BIRTHDAY PARTY - Goldberg (1987) BREAKING THE CODE by Hugh Whitemore - John Smith (1997) CATASTROPHE by Samuel Beckett - Director (2000) WIT by Margaret Edson - Father (2000) Radio PLAYERS - Narrated by Harold Pinter with Edward de Souza FOCUS ON FOOTBALL POOLS and FOCUS ON LIBRARIES (1951) HENRY VIII - Abergevenny (1951) MR PUNCH PASSES - Narrator (1951) A NIGHT OUT - Seeley (1960) THE EXAMINATION - Reading (1962) TEA PARTY - Reading (1964) MONOLOGUE - Man (1975) ROUGH FOR RADIO by Samuel Beckett - Man (1976) BETRAYAL - Robert (1990) THE PROUST SCREENPLAY - The voice of the Screenplay (1995) I HAD TO GO SICK by Julian McLaren Ross - Reading (1998) MOONLIGHT - Andy (200

0) A SLIGHT ACHE - Edward (2000) Awards CBE, 1966; Shakespeare Prize (Hamburg) 1970; European Prize for Literature (Vienna) 1973; Pirandello Prize (Palermo) 1980; Chilean Order of Merit, 1992; The David Cohen British Literature Prize 1995; Honorary fellow of Queen Mary College, London; Laurence Olivier Special Award 1996; Molire d'Honneur, Paris in recognition of his life's work, 1997; Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence 1997; BAFTA Fellowship 1997; Companion of Literature, RSL 1998; The Critics' Circle Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts 2000; Brianza Poetry Prize, Italy 2000; South Bank Show Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts, 2001; S.T.

Dupont Golden Pen Award 2001 for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature; 'Premio Fiesole ai Maestri del Cinema', Italy, 2001; World Leaders Award, Toronto, Canada, 2001; Hermann Kesten Medallion for outstanding commitment on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers, awarded by German P.E.N., Berlin, Germany, 2001; Companion of Honour for services to Literature, 2002; Diploma ï¿½ad Honoremï¿½, Teatro Filodrammatici, Milan , Italy 2004; Evening Standard Theatre Awards, 50th Anniversary - Special Award, 2004; Wilfred Owen Poetry Prize, 2005; Frank Kafka Prize, 2005; Nobel Prize for Literature, 2005; European Theatre Prize, 2006; Serbian Foundation Prize, 2006; St George Plaque of the City of Kragujevac, 2006; Legion d'Honneur, 2007 Honorary degrees from the Universities of Reading 1970; Birmingham 197

1; Glasgow 1974; East Anglia 1974; Stirling 1979; Brown (Rhode Island) 1982; Hull 1986; Sussex 1990; East London 1994; Sofia (Bulgaria) 1995; Bristol 1998; Goldmiths, University of London 1999; University of Aristotle, Thessaloniki 2000; University of Florence, Italy, 2001; University of Turin, Italy, 2002 and National University of Ireland, Dublin 2004; University of Leeds 2007.

Harold Pinter Biography (Playwright/Writer) Died: 25 December 2008 (esophageal cancer) Birthplace: London, England Best known as: The Nobel-winning author of The Homecoming Called "the great English provocateur" and "the brilliant young Turk of postwar theater" by Newsday, Harold Pinter was a groundbreaking playwright, screenwriter and poet of the late 20th century. His style mixed domestic turmoil, evasive dialogue and not-so-heroic characters with experimental storytelling styles. (Betrayal, his 1978 drama, told the story of a broken marriage backwards from finish to start.) The "Pinter pause" -- a strained silence loaded with meaning and menace -- became part of the vocabulary of modern theater. He wrote more than 30 plays in all, including The Room (1957), The Birthday Party (1957), The Caretaker (1959), The Homecoming (1964, and winner of a Tony Award for best play in 1967), One for the Road (1984) and Ashes to Ashes (1996).

He also wrote more than 20 screenplays, including The Last Tycoon (1974, with Robert DeNiro , The French Lieutenant's Woman (1980, with Meryl Streep ), and The Handmade's Tale (1987, with Robert Duvall ). Pinter was politically liberal and outspoken, and never stopped protesting: He was a conscientious objector after World War II, refused a knighthood from the Conservative government of John Major in 1996, and used his Nobel acceptance speech in 2005 for a scathing attack on United States foreign policy. He died in 2008 after battling esophageal cancer since 2002. Extra credit: Pinter was right-handed, according to a BBC online chat in 2004… Pinter was a fan of cricket and became captain of the cricket club The Gaieties in 1972… Pinter turned down the knighthood in 1996, but was awarded a CBE in 1966 and also became a Companion of Honor, another royal designation, in 2002….

He was awarded the French Legion of Honor in 2007. Copyright © 1998-2017 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved. - Plays Plays: The Black and White (1959) Trouble in the Works (1959) Play information compiled by Katie Herdman, Daisy Evans and Laura Lankester Other Items: The Observer | Letter to the Independent | Depleted Uranium | One For The Road | No Mans Homecoming | New World Order | Degree Speech Harold Pinter's work is represented by Judy Daish Associates Limited - and applications for all performances and uses of Harold Pinter's work (including amateur and professional stage performances, radio broadcasts, television transmissions and readings and use of extracts) need to be addressed to them in the first instance and in advance of finalizing your plans. Judy Daish Associates will then contact the Estate of Harold Pinter (Lady Antonia Fraser Pinter) if appropriate. The Estate should not be contacted directly for permissions. Please do not assume that a licence or permission will be forthcoming as there are sometimes conflicts between permission requests. © Harold Pinter 2000 - 2012 All Rights Reserved | Disclaimer

Question: Who wrote the plays The Caretaker' in 1959 and 'The Birthday Party' in 1957?
Answer: Harold Pinter