123-585: The Homecoming is a two-act play written in 1964 and published in 1965 by Harold Pinter . Its premières in London (1965) and New York (1967) were both directed by Sir Peter Hall . The original Broadway production won the 1967 Tony Award for Best Play . Its 40th-anniversary Broadway production at the Cort Theatre was nominated for a 2008 Tony Award for "Best Revival of a Play". Set in North London,
246-891: A Play ( Peter Hall ), and the Tony Award for Best Play ( Alexander H. Cohen , prod.). A film of the play, based on Pinter's own screenplay and also entitled The Homecoming and directed by Sir Peter Hall , was released in 1973. It features most of the original 1965 Royal Shakespeare Company cast and became part of the two-season subscription series American Film Theatre in the United States, available on DVD and distributed by Kino Lorber . London première Royal Shakespeare Company . Dir. Peter Hall . With Paul Rogers (Max), Ian Holm (Lenny), John Normington (Sam), Terence Rigby (Joey), Michael Bryant (Teddy), and Vivien Merchant (Ruth). Aldwych Theatre , London. Opened on 3 June 1965. The pre-London tryouts opened at
369-593: A character that Pinter described as "a very civilised man ... a man of great sensibility but in fact, he's upholding and sustaining a totally brutal system [the slave trade] from which he derives his money"; and Uncle Benny, opposite Pierce Brosnan and Geoffrey Rush , in The Tailor of Panama (2001). In television films , he played Mr. Bearing, the father of ovarian cancer patient Vivian Bearing, played by Emma Thompson in Mike Nichols 's HBO film of
492-429: A choice to stay in London with the family or to return to America with him (pp. 91–92). Ruth understands exactly what is being proposed and appears very open to the proposal. She inflexibly negotiates her demands, including a three-room flat and a maid as the terms of a "contract" (p. 93) with Lenny, all of which must be finalized in writing with signatures and witnesses, leaving Lenny nonplussed but hapless. Ruth clearly
615-611: A comedy, like his earlier comedies of menace . Pinter played the major role of Roote in a 1995 revival at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester . Pinter's brief dramatic sketch Precisely (1983) is a duologue between two bureaucrats exploring the absurd power politics of mutual nuclear annihilation and deterrence . His first overtly political one-act play is One for the Road (1984). In 1985 Pinter stated that whereas his earlier plays presented metaphors for power and powerlessness,
738-592: A drunk Irish journalist in Langrishe, Go Down (starring Judi Dench and Jeremy Irons ) distributed on BBC Two in 1978 and released in movie theatres in 2002. Pinter's later film roles included the criminal Sam Ross in Mojo (1997), written and directed by Jez Butterworth , based on Butterworth's play of the same name ; Sir Thomas Bertram (his most substantial feature-film role) in Mansfield Park (1998),
861-502: A happy woman out of her. It's something to be proud of"; right after Max further asserts that Ruth is "a woman of quality" and "a woman of feeling", clasped in their ongoing embrace, Joey and Ruth literally " roll off the sofa on to the floor " (p. 76). Suddenly pushing Joey away and standing up, Ruth appears to take command, demanding food and drink, and Joey and Lenny attempt to satisfy her demands (pp. 76–77). After Ruth questions whether or not his family has read Teddy's "critical works" —
984-473: A highly ambiguous , an enigmatic, and for some even a cryptic play, The Homecoming has been the subject of extensive critical debate since it premiered. According to many critics, it exposes issues of sex and power in a realistic yet aesthetically stylised manner. Surveying Pinter's career on the occasion of the 40-anniversary Broadway production of the play at the Cort Theatre in The New Yorker ,
1107-460: A kind of guest" (p. 91). Whereas Teddy must return home to his life and family in America (pp. 91–96) to fulfill his obligations, Ruth agrees to "come home" (p. 92), by refusing to honor any longer her now defunct obligations as wife and mother, to more than willingly take up her part in the family business (so to speak) as well as succeeding the late Jessie (Max's wife and his sons' mother), filling
1230-759: A medical examination, before his CO registration was ultimately agreed. He had a small part in the Christmas pantomime Dick Whittington and His Cat at the Chesterfield Hippodrome in 1949 to 1950. From January to July 1951, he attended the Central School of Speech and Drama . From 1951 to 1952, he toured Ireland with the Anew McMaster repertory company, playing over a dozen roles. In 1952, he began acting in regional English repertory productions; from 1953 to 1954, he worked for
1353-526: A mirror", posited critic Ben Brantley . Other critics, like Lahr in Demolition Man , remind their readers of the strong element of comedy in this play, as in many of Pinter's other plays. Pinter wrote The Homecoming in six weeks in 1964 from his home in the Sussex coastal town of Worthing , where, according to theatre critic John Lahr , "the magnificent barrenness of the play's North London setting
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#17327983696661476-476: A mother willingly abandoning her husband and children to become a prostitute was unprecedented and hard to understand, especially in the 1960s. Alluding indirectly to this critical pattern, Brantley argues that, in time, the play may appear more realistic and relevant to the lives of theatre audiences than it may have seemed when they themselves were younger or more naïve about the nature of marriage and family life. To those with strong religious values, like Hobson,
1599-405: A nerve when she calls him "Leonard"; he tells her that no one, aside from his late mother, has ever called him that. After a sexually charged conversation between Lenny and Ruth, she exits. Awakened by their voices, the patriarch Max comes downstairs. Lenny does not tell Max about Teddy and Ruth's arrival at the house and engages in more verbal sparring with Max. The scene ends in a blackout. When
1722-624: A note of their names. Pinter himself and later critics generally credited Hobson as bolstering him and perhaps even rescuing his career. In a review published in 1958, borrowing from the subtitle of The Lunatic View: A Comedy of Menace , a play by David Campton , critic Irving Wardle called Pinter's early plays " comedy of menace "—a label that people have applied repeatedly to his work. Such plays begin with an apparently innocent situation that becomes both threatening and " absurd " as Pinter's characters behave in ways often perceived as inexplicable by his audiences and one another. Pinter acknowledges
1845-414: A play that Pinter developed from his 1963 short story, first broadcast on BBC TV in 1965. Working as both a screenwriter and as a playwright, Pinter composed a script called The Compartment (1966), for a trilogy of films to be contributed by Samuel Beckett , Eugène Ionesco , and Pinter, of which only Beckett's film, titled Film , was actually produced. Then Pinter turned his unfilmed script into
1968-579: A play, Woolf asked him to write it so that he could direct it to fulfill a requirement for his postgraduate work. Pinter wrote it in three days. The production was described by Billington as "a staggeringly confident debut which attracted the attention of a young producer, Michael Codron , who decided to present Pinter's next play, The Birthday Party , at the Lyric Hammersmith , in 1958." Written in 1957 and produced in 1958, Pinter's second play, The Birthday Party , one of his best-known works,
2091-477: A professor of philosophy enables him to rationalize the man's behavior toward his wife." Merritt further critiqued Hobson's review of the first production of the play, entitled "Pinter Minus the Moral", concluding: "although Hobson still describes The Homecoming as Pinter's 'cleverest play,' his judgment against the play's 'moral vacuum,' like his denial of Teddy and Ruth's marriage, suggests his personal distress at
2214-511: A prostitute). The men discuss this proposal in considerable detail, seemingly half-joking to irritate Teddy and half-serious (pp. 86–89). Sam declares the whole idea "silly" and "rubbish" (p. 86). Teddy adamantly refuses to "put" anything "in the kitty", as Max asks (p. 87), and Lenny suggests that Teddy could hand out business cards and refer Americans he knows to Ruth when they visit London, for "a little percentage" (pp. 89–90). Teddy does not decline outright but neither does he affirmatively agree to
2337-638: A related "Artists' Appeal for Milošević" in 2004. Pinter strongly opposed the 1991 Gulf War , the 1999 NATO bombing campaign in FR Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War , the United States' 2001 War in Afghanistan , and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq . Among his provocative political statements, Pinter called Prime Minister Tony Blair a "deluded idiot" and compared the administration of President George W. Bush to Nazi Germany . He stated that
2460-530: A screenplay for television in 1992, directing that production, first broadcast in the UK on Channel 4 on 17 November 1992. Intertwining political and personal concerns, his next full-length plays, Moonlight (1993) and Ashes to Ashes (1996) are set in domestic households and focus on dying and death; in their personal conversations in Ashes to Ashes , Devlin and Rebecca allude to unspecified atrocities relating to
2583-413: A seemingly absurdist non sequitur, or perhaps just a jibe at her academic spouse (the answer to which, in either event, is a foregone conclusion) — Teddy defends his own "intellectual equilibrium" and professional turf (pp. 77–78). Ruth and Joey go upstairs for two hours but Joey, who comes down alone without her, complains that Ruth refused to go "the whole hog" (p. 82). With Ruth still upstairs, Lenny and
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#17327983696662706-790: A shaping influence on [Pinter's] politics" and attributed changes in his writing and political views to a change from "an unhappy, complicated personal life ... to a happy, uncomplicated personal life", so that "a side of Harold which had always been there was somehow released. I think you can see that in his work after No Man's Land [1975], which was a very bleak play." Pinter was content in his second marriage and enjoyed family life with his six adult stepchildren and 17 step-grandchildren. Even after battling cancer for several years, he considered himself "a very lucky man in every respect". Sarah Lyall notes in her 2007 interview with Pinter in The New York Times that his "latest work,
2829-493: A slim pamphlet called 'Six Poems for A.', comprises poems written over 32 years, with "A" of course being Lady Antonia. The first of the poems was written in Paris, where she and Mr. Pinter traveled soon after they met. More than three decades later the two are rarely apart, and Mr. Pinter turns soft, even cozy, when he talks about his wife." In that interview Pinter "acknowledged that his plays—full of infidelity, cruelty, inhumanity,
2952-609: A society man in The Servant (1963) and as Mr. Bell in Accident (1967), both directed by Joseph Losey ; and as a bookshop customer in his later film Turtle Diary (1985), starring Michael Gambon , Glenda Jackson , and Ben Kingsley . Pinter's notable film and television roles included the lawyer Saul Abrahams opposite Peter O'Toole in Rogue Male , BBC TV 's 1976 adaptation of Geoffrey Household 's 1939 novel, and
3075-698: A son, Daniel, born in 1958. He left Merchant in 1975 and married author Lady Antonia Fraser in 1980. Pinter's career as a playwright began with a production of The Room in 1957. His second play, The Birthday Party , closed after eight performances but was enthusiastically reviewed by critic Harold Hobson . His early works were described by critics as " comedy of menace ". Later plays such as No Man's Land (1975) and Betrayal (1978) became known as " memory plays ". He appeared as an actor in productions of his own work on radio and film, and directed nearly 50 productions for stage, theatre and screen. Pinter received over 50 awards, prizes and other honours, including
3198-421: A square arch, no longer present, is visible. Beyond the room are a hallway and staircase to the upper floor and the front door. After having lived in the United States for six years, Teddy brings his wife, Ruth, home for the first time to meet his working-class family in North London, where he grew up, and which she finds more familiar than their academic life in America. The two married in London before moving to
3321-407: A student at Hackney Downs School , a London grammar school, between 1944 and 1948. "Partly through the school and partly through the social life of Hackney Boys' Club ... he formed an almost sacerdotal belief in the power of male friendship. The friends he made in those days – most particularly Henry Woolf , Michael (Mick) Goldstein and Morris (Moishe) Wernick – have always been a vital part of
3444-408: A tart in here" (p. 74). Joey begins making out with Ruth on the sofa, telling Lenny that she is "Just up my street" (p. 75). Max asks Teddy if he is "going" so soon. He tells Teddy, "Look, next time you come over, don't forget to let us know beforehand whether you're married or not. I'll always be glad to meet the wife." He says that he knows that Teddy had not told him that he was married because he
3567-858: A television play, which was produced as The Basement , both on BBC 2 and also on stage in 1968. From the late 1960s through the early 1980s, Pinter wrote a series of plays and sketches that explore complex ambiguities, elegiac mysteries, comic vagaries, and other "quicksand-like" characteristics of memory and which critics sometimes classify as Pinter's " memory plays ". These include Landscape (1968), Silence (1969), Night (1969), Old Times (1971), No Man's Land (1975), The Proust Screenplay (1977), Betrayal (1978), Family Voices (1981), Victoria Station (1982), and A Kind of Alaska (1982). Some of Pinter's later plays, including Party Time (1991), Moonlight (1993), Ashes to Ashes (1996), and Celebration (2000), draw upon some features of his "memory" dramaturgy in their focus on
3690-680: A third man who is blindfolded, gagged and bound in a chair; Pinter directed the British première at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs , where it opened on 9 July 1991, and the production then transferred to Washington, D.C., where it was revived in 1994. Pinter's longer political satire Party Time (1991) premièred at the Almeida Theatre in London, in a double-bill with Mountain Language . Pinter adapted it as
3813-487: A throne. Sam lies motionless on the floor; Joey, who has walked over to Ruth, places his head in her lap, which she gently caresses. Lenny, stands looking on and observing. After repeatedly insisting he is not an old man, and getting no reply from Ruth, who remains, as usual, tactically silent, Max beseeches her, "Kiss me" – the final words of the play. Ruth sits and " continues to touch JOEY's head, lightly ," while Lenny " stands, watching " (p. 98). In this "resolution" of
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3936-442: Is a woman, Ruth, Teddy's wife. The play concerns Teddy's and Ruth's "homecoming," which has distinctly different symbolic and thematic implications. In the initial productions (as well as a 1973 film adaptation ), Pinter's first wife, Vivien Merchant , played Ruth. The setting is an old house in North London during the summer. All of the scenes take place in the same large room, filled with various pieces of furniture. The shape of
4059-401: Is adept at getting what she wants (pp. 92–94) and Teddy prepares to return to America without her. Having spoken up a few times earlier to voice his objections, Sam blurts out a long-kept secret about Jessie and Max's friend MacGregor, then " croaks and collapses " and " lies still " on the floor (94). Briefly considering the possibility that Sam has "dropped dead" and become a "corpse" (p. 94),
4182-471: Is both a family romance and a turf war . The Homecoming directly challenges the place of morals in family life and puts their social value "under erasure" (in Derridean terminology). Teddy's profession as an academic philosopher, which, he claims, enables him to "maintain ... intellectual equilibrium" — I'm the one who can see. That's why I write my critical works. [...] I can see what you do. It's
4305-415: Is such a distinctive name that he must have got tired of being asked, 'Any relation? ' " Michael Billington wrote that Pinter saw Daniel's name change as "a largely pragmatic move on Daniel's part designed to keep the press ... at bay." Fraser told Billington that Daniel "was very nice to me at a time when it would have been only too easy for him to have turned on me ... simply because he had been
4428-630: Is uncertain even whether the play will still be in the bill by the time they appear, though it is probable it will soon be seen elsewhere. Deliberately, I am willing to risk whatever reputation I have as a judge of plays by saying that The Birthday Party is not a Fourth, not even a Second, but a First [as in Class Honours]; and that Pinter, on the evidence of his work, possesses the most original, disturbing and arresting talent in theatrical London ... Mr Pinter and The Birthday Party , despite their experiences last week, will be heard of again. Make
4551-613: The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and also had supported the British Anti-Apartheid Movement (1959–1994), participating in British artists' refusal to permit professional productions of their work in South Africa in 1963 and in subsequent related campaigns. In "A Play and Its Politics", a 1985 interview with Nicholas Hern, Pinter described his earlier plays retrospectively from the perspective of
4674-569: The Donald Wolfit Company, at the King's Theatre, Hammersmith , performing eight roles. From 1954 until 1959, Pinter acted under the stage name David Baron. In all, Pinter played over 20 roles under that name. To supplement his income from acting, Pinter worked as a waiter, a postman, a bouncer, and a snow-clearer, meanwhile, according to Mark Batty, "harbouring ambitions as a poet and writer." In October 1989 Pinter recalled: "I
4797-688: The Gate Theatre , Dublin, was held as part of the annual Lincoln Center Festival at Lincoln Center in New York City. Pinter participated both as an actor, as Nicolas in One for the Road , and as a director of a double bill pairing his last play, Celebration , with his first play, The Room . As part of a two-week "Harold Pinter Homage" at the World Leaders Festival of Creative Genius, held from 24 September to 30 October 2001, at
4920-692: The Grand Hotel in Eastbourne , in early January 1978. After the Frasers' divorce had become final in 1977 and the Pinters' in 1980, Pinter married Fraser on 27 November 1980. Because of a two-week delay in Merchant's signing the divorce papers, however, the reception had to precede the actual ceremony, originally scheduled to occur on his 50th birthday. Vivien Merchant died of acute alcoholism in
5043-925: The Hampstead Theatre Club , in London, in 1960. It was then not produced often until the 1980s, and it has been revived more frequently since 2000, including the West End Trafalgar Studios production in 2007. The first production of The Caretaker , at the Arts Theatre Club , in London, in 1960, established Pinter's theatrical reputation. The play transferred to the Duchess Theatre in May 1960 and ran for 444 performances, receiving an Evening Standard Award for best play of 1960. Large radio and television audiences for his one-act play A Night Out , along with
The Homecoming - Misplaced Pages Continue
5166-522: The Holocaust . After experiencing the deaths of first his mother (1992) and then his father (1997), again merging the personal and the political, Pinter wrote the poems "Death" (1997) and "The Disappeared" (1998). Pinter's last stage play, Celebration (2000), is a social satire set in an opulent restaurant, which lampoons The Ivy , a fashionable venue in London's West End theatre district, and its patrons who "have just come from performances of either
5289-622: The Lyric Hammersmith in 1984, he played Nicolas in One for the Road and the cab driver in Victoria Station . Among over 35 plays that Pinter directed were Next of Kin (1974), by John Hopkins ; Blithe Spirit (1976), by Noël Coward ; The Innocents (1976), by William Archibald ; Circe and Bravo (1986), by Donald Freed ; Taking Sides (1995), by Ronald Harwood ; and Twelve Angry Men (1996), by Reginald Rose . Pinter
5412-580: The New Theatre, Cardiff on 26 March 1965. Harold Pinter Harold Pinter CH CBE ( / ˈ p ɪ n t ər / ; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for
5535-809: The Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005 and the French Légion d'honneur in 2007. 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 of Samuel Beckett 's one-act monologue Krapp's Last Tape , for the 50th anniversary season of the Royal Court Theatre , in October 2006. He died from liver cancer on 24 December 2008. Pinter
5658-762: The Pulitzer Prize -winning play Wit (2001); and the Director opposite John Gielgud (Gielgud's last role) and Rebecca Pidgeon in Catastrophe , by Samuel Beckett , directed by David Mamet as part of Beckett on Film (2001). Pinter began to direct more frequently during the 1970s, becoming an associate director of the National Theatre (NT) in 1973. He directed almost 50 productions of his own and others' plays for stage, film, and television, including 10 productions of works by Simon Gray :
5781-595: The Royal National Theatre , and a revival of The Caretaker directed by Patrick Marber and starring Michael Gambon , Rupert Graves , and Douglas Hodge , at the Comedy Theatre . Like Celebration , Pinter's penultimate sketch, Press Conference (2002), "invokes both torture and the fragile, circumscribed existence of dissent". In its première in the National Theatre 's two-part production of Sketches , despite undergoing chemotherapy at
5904-492: The Underground , before saying goodbye to the others and leaving to return home to his three sons, alone. As he moves towards the front door, Ruth calls Teddy "Eddie"; after he turns around, she cryptically tells him, "Don't become a stranger" (p. 96). He goes out the front door, leaving his wife with the other four men in the house. The final tableau vivant (pp. 96–98) depicts Ruth sitting, " relaxed in her chair ", as if on
6027-546: The invasion of Iraq ? A bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism , demonstrating absolute contempt for the conception of international law ." Pinter earned a reputation for being pugnacious, enigmatic, taciturn, terse, prickly, explosive and forbidding. Pinter's blunt political statements, and the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature, elicited strong criticism and even, at times, provoked ridicule and personal attacks. The historian Geoffrey Alderman , author of
6150-543: The 1966 film Alfie . Their son Daniel was born in 1958. Through the early 1970s, Merchant appeared in many of Pinter's works, including The Homecoming on stage (1965) and screen (1973), but the marriage was turbulent. For seven years, from 1962 to 1969, Pinter was engaged in a clandestine affair with BBC-TV presenter and journalist Joan Bakewell , which inspired his 1978 play Betrayal , and also throughout that period and beyond he had an affair with an American socialite, whom he nicknamed "Cleopatra". This relationship
6273-483: The 1984 film Swann in Love ( Un amour de Swann ), directed by Volker Schlöndorff , and it was also adapted by Michael Bakewell as a two-hour radio drama broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 1995, before Pinter and director Di Trevis collaborated to adapt it for the 2000 National Theatre production. Pinter's last filmed screenplay was an adaptation of the 1970 Tony Award -winning play Sleuth , by Anthony Shaffer , which
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#17327983696666396-524: The Blitz. In 1971, he told Mel Gussow : "one of my main obsessions in life is the game of cricket—I play and watch and read about it all the time." He was chairman of the Gaieties Cricket Club, a supporter of Yorkshire Cricket Club , and devoted a section of his official website to the sport. One wall of his study was dominated by a portrait of himself as a young man playing cricket, which
6519-510: The Day (1990), and Lolita (1997), remain unpublished and in the case of the latter two films, uncredited, though several scenes from or aspects of his scripts were used in these finished films. His screenplays The Proust Screenplay (1972), Victory (1982), and The Dreaming Child (1997) and his unpublished screenplay The Tragedy of King Lear (2000) have not been filmed. A section of Pinter's Proust Screenplay was, however, released as
6642-545: The English language as an adjective, " Pinteresque ", although Pinter himself disliked the term and found it meaningless. Pinter's first play, The Room , written and first performed in 1957, was a student production at the University of Bristol , directed by his good friend, actor Henry Woolf , who also originated the role of Mr. Kidd (which he reprised in 2001 and 2007). After Pinter mentioned that he had an idea for
6765-673: The Nobel Prize. Later Pinter continued to campaign against the Iraq War and on behalf of other political causes that he supported. Pinter signed the mission statement of Jews for Justice for Palestinians in 2005 and its full-page advertisement, "What Is Israel Doing? A Call by Jews in Britain", published in The Times on 6 July 2006, and he was a patron of the Palestine Festival of Literature . In April 2008, Pinter signed
6888-724: The Turkish suppression of the Kurdish language inspired his 1988 play Mountain Language . He was also an active member of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign , an organisation that "campaigns in the UK against the US blockade of Cuba ". In 2001, Pinter joined the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milošević (ICDSM), which appealed for a fair trial and for the freedom of Slobodan Milošević , signing
7011-413: The U.S. and had three sons prior to this visit to the family home ("homecoming") to introduce her. The couple's mutual discomfort with each other, marked by her restless desire to go out exploring after he has gone to sleep, then followed by her sexually suggestive first-time encounter with her dangerous, and somewhat misogynistic, brother-in-law Lenny, begins to expose problems in the marriage. She strikes
7134-776: The United States "was charging towards world domination while the American public and Britain's ' mass-murdering ' prime minister sat back and watched." He was very active in the antiwar movement in the United Kingdom, speaking at rallies held by the Stop the War Coalition and frequently criticising American aggression, as when he asked rhetorically, in his acceptance speech for the Wilfred Owen Award for Poetry on 18 March 2007: "What would Wilfred Owen make of
7257-460: The United States. Much sexual tension occurs as Ruth teases Teddy's brothers and father, and the men taunt one another in a game of one-upmanship , resulting in Ruth's staying behind with Teddy's relatives as "one of the family" and Teddy returning home to their three sons in America without her. The play begins in the midst of what becomes an ongoing power struggle between the two more dominant men:
7380-400: The absent female influence. In October 2007, as quoted by Lahr, Pinter said that he considers The Homecoming his most "muscular" play. After Teddy comes home and introduces his London family to his wife, Ruth (pp. 35–40), Max invites her to remain with them in London; as Teddy puts it to her euphemistically: "Ruth ... the family have invited you to stay, for a little while longer. As a ... as
7503-674: The age of 12, Pinter began writing poetry, and in spring 1947, his poetry was first published in the Hackney Downs School Magazine . In 1950 his poetry was first published outside the school magazine, in Poetry London , some of it under the pseudonym "Harold Pinta". Pinter was an atheist. Pinter enjoyed running and broke the Hackney Downs School sprinting record. He was a cricket enthusiast, taking his bat with him when evacuated during
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#17327983696667626-405: The apparent "invulnerability of power." Just before this hiatus, in 1979, Pinter re-discovered his manuscript of The Hothouse , which he had written in 1958 but had set aside; he revised it and then directed its first production himself at Hampstead Theatre in London, in 1980. Like his plays of the 1980s, The Hothouse concerns authoritarianism and the abuses of power politics, but it is also
7749-401: The ballet or the opera. Not that they can remember a darn thing about what they saw, including the titles. [These] gilded, foul-mouthed souls are just as myopic when it comes to their own table mates (and for that matter, their food), with conversations that usually connect only on the surface, if there." On its surface the play may appear to have fewer overtly political resonances than some of
7872-509: The body" (p. 73) and about which she reminisces when talking to Lenny alone after Teddy has gone upstairs "to pack" for their return trip to the United States. When he returns with the suitcases and Ruth's coat, he expresses concern about what else Lenny may have gotten Ruth to reveal. As Teddy looks on, Lenny initiates dancing " slowly " with Ruth (p. 74). With Teddy, Max, and Joey all looking on, Lenny kisses Ruth and then turns her over to Joey, who asserts that "she's wide open"; "Old Lenny's got
7995-440: The critic John Lahr describes the impact of experiencing it: " 'The Homecoming' changed my life. Before the play, I thought words were just vessels of meaning; after it, I saw them as weapons of defence. Before, I thought theatre was about the spoken; after, I understood the eloquence of the unspoken. The position of a chair, the length of a pause, the choice of a gesture, I realised, could convey volumes." Ben Brantley praises
8118-416: The doorbell rang. I answered it. He said, 'I had to get some air.' He said, 'It is your best.' " Productions of the play have won major theatre awards. The 1967 New York production received four Tony Awards : the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play ( Paul Rogers ), the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play ( Ian Holm ), the Tony Award for Best Direction of
8241-458: The emotional texture of his life." A major influence on Pinter was his inspirational English teacher Joseph Brearley, who directed him in school plays and with whom he took long walks, talking about literature. According to Billington, under Brearley's instruction, "Pinter shone at English, wrote for the school magazine and discovered a gift for acting." In 1947 and 1948, he played Romeo and Macbeth in productions directed by Brearley. At
8364-411: The end of the play, Ruth appears to have assumed the multiple roles of Jessie, the family's absent wife and mother, the missing woman in their household ("mother/wife/whore" in terms used by critics), while putting the American family of Ruth and Teddy in a parallel position, thus ironically reversing the situation at the beginning of the play. In that sense, the play recalls Edward's reversal of roles with
8487-410: The father, Max, and his middle son, Lenny. Max and the other men put down one another, expressing their "feelings of resentment," with Max feminising his brother Sam, who he intimates is homosexual, while himself claiming to have himself "given birth" to his three sons. Teddy arrives with his wife, Ruth. He reveals that he married Ruth in London six years earlier and that the couple subsequently moved to
8610-552: The first week of October 1982, at the age of 53. Billington writes that Pinter "did everything possible to support" her and regretted that he ultimately became estranged from their son, Daniel, after their separation, Pinter's remarriage, and Merchant's death. A reclusive gifted musician and writer, Daniel changed his surname from Pinter to Brand, the maiden name of his maternal grandmother, before Pinter and Fraser became romantically involved; while according to Fraser, his father could not understand it, she says that she could: "Pinter
8733-543: The gap created by and since the other woman's death (pp. 92–94). On first seeing Ruth, Max believes that his eldest son, Teddy, has brought a "filthy scrubber" into "my house", adding, "I've never had a whore under this roof before. Ever since your mother died" (pp 57–58). A major irony is that Max's apparently-mistaken first assumption becomes more accurate as the family (and the audience) get to "know" Ruth better (pp. 65–76). The play makes clear to Teddy's family, even if Teddy refuses to acknowledge it, that Ruth has been, to say
8856-555: The idea. Teddy also says, in the play's only poignant turn of phrase, "She'd get old ... very quickly", which concern Max dismisses, citing the new National Health Service. Ruth comes downstairs, " dressed ". Teddy is still waiting with his coat on and their packed suitcases (p. 90). Teddy informs her of the family's proposal, without going into explicit detail about their intention to engage her in prostitution, saying euphemistically that she will "have to pull [her] weight" financially because they are not "very well off"; then he offers her
8979-469: The influence of Samuel Beckett , particularly on his early work; they became friends, sending each other drafts of their works in progress for comments. Pinter wrote The Hothouse in 1958, which he shelved for over 20 years (See "Overtly political plays and sketches" below). Next he wrote The Dumb Waiter (1959), which premièred in Germany and was then produced in a double bill with The Room at
9102-431: The last and best play of Pinter's fecund early period (1957–65). It is a culmination of the poetic ambiguities, the minimalism, and the linguistic tropes of his earlier major plays: The Birthday Party (1958), whose first production lasted only a week in London, though the play was seen by eleven million people when it was broadcast on TV in 1960, and The Caretaker (1960), an immediate international hit. The Homecoming
9225-529: The later ones present literal realities of power and its abuse. Pinter's "political theatre dramatizes the interplay and conflict of the opposing poles of involvement and disengagement." Mountain Language (1988) is about the Turkish suppression of the Kurdish language . The dramatic sketch The New World Order (1991) provides what Robert Cushman, writing in The Independent described as "10 nerve-wracking minutes" of two men threatening to torture
9348-472: The least, increasingly unhappy in married life and in the United States. When her husband insists she is "not well" (p. 85) and simply needs to "rest" (p. 71), Teddy is clearly both downplaying and ignoring the cause and extent of her discontent, even depression, draping his words in almost Victorian modesty. However, he ultimately elects to leave without her rather than fight for her. It has not been Teddy's "homecoming" but that of Ruth. Often considered to be
9471-430: The lights come up the scene has changed to the following morning. Max comes down to make breakfast. When Teddy and Ruth appear and Max discovers they have been there all night without his knowledge, Max is initially enraged, assuming that Ruth is a prostitute. After being told that Ruth and Teddy have married and that she is his daughter-in-law, Max appears to make some effort to reconcile with Teddy. This act opens with
9594-430: The lot—seem at odds with his domestic contentment. 'How can you write a happy play?' he said. 'Drama is about conflict and degrees of perturbation, disarray. I've never been able to write a happy play, but I've been able to enjoy a happy life. ' " After his death, Fraser told The Guardian : "He was a great man, and it was a privilege to live with him for over 33 years. He will never be forgotten." In 1948–49, when he
9717-736: The men's ritual of sharing the lighting of cigars after lunch. Teddy's cigar goes out prematurely, the symbolism of which is clear. Max's subsequent sentimental pseudo-reminiscences of family life with his late wife, Jessie, and their "boys" and his experiences as a butcher also end abruptly with a cynical twist. After Teddy's marriage to Ruth receives Max's blessing, she relaxes and, focusing their attention on her ("Look at me"), she reveals some details about her previous life before meeting Teddy and how she views America (pp. 68–69). After Max and his brother, Sam, exit, Teddy abruptly suggests to Ruth that they return home immediately (p. 70). Apparently, he knows about her history as "a photographic model for
9840-502: The most crucial of all Pinter's lost Edens ." Beginning in late 1948, Pinter attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for two terms, but hating the school, missed most of his classes, feigned a nervous breakdown, and dropped out in 1949. In 1948 he was called up for National Service . He was initially refused registration as a conscientious objector , leading to his twice being prosecuted, and fined, for refusing to accept
9963-529: The mystery of life and I'm still in the middle of it. I can't find the door to get out. My grandfather got out of it. He got right out of it. He left it behind him and he didn't look back. He got that absolutely right. And I'd like to make one further interjection. He stands still. Slow fade . During 2000–2001, there were also simultaneous productions of Remembrance of Things Past , Pinter's stage adaptation of his unpublished Proust Screenplay , written in collaboration with and directed by Di Trevis , at
10086-533: The noisy, bustling, traffic-ridden thoroughfare of the Lower Clapton Road". In 1940 and 1941, after the Blitz , Pinter was evacuated from their house in London to Cornwall and Reading . Billington states that the "life-and-death intensity of daily experience" before and during the Blitz left Pinter with profound memories "of loneliness, bewilderment, separation and loss: themes that are in all his works." Pinter discovered his social potential as
10209-477: The notion of male loyalty, competitive rivalry and fear of betrayal forms a constant thread in Pinter's work from The Dwarfs onwards, its origins can be found in his teenage Hackney years. Pinter adores women, enjoys flirting with them, and worships their resilience and strength. But, in his early work especially, they are often seen as disruptive influences on some pure and Platonic ideal of male friendship: one of
10332-500: The novel by Penelope Mortimer , directed by Jack Clayton ; The Quiller Memorandum (1966), from the 1965 spy novel The Berlin Memorandum , by Elleston Trevor , directed by Michael Anderson ; The Last Tycoon (1976), from the unfinished novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald , directed by Elia Kazan ; The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), from the novel by John Fowles , directed by Karel Reisz ; Turtle Diary (1985), based on
10455-666: The novel by Robin Maugham ; Accident (1967), adapted from the novel by Nicholas Mosley ; and The Go-Between (1971), based on the novel by L. P. Hartley . Films based on Pinter's adaptations of his own stage plays are: The Caretaker (1963), directed by Clive Donner ; The Birthday Party (1968), directed by William Friedkin ; The Homecoming (1973), directed by Peter Hall; and Betrayal (1983), directed by David Jones . Pinter also adapted other writers' novels to screenplays, including The Pumpkin Eater (1964), based on
10578-414: The novel by Russell Hoban ; The Heat of the Day (1988), a television film, from the 1949 novel by Elizabeth Bowen ; The Comfort of Strangers (1990), from the novel by Ian McEwan , directed by Paul Schrader ; and The Trial (1993), from the novel by Franz Kafka , directed by David Jones. His commissioned screenplays of others' works for the films The Handmaid's Tale (1990), The Remains of
10701-515: The official history of Hackney Downs School, expressed his own "Jewish View" of Harold Pinter: "Whatever his merit as a writer, actor and director, on an ethical plane Harold Pinter seems to me to have been intensely flawed, and his moral compass deeply fractured." David Edgar , writing in The Guardian , defended Pinter against what he termed Pinter's "being berated by the belligerati" like Johann Hari , who felt that he did not "deserve" to win
10824-447: The others ascertain that he is still breathing ("not even dead"), dismiss his revelation as the product of "a diseased imagination", and ignore him thereafter. After a pause, Ruth accepts their proposal, conditionally: "Yes, it sounds like a very attractive idea" (p. 94). Teddy focuses on the inconvenience that Sam's unavailability poses for him: "I was going to ask him to drive me to London airport" (p. 95). Instead, he gets directions to
10947-524: The others reminisce about Lenny's and Joey's sexual exploits. Lenny, whom the family considers an expert in sexual matters, labels Ruth a "tease," to which Teddy replies, "Perhaps he hasn't got the right touch" (p. 82). Lenny retorts that Joey has "had more dolly than you've had cream cakes", is "irresistible" to the ladies, "one of the few and far between" (p. 82). Lenny relates anecdotes about Joey's sexual prowess with other "birds" (pp. 82–84). When Lenny asks Joey, "Don't tell me you're satisfied without going
11070-440: The past in the present, but they have personal and political resonances and other tonal differences from these earlier memory plays. Following a three-year period of creative drought in the early 1980s after his marriage to Antonia Fraser and the death of Vivien Merchant, Pinter's plays tended to become shorter and more overtly political, serving as critiques of oppression , torture , and other abuses of human rights, linked by
11193-657: The play (its dénouement ), what might happen later remains unresolved. Such lack of plot resolution and other ambiguities are features of most of Pinter's dramas. In addition to the play being about Teddy's homecoming on a literal level, critics have suggested that, on a metaphoric level, the homecoming is Ruth's. That, symbolically, Ruth comes "home" to "herself": she rediscovers her previous identity prior to her marriage to Teddy. Ironically, as she "comes home" to this family which has been for so long woman-less (motherless, wifeless, etc.), she thus abandons her own biological family with Teddy, leaving them now similarly bereft. By
11316-528: The play garnered four Tony Awards , among other awards. During this period, Pinter also wrote the radio play A Slight Ache , first broadcast on the BBC Third Programme in 1959 and then adapted to the stage and performed at the Arts Theatre Club in 1961. A Night Out (1960) was broadcast to a large audience on ABC Weekend TV 's television show Armchair Theatre , after being transmitted on BBC Radio 3, also in 1960. His play Night School
11439-424: The play has six characters. Five of these are men of the same family: Max, a retired butcher; his brother Sam, a chauffeur; and Max's three sons: Teddy, a philosophy professor in the United States; Lenny, a pimp who only makes discreet references to his "occupation" and his clientele and flats in the city (London); and Joey, a brute training to become a professional boxer and who works in demolition. The sixth character
11562-567: The play indicates Pinter's pessimism about the possibility of changing the status quo. Yet, as the Waiter's often comically unbelievable reminiscences about his grandfather demonstrate in Celebration , Pinter's final stage plays also extend some expressionistic aspects of his earlier "memory plays", while harking back to his "comedies of menace", as illustrated in the characters and in the Waiter's final speech: My grandfather introduced me to
11685-562: The play may appear immoral or amoral. Yet, to others, its moral value resides in its very questioning of commonly accepted shibboleths about marriage and the family: "People who were originally put off by The Homecoming may now find it too close to home. It's a bit like Picasso 's shockingly severe painting of Gertrude Stein from 1906, the one he predicted in time would resemble its subject. We may not have thought we saw ourselves in The Homecoming four decades ago. Now it feels like
11808-438: The play's two-act plot structure, referring to its "nigh-perfect form." In the 1960s, its earliest critics complained that The Homecoming seemed "plotless," "meaningless," and "emotionless" (lacking character motivation), and they found the play "puzzling"; later critics argue that the play evokes a multiplicity of potential meanings, leading to multiple interpretations. In "Demolition Man", Lahr considers The Homecoming to be
11931-738: The plays from the 1980s and 1990s; but its central male characters, brothers named Lambert and Matt, are members of the elite (like the men in charge in Party Time ), who describe themselves as "peaceful strategy consultants [because] we don't carry guns." At the next table, Russell, a banker, describes himself as a "totally disordered personality ... a psychopath", while Lambert "vows to be reincarnated as '[a] more civilised, [a] gentler person, [a] nicer person'." These characters' deceptively smooth exteriors mask their extreme viciousness. Celebration evokes familiar Pinteresque political contexts: "The ritzy loudmouths in 'Celebration' ... and
12054-665: The politics of power and the dynamics of oppression. In his last 25 years, Pinter increasingly focused his essays, interviews and public appearances directly on political issues. He was an officer in International PEN , travelling with American playwright Arthur Miller to Turkey in 1985 on a mission co-sponsored with a Helsinki Watch committee to investigate and protest against the torture of imprisoned writers. There he met victims of political oppression and their families. Pinter's experiences in Turkey and his knowledge of
12177-484: The popularity of his revue sketches, propelled him to further critical attention. In 1964, The Birthday Party was revived both on television (with Pinter himself in the role of Goldberg) and on stage (directed by Pinter at the Aldwych Theatre ) and was well received. By the time Peter Hall's London production of The Homecoming (1964) reached Broadway in 1967, Pinter had become a celebrity playwright, and
12300-422: The portrayal of marriage and what Pinter has called the characters' misdirected 'love.'" Denial of the facts of Teddy's and Ruth's marriage and children may act as a means of expressing rejection of what occurs in the play. Ruth's actions contrast greatly with the expected behaviour of a 1960s housewife, particularly as audiences are never shown this life - their sons names and ages are never revealed. The notion of
12423-437: The pseudonym Pinta and at other times used variations such as da Pinto . Later research by Lady Antonia Fraser , Pinter's second wife, revealed the legend to be apocryphal; three of Pinter's grandparents came from Poland and the fourth from Odesa , so the family was Ashkenazic . Pinter's family home in London is described by his official biographer Michael Billington as "a solid, red-brick, three-storey villa just off
12546-451: The quieter working-class mumblers of 'The Room' ... have everything in common beneath the surface". "Money remains in the service of entrenched power, and the brothers in the play are 'strategy consultants' whose jobs involve force and violence ... It is tempting but inaccurate to equate the comic power inversions of the social behaviour in Celebration with lasting change in larger political structures", according to Grimes, for whom
12669-669: The relationship from Merchant for two and a half months, on 21 March 1975, Pinter finally told her "I've met somebody". After that, "Life in Hanover Terrace gradually became impossible", and Pinter moved out of their house on 28 April 1975, five days after the première of No Man's Land . In mid-August 1977, after Pinter and Fraser had spent two years living in borrowed and rented quarters, they moved into her former family home in Holland Park , where Pinter began writing Betrayal . He reworked it later, while on holiday at
12792-493: The same as I do. But you're lost in it. You won't get me being ... I won't be lost in it. (77–78)— ironically raises basic philosophical questions about the nature of so-called family values and the "meaning" of "love" among family members. Some critics, such as Harold Hobson have questioned whether Teddy and Ruth are lying about their married life. Susa Hollis Merritt, however, criticised this view: "Hobson's interpretation of Teddy as merely pretending to be Ruth's husband and
12915-458: The screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works. Pinter was born and raised in Hackney , east London, and educated at Hackney Downs School . He
13038-450: The silent Matchseller in Pinter's 1959 play A Slight Ache , initially broadcast on BBC Radio 3 , and similarly ironic plot and character role-reversals resulting from power struggles throughout many of Pinter's other plays. For many critics the missing "back wall" in the "large room" of the house described by Pinter as "removed" (p. 21) and by Teddy as "knocked [...] down to make an open living area" after Jessie's death (p. 37) symbolises
13161-630: The sole focus of his father's love and now manifestly wasn't." Still unreconciled at the time of his father's death, Daniel Brand did not attend Pinter's funeral. Billington observes that "The break-up with Vivien and the new life with Antonia was to have a profound effect on Pinter's personality and his work," though he adds that Fraser herself did not claim to have influence over Pinter or his writing. In her own contemporaneous diary entry dated 15 January 1993, Fraser described herself more as Pinter's literary midwife. Indeed, she told Billington that "other people [such as Peggy Ashcroft , among others] had
13284-562: The stage and/or film premières of Butley (stage, 1971; film, 1974), Otherwise Engaged (1975), The Rear Column (stage, 1978; TV, 1980), Close of Play (NT, 1979), Quartermaine's Terms (1981), Life Support (1997), The Late Middle Classes (1999), and The Old Masters (2004). Several of those productions starred Alan Bates (1934–2003), who originated the stage and screen roles of not only Butley but also Mick in Pinter's first major commercial success, The Caretaker (stage, 1960; film, 1964); and in Pinter's double-bill produced at
13407-684: The statement "We're not celebrating Israel's anniversary". The statement noted: "We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land.", "We will celebrate when Arab and Jew live as equals in a peaceful Middle East" Pinter's acting career spanned over 50 years and, although he often played villains , included a wide range of roles on stage and in radio, film, and television. In addition to roles in radio and television adaptations of his own plays and dramatic sketches, early in his screenwriting career he made several cameo appearances in films based on his own screenplays; for example, as
13530-418: The time, Pinter played the ruthless Minister willing to murder little children for the benefit of "The State". Pinter composed 27 screenplays and film scripts for cinema and television, many of which were filmed, or adapted as stage plays. His fame as a screenwriter began with his three screenplays written for films directed by Joseph Losey , leading to their close friendship: The Servant (1963), based on
13653-433: The whole hog?", Joey tentatively replies that "sometimes" a man can be "happy" without "going any hog" (p. 84). Lenny " stares at him ". Joey seems to be suggesting that Ruth is so good at "the game" that Lenny ultimately gets the "idea [to] take her up with me to Greek Street" (p. 88). Max volunteers that Ruth could come to live with the family, suggesting that they "should keep her" while she works for them part-time (as
13776-458: Was "ashamed" that he had "married a woman beneath him" (p. 75), just before peering to look at Ruth, who is literally still lying " under " Joey. Max adds that Teddy doesn't need to be "ashamed" of Ruth's social status, assuring Teddy that he is a "broadminded man" (75), and "she's a lovely girl. A beautiful woman", as well as "a mother too. A mother of three." Contrary to the concurrent action, even more ironically, Max observes that Teddy has "made
13899-720: Was 18, Pinter opposed the politics of the Cold War , leading to his decision to become a conscientious objector and to refuse to comply with National Service in the British military. However, he told interviewers that, if he had been old enough at the time, he would have fought against the Nazis in World War II . He seemed to express ambivalence, both indifference and hostility, towards political structures and politicians in his Fall 1966 Paris Review interview conducted by Lawrence M. Bensky . Yet, he had been an early member of
14022-487: Was a sprinter and a keen cricket player, acting in school plays and writing poetry . He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art but did not complete the course. He was fined for refusing national service as a conscientious objector . Subsequently, he continued training at the Central School of Speech and Drama and worked in repertory theatre in Ireland and England. In 1956 he married actress Vivien Merchant and had
14145-552: Was another secret he kept from both his wife and Bakewell. Initially, Betrayal was thought to be a response to his later affair with historian Antonia Fraser , the wife of Hugh Fraser , and Pinter's "marital crack-up". Pinter and Merchant had both met Antonia Fraser in 1969, when all three worked together on a National Gallery programme about Mary, Queen of Scots ; several years later, on 8–9 January 1975, Pinter and Fraser became romantically involved. That meeting initiated their five-year extramarital love affair. After hiding
14268-476: Was born on 10 October 1930, in Hackney , east London, the only child of British Jewish parents of Eastern European descent: his father, Hyman "Jack" Pinter (1902–1997) was a ladies' tailor; his mother, Frances (née Moskowitz; 1904–1992), a housewife. Pinter believed an aunt's erroneous view that the family was Sephardic and had fled the Spanish Inquisition ; thus, for his early poems, Pinter used
14391-408: Was commissioned by Jude Law , one of the film's producers. It is the basis for the 2007 film Sleuth , directed by Kenneth Branagh . Pinter's screenplays for The French Lieutenant's Woman and Betrayal were nominated for Academy Awards in 1981 and 1983, respectively. From 16 to 31 July 2001, a Harold Pinter Festival celebrating his work, curated by Michael Colgan , artistic director of
14514-635: Was described by Sarah Lyall , writing in The New York Times : "The painted Mr. Pinter, poised to swing his bat, has a wicked glint in his eye; testosterone all but flies off the canvas." Pinter approved of the "urban and exacting idea of cricket as a bold theatre of aggression." After his death, several of his school contemporaries recalled his achievements in sports, especially cricket and running. The BBC Radio 4 memorial tribute included an essay on Pinter and cricket. Other interests that Pinter mentioned to interviewers are family, love and sex, drinking, writing, and reading. According to Billington, "If
14637-494: Was first televised in 1960 on Associated Rediffusion . The Collection premièred at the Aldwych Theatre in 1962, and The Dwarfs , adapted from Pinter's then unpublished novel of the same title, was first broadcast on radio in 1960, then adapted for the stage (also at the Arts Theatre Club) in a double bill with The Lover , which had previously been televised by Associated Rediffusion in 1963; and Tea Party ,
14760-475: Was imagined as he sat at his writing desk overlooking gardens, within earshot of the sea." According to Lahr, Pinter remarked that "it kind of wrote itself." Pinter's close friend and former schoolteacher, Joseph Brearley, was visiting Pinter after he had written the play. "I gave him the play to read," Pinter recalled. "I waited in another room. About two hours later, I heard the front door slam. I thought, Well, here we are. He doesn't like it. About an hour later,
14883-446: Was in English rep as an actor for about 12 years. My favourite roles were undoubtedly the sinister ones. They're something to get your teeth into." During that period, he also performed occasional roles in his own and others' works for radio, TV, and film, as he continued to do throughout his career. From 1956 until 1980, Pinter was married to Vivien Merchant , an actress whom he met on tour, perhaps best known for her performance in
15006-479: Was initially both a commercial and critical disaster, despite an enthusiastic review in The Sunday Times by its influential drama critic Harold Hobson , which appeared only after the production had closed and could not be reprieved. Critical accounts often quote Hobson: I am well aware that Mr Pinter[']s play received extremely bad notices last Tuesday morning. At the moment I write these [words] it
15129-426: Was the author of 29 plays and 15 dramatic sketches and the co-author of two works for stage and radio. He was considered to have been one of the most influential modern British dramatists, Along with the 1967 Tony Award for Best Play for The Homecoming and several other American awards and award nominations, he and his plays received many awards in the UK and elsewhere throughout the world. His style has entered
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