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128-513: The Caretaker is a drama in three acts by Harold Pinter . Although it was the sixth of his major works for stage and television, this psychological study of the confluence of power, allegiance, innocence, and corruption among two brothers and a tramp, became Pinter's first significant commercial success. It premiered at the Arts Theatre Club in London's West End on 27 April 1960 and transferred to

256-546: A "bag" ostensibly for Davies, and the brothers debate how to fix the leaking roof and Davies interrupts to inject the more practical question: "What do you do . . . when that bucket's full?" (37) and Aston simply says, "Empty it" (37). The three battle over the "bag" that Aston has brought Davies, one of the most comic and often-cited Beckettian routines in the play (38–39). After Mick leaves, and Davies recognises him to be "a real joker, that lad" (40), they discuss Mick's work in "the building trade" and Davies ultimately discloses that

384-660: A "caretaker", first by Aston and then by Mick, he begins to ingratiate himself with Mick, who acts as if he were an unwitting accomplice in Davies' eventual conspiracy to take over and fix up the flat without Aston's involvement (64) an outright betrayal of the brother who actually took him in and attempted to find his "belongings"; but just then Aston enters and gives Davies yet another pair of shoes which he grudgingly accepts, speaking of "going down to Sidcup" in order "to get" his "papers" again (65–66). Davies brings up his plan when talking to Aston, whom he insults by throwing back in his face

512-752: A certain kinship, writing "[The Pinters' life in Chiswick] was a very threadbare existence . . . very . . . I was totally out of work. So I was very close to this old derelict's world, in a way."( Harold Pinter 114–17). For earlier critics, like Martin Esslin , The Caretaker suggests aspects of the Theatre of the Absurd , described by Esslin in his eponymous book coining that term first published in 1961; according to Esslin, absurdist drama by writers such as Samuel Beckett , Eugène Ionesco , Jean Genet , and Edward Albee , and others

640-581: 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

768-600: 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,

896-576: 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),

1024-428: A fury, concluding (mistakenly): "Now I know who I can trust" (69). Davies reenters with Mick explaining the fight that occurred earlier and complaining still more bitterly about Mick's brother, Aston (70–71). Eventually, Mick takes Aston's side, beginning with the observation "You get a bit out of your depth sometimes, don't you?" (71). Mick forces Davies to disclose that his "real name" is Davies and his "assumed name"

1152-400: A homeless man, into his flat after rescuing him from a bar fight (7–9). Davies comments on the flat and criticises the fact that it is cluttered and badly kept. Aston attempts to find a pair of shoes for Davies but Davies rejects all the offers. Once he turns down a pair that doesn't fit well enough and another that has the wrong colour laces. Early on, Davies reveals to Aston that his real name

1280-404: A key in the door of the room . DAVIES enters, closes the door, and tries the light switch, on, off, on, off. It appears to Davies that "the damn light's gone now", but, it becomes clear that Mick has sneaked back into the room in the dark and removed the bulb; he starts up " the electrolux " and scares Davies almost witless before claiming "I was just doing some spring cleaning" and returning

1408-730: 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

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1536-624: 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

1664-414: 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

1792-571: 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,

1920-496: A point. Beyond that point, it ceases to be funny, and it is because of that point that I wrote it." Hickling writes in this review of a production directed by Mark Babych in March 2009: [ The Caretaker ] remains, however, a remorselessly accurate record of its time. At the center of the drama is the horrifically indiscriminate use of shock therapy, which left one of the characters with brain damage; Matthew Rixon's disturbingly docile Aston

2048-675: 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

2176-410: A room and saw one person standing up and one person sitting down, and few weeks later I wrote The Room . I went into another room and saw two people sitting down, and a few years later I wrote The Birthday Party . I looked through a door into a third room and saw two people standing up and I wrote The Caretaker . Aston Davies Mick The language and plot of The Caretaker blends Realism with

2304-523: 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

2432-782: 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,

2560-489: 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,

2688-592: 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

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2816-698: 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

2944-407: 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

3072-446: A successful career outweigh his responsibility to care for his mentally damaged brother. In the end however all three men are deceiving themselves. Their lives may continue on beyond the end of the play just as they are at the beginning and throughout it. The deceit and isolation in the play lead to a world where time, place, identity, and language are ambiguous and fluid. On 27 April 1960, the first production of The Caretaker opened at

3200-858: 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

3328-651: 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

3456-420: A very clean couple of rooms with a bath and kitchen. There was a chap who owned the house: a builder, in fact, like Mick who had his own van and whom I hardly ever saw. The only image of him was of this swift mover up and down the stairs and of his van going . . . Vroom . . . as he arrived and departed. His brother lived in the house. He was a handyman . . . he managed rather more successfully than Aston, but he

3584-435: A vocalised train of thought. Although the text is presented in a casual way, there is always a message behind its simplicity. Pinter is often concerned with "communication itself, or rather the deliberate evasion of communication" (Knowles 43). The play's staccato language and rhythms are musically balanced through strategically placed pauses. Pinter toys with silence, where it is used in the play and what emphasis it places on

3712-437: Is "Jenkins" and, after Davies calls Aston "nutty", Mick appears to take offence at what he terms Davies' "impertinent thing to say", concludes, "I'm compelled to pay you off for your caretaking work. Here's half a dollar", and stresses his need to turn back to his own "business" affairs (74). When Aston comes back into the apartment, the brothers face each other", " They look at each other. Both are smiling, faintly " (75). Using

3840-414: Is "stinking the place out" (35), and spinning a verbal web full of banking jargon designed to confuse Davies, while stating, hyperbolically, that his brother Aston is "a number one decorator" (36), either an outright lie or self-deceptive wishful thinking on his part. Just as Mick reaches the climactic line of his diatribe geared to put the old tramp off balance—"Who do you bank with?" (36), Aston enters with

3968-537: Is a Kentish Eldorado : the place that can solve all the problems about his unresolved identity and uncertain past, present and future" (122). About directing a production of The Caretaker at the Roundabout Theatre Company in 2003, David Jones observed: The trap with Harold's work, for performers and audiences, is to approach it too earnestly or portentously. I have always tried to interpret his plays with as much humour and humanity as possible. There

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4096-411: Is a brilliant portrait of the horrors inflicted by a supposedly civilised state. The climax comes in the harrowing monologue in which he recalls the moment the electrodes were attached. The lights close down on his traumatised features as he speaks, leaving us uncomfortably alone with his thoughts. Pinter's own comment on the source of three of his major plays is frequently quoted by critics: I went into

4224-422: Is a study of the unexpected strength of family ties against an intruder." As Arden states, family relationships are one of the main thematic concerns of the play. Another prevalent theme is the characters' inability to communicate productively with one another. The play depends more on dialogue than on action; however, though there are fleeting moments in which each of them does seem to reach some understanding with

4352-414: Is always mischief lurking in the darkest corners. The world of The Caretaker is a bleak one, its characters damaged and lonely. But they are all going to survive. And in their dance to that end they show a frenetic vitality and a wry sense of the ridiculous that balance heartache and laughter. Funny, but not too funny. As Pinter wrote, back in 1960 : "As far as I am concerned The Caretaker IS funny, up to

4480-462: Is no longer the clearly perceived entity underlying clarity of articulation the objectification of a social and moral entelechy but something amorphous and contingent (41). One of the keys to understanding Pinter's language is not to rely on the words a character says but to look for the meaning behind the text. The Caretaker is filled with long rants and non-sequiturs, the language is either choppy dialogue full of interruptions or long speeches that are

4608-590: Is not "Bernard Jenkins", his "assumed name", but really "Mac Davies" (19–20, 25). He claims that his papers validating this fact are in Sidcup and that he must and will return there to retrieve them just as soon as he has a good pair of shoes. Aston and Davies discuss where he will sleep and the problem of the "bucket" attached to the ceiling to catch dripping rain water from the leaky roof (20–21) and Davies " gets into bed " while "ASTON sits, poking his [electrical] plug (21). LIGHTS UP. Morning . (21) As Aston dresses for

4736-520: Is not really "Bernard Jenkins" but that it is "Mac Davies" (as Pinter designates him "Davies" throughout) and that he is actually Welsh and not English, a fact that he is attempting to conceal throughout the play and that motivates him to "get down to Sidcup ", the past location of a British Army Records Office, to get his identity "papers" (13–16). The elements of tragedy occur in Aston's climactic monologue about his shock treatments in "that place" and at

4864-417: Is referred to as character development or a character arc . This cannot be achieved alone, and they are usually aided and abetted by mentors and co-protagonists. The third act features the resolution of the story and its subplots. The climax is the scene or sequence in which the main tensions of the story are brought to their most intense point and the dramatic question answered, leaving

4992-507: Is referring to), leading Mick to observe that Davies is "getting hypocritical" and "too glib" (50), and they turn to the absurd details of "a small financial agreement" relating to Davies' possibly doing "a bit of caretaking" or "looking after the place" for Mick (51), and then back to the inevitable call for "references" and the perpetually necessary trip to Sidcup to get Davies' identity "papers" (51–52). Davies wakes up and complains to Aston about how badly he slept. He blames various aspects of

5120-477: Is sprinkled with many dots (" . . . ") of elliptical hesitations (77–78). According to Pinter's biographer Michael Billington , the playwright frequently discussed details of The Caretaker ' s origins in relation to images from his own life. Billington notes in his authorised biography that Pinter said he had written the play while he and his first wife Vivien Merchant were living in Chiswick : [The flat was]

5248-415: 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

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5376-623: 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

5504-577: Is undoubtedly true that Harold, with a writer's ear, picked up words and phrases from each of us. He also picked up locales. The Sidcup in The Caretaker comes from the fact that the Royal Artillery HQ was there when I was a National Serviceman and its almost mythical quality as the fount of all permission and record was a source.' To English ears," Billington continues, "Sidcup has faintly comic overtones of suburban respectability. For Davies it

5632-422: Is usually used for exposition , to establish the main characters, their relationships, and the world they live in. Later in the first act, a dynamic incident occurs, known as the inciting incident , or catalyst , that confronts the main character (the protagonist ). The protagonist's attempts to deal with this incident lead to a second and more dramatic situation, known as the first plot point, which (a) signals

5760-774: The Arts Theatre , in London, prior to transferring to the West End 's Duchess Theatre on 30 May 1960. It starred Donald Pleasence as Davies, Alan Bates as Mick, and Peter Woodthorpe as Aston. The productions received generally strong reviews. Arden, John . Book review of The Caretaker , by Harold Pinter . New Theatre Mag. 1.4 (July 1960): 29–30. Billington, Michael . Harold Pinter . 1996. London: Faber and Faber , 2007. ISBN   978-0-571-23476-9 (13). Updated 2nd ed. of The Life and Work of Harold Pinter . 1996. London: Faber and Faber, 1997. ISBN   0-571-17103-6 (10). Print. Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of

5888-589: 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

6016-556: 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

6144-646: The Duchess Theatre the following month, where it ran for 444 performances before departing London for Broadway. In 1963, a film version of the play based on Pinter's unpublished screenplay was directed by Clive Donner . The movie starred Alan Bates as Mick and Donald Pleasence as Davies in their original stage roles, while Robert Shaw replaced Peter Woodthorpe as Aston. First published by both Encore Publishing and Eyre Methuen in 1960, The Caretaker remains one of Pinter's most celebrated and oft-performed plays. A night in winter Aston has invited Davies,

6272-662: 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

6400-665: 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

6528-770: 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

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6656-517: 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

6784-607: 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

6912-771: 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

7040-736: 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 :

7168-578: 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

7296-596: The Theatre of the Absurd . In the Theatre of the Absurd language is used in a manner that heightens the audience's awareness of the language itself, often through repetition and circumventing dialogue. The play has often been compared to Waiting for Godot , by Samuel Beckett , and other absurdist plays because of its apparent lack of plot and action. The fluidity of the characters is explained by Ronald Knowles as follows: "Language, character, and being are here aspects of each other made manifest in speech and silence. Character

7424-540: 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

7552-526: The " Curtain " line, "What's the game?" (29). Mick demands to know Davies' name, which the latter gives as "Jenkins" (30), interrogates him about how well he slept the night before (30), wonders whether or not Davies is actually "a foreigner"—to which Davies retorts that he "was" indeed (in Mick's phrase) "Born and bred in the British Isles" (33)—going on to accuse Davies of being "an old robber […] an old skate" who

7680-543: 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

7808-479: 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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7936-488: The Absurd . 1961. 3rd ed. New York: Vintage Books , 2004. ISBN   1-4000-7523-8 (10). ISBN   978-1-4000-7523-2 (13). Print. Hickling, Alfred. "The Caretaker: Octagon, Bolton" . Guardian . Guardian Media Group , 13 March 2009. Web . 28 May 2009. (Rev. of production directed by Mark Babych.) Jones, David . "Travels with Harold" . Front & Center Online . Roundabout Theatre Company , Fall 2003. Web . 12 March 2009. ("Online version of

8064-511: 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

8192-507: 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

8320-534: 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

8448-575: The Harbourfront Centre, in Toronto, Canada, Pinter presented a dramatic reading of Celebration (2000) and also participated in a public interview as part of the International Festival of Authors . Three-act structure#Structure As the story moves along, the plot usually progresses in such a way as to pose a yes or no question, the major dramatic question . For example, Will

8576-650: 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

8704-483: The Roundabout Theatre Company's subscriber magazine.") Knowles, Roland. The Birthday Party and The Caretaker : Text and Performance . London: Macmillan Education , 1988. 41–43. Print. 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

8832-691: 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

8960-475: 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

9088-458: 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

9216-405: 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

9344-464: The bag they have fought over and that he was so determined to hold on to "ain't my bag" at all (41). Aston offers Davies the job of Caretaker, (42–43), leading to Davies' various assorted animadversions about the dangers that he faces for "going under an assumed name" and possibly being found out by anyone who might "ring the bell called Caretaker" (44). THE LIGHTS FADE TO BLACKOUT. THEN UP TO DIM LIGHT THROUGH THE WINDOW. A door bangs . Sound of

9472-531: The bag to DAVIES. MICK grabs it . ASTON takes it . MICK grabs it . DAVIES reaches for it . ASTON takes it . MICK reaches for it . ASTON gives it to DAVIES. MICK grabs it . Pause . (39) Davies' confusion, repetitions, and attempts to deceive both brothers and to play each one off against the other are also farcical. Davies has pretended to be someone else and using an assumed name, "Bernard Jenkins". But, in response to separate inquiries by Aston and Mick, it appears that Davies' real name

9600-401: 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

9728-411: The boy get the girl? Will the hero save the day? Will the detective solve the mystery? Will the criminal be caught by law enforcement and brought to justice? Will the protagonist be murdered by the fugitive? This question must be answered in the climax of the story. The answer is often yes ; no ; maybe ; yes, but... ; or no, and what's more... The first act , or opening narration ,

9856-400: The bulb to its socket (45). After a discussion with Davies about the place being his "responsibility" and his ambitions to fix it up, Mick also offers Davies the job of "caretaker" (46–50), but pushes his luck with Mick when he observes negative things about Aston, like the idea that he "doesn't like work" or is "a bit of a funny bloke" for "Not liking work" (Davies' camouflage of what he really

9984-472: The day, Davies awakes with a start, and Aston informs Davies that he was kept up all night by Davies muttering in his sleep. Davies denies that he made any noise and blames the racket on the neighbours, revealing his fear of foreigners: "I tell you what, maybe it were them Blacks" (23). Aston informs Davies that he is going out, but invites him to stay if he likes, indicating that he trusts him (23–24), something unexpected by Davies; for, as soon as Aston does leave

10112-425: The details of his treatment in the mental institution (66–67), leading Aston, in a vast understatement, to respond: "I . . . I think it's about time you found somewhere else. I don't think we're hitting it off" (68). When finally threatened by Davies pointing a knife at him, Aston tells Davies to leave: "Get your stuff" (69). Davies, outraged, claims that Mick will take his side and kick Aston out instead and leaves in

10240-440: The dialogue. Davies uses an assumed name and has convinced himself that he is really going to resolve his problems relating to his lack of identity papers, even though he appears too lazy to take any such responsibility for his own actions and blames his inaction on everyone but himself. Aston believes that his dream of building a shed will eventually reach fruition, despite his mental disability. Mick believes that his ambitions for

10368-458: 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

10496-425: The end of the first act, (b) ensures life will never be the same again for the protagonist and (c) raises a dramatic question that will be answered in the climax of the film. The dramatic question should be framed in terms of the protagonist's call to action, (Will X recover the diamond? Will Y get the girl? Will Z capture the killer?). The second act , also referred to as rising action , typically depicts

10624-465: The end of the play, though the ending is still somewhat ambiguous: at the very end, it appears that the brothers are turning Davies, an old homeless man, out of what may be his last chance for shelter, mainly because of his (and their) inabilities to adjust socially to one another, or their respective " anti-social " qualities. In his 1960 book review of The Caretaker , fellow English playwright John Arden writes: "Taken purely at its face value this play

10752-455: The excuse of having returned for his "pipe" (given to him earlier through the generosity of Aston), Davies turns to beg Aston to let him stay (75–77). But Aston rebuffs each of Davies' rationalisations of his past complaints (75–76). The play ends with a " Long silence " as Aston, who " remains still, his back to him [Davies], at the window , apparently unrelenting as he gazes at his garden and makes no response at all to Davies' futile plea, which

10880-552: 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

11008-481: The flat's set up. Aston suggests adjustments but Davies proves to be callous and inflexible. Aston tells the story of how he was checked into a mental hospital and given electric shock therapy, but when he tried to escape from the hospital he was shocked while standing, leaving him with permanent brain damage; he ends by saying, "I've often thought of going back and trying to find the man who did that to me. But I want to do something first. I want to build that shed out in

11136-542: The garden" (54–57). Critics regard Aston's monologue, the longest of the play, as the "climax" of the plot. In dramaturgical terms, what follows is part of the plot's " falling action ". Davies and Mick discuss the flat. Mick relates "( ruminatively )" in great detail what he would do to redecorate it (60). When asked who "would live there", Mick's response "My brother and me" leads Davies to complain about Aston's inability to be social and just about every other aspect of Aston's behaviour (61–63). Though initially invited to be

11264-464: 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

11392-522: 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

11520-430: 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

11648-495: 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

11776-529: 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

11904-525: 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

12032-473: 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

12160-494: 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

12288-657: 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

12416-414: 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

12544-509: 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

12672-544: The other, more often, they avoid communicating with one another as a result of their own psychological insecurities and self-concerns. The theme of isolation appears to result from the characters' inability to communicate with one another, and the characters' own insularity seems to exacerbate their difficulty communicating with others. As the characters also engage in deceiving one another and themselves, deception and self-deception are motifs, and certain deceptive phrases and self-deceptive strategies recur as refrains throughout

12800-440: 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

12928-519: 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

13056-557: 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

13184-732: 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

13312-653: 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

13440-477: 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

13568-535: The protagonist's attempt to resolve the problem initiated by the first turning point, only to find themselves in ever worsening situations. Part of the reason protagonists seem unable to resolve their problems is because they do not yet have the skills to deal with the forces of antagonism that confront them. They must not only learn new skills, but they also must arrive at a higher sense of awareness of who they are and what they are capable of, in order to deal with their predicament, which in turn changes who they are. This

13696-437: 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

13824-451: 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

13952-656: 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

14080-409: The room (27), Davies begins rummaging through Aston's "stuff" (27–28) but he is interrupted when Mick, Aston’s brother, unexpectedly arrives, " moves upstage, silently ", " slides across the room " and then suddenly " seizes Davies' " arm and forces it up his back ", in response to which "DAVIES screams ", and they engage in a minutely choreographed struggle, which Mick wins (28–29), ending Act One with

14208-630: 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

14336-562: 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

14464-684: 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

14592-418: 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

14720-487: The words when they are at last spoken. The Caretaker is a drama of mixed modes; both tragic and comic, it is a tragicomedy . Elements of comedy appear in the monologues of Davies and Mick, and the characters' interactions at times even approach farce . For instance, the first scene of Act Two, which critics have compared to the hat and shoe sequences in Beckett's Waiting for Godot , is particularly farcical: ASTON offers

14848-705: 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

14976-552: 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

15104-621: Was born and raised in Hackney , east London, and educated at Hackney Downs School . He 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

15232-467: 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

15360-408: 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

15488-635: 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

15616-486: 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 ,

15744-446: 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

15872-471: 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

16000-567: 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 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

16128-407: Was prominent in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a reaction to chaos witnessed in World War II and the state of the world after the war. Billington observes that "The idea that [Davies] can affirm his identity and recover his papers by journeying to Sidcup is perhaps the greatest delusion of all, although one with its source in reality"; as "Pinter's old Hackney friend Morris Wernick recalls, 'It

16256-426: 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

16384-434: Was very introverted, very secretive, had been in a mental home some years before and had had some kind of electrical shock treatment . . . ECT , I think . . . Anyway, he did bring a tramp back one night. I call him a tramp, but he was just a homeless old man who stayed three or four weeks. According to Billington, Pinter described Mick as the most purely invented character of the three. For the tramp, Davies, however, he felt

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