When asked what his favorite play was, Harold Pinter would always say it was the Homecoming. “I like the shape of it. It has a kind of authority which I enjoy”. The scene is set in a family house. The family consists of a butcher (father), a boxer (brother), a pimp (brother) and a chauffeur (uncle). The eldest son, a professor of philosophy, comes home for a visit with his […]
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“Celebration and The Room” by Harold Pinter
The first (The Room) and the last (Celebration) plays that Harold Pinter wrote. Never a dull moment in them. Celebration is a “savage farce”, as Pinter himself put it. The scene is set in an upscale restaurant, where a middle-aged couple celebrates their wedding anniversary. The dialogues are revealing at times, hilarious at others, engaging throughout. The Room, on the other hand, is somewhat subdued. The scene is set in […]
Read more“Ashes to Ashes” by Harold Pinter
I first read about Ashes to Ashes in Harold Pinter’s Nobel lecture “Art, Truth and Politics“, in which Pinter revealed the origin of the play, an image. “Ashes to Ashes, on the other hand, seems to me to be taking place under water. A drowning woman, her hand reaching up through the waves, dropping down out of sight, reaching for others, but finding nobody there, either above or under the […]
Read more“No Man’s Land” by Harold Pinter
Excerpts: “You’re a quiet one. It’s a great relief. Can you imagine two of us gabbling away like me? It would be intolerable.” “Experience is a paltry thing. Everyone has it and will tell his tale of it. … The present is truly unscrupulous. I am a poet. I’m interested in where I am eternally present and active”. “Tell me then about your wife. … How beautiful she was, how […]
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