RESEARCH
ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF THE THEATRE OF HAROLD PINTER ACCORDING TO THREE OF HIS
PLAYS
In this paper, we are going to talk about Harold Pinter, and his
evolution in the theatre world, using three plays: “The Dumb Waiter”(1957), “The
Collection”(1961) and “Party Time”(1991).
Harold Pinter was born in 10 of October in
His career to success began with “The Room” (1957) and with “The Dumb
Waiter”(1957). In these plays, Pinter shows political topics and he represents
the poor communication with the outside. In these plays, the communication
between characters is very poor, they don’t listen to others. In “The Dumb
Waiter” (1957), there are two assassins, who are the main characters. One of
them is timid, weak and younger than the other and he passes the day
complaining about his life, his work…but not about the outside, the society or
the world. The other is more adult, cleverer, and he wants to be the right in
everything. But he isn’t worried about the outside, life or the world, too. And
in this play, the characters don’t change their mind. This play is very comical; because the action
seems to be inexplicable and illogical (one assassin kills the other at the
end). This type of play (comical and illogical) is common in the period of
1957-
Thanks to these plays, Harold Pinter turned into the most important
dramatists in
In 1960, he started writing plays nearer to Realism: in them, the space,
the attrezzo and the stage design
were perfectly described. Plays weren’t so mysterious. They were more realists
and the actions weren’t so illogical and more natural. It could be because
before, Pinter didn’t write to be represented, but now that is his purpose, and
for be represented, he needs to delimit more carefully the space, the atrezzo
and the characters. One play that appeared in this period is “The Collection”
(that talks about adultery). The story is more natural than the story in “The
Dumb Waiter”, more realists, and represents what can occur if it (adultery)
occurs in reality. The characters in this play have characteristics of human
people, more than have the characters in other plays (“The Dumb Waiter”, for
example). They are worried about their life, about what occurs in it. In this
play, it is reflected a social and daily trouble that people can have, and we
can see four different characters that have different characteristics but are
worried about their lives, their relationships, about their troubles… One
character is a good man who helps other one who is in a slum, and gives him a
house and a job. This man falls in love with a married woman. Her husband is
too much jealous. She misleads her husband… These are the characteristics that
these characters have in the play, and represent in a more natural way, people
in reality, in society. But in this play, and in the plays of this period,
Pinter’s handwriting doesn’t change. Appear also the typical silences in
Pinter’s plays, a lot of repetitions like in Pinter’s plays but the mystery and
the fright are disappearing.
In 1991, above all in “Party Time”(1991), seems that Pinter changes the
topic of his plays, but in reality, he returns to politic topics (like in his
first plays where he critics the society and the world), and to other topics
like the distrust in all and the search of the own felicity. In short, follow
Michael Billington (Pinter’s biographer): “Although
the context may radically change, Pinter’s obsessions remain very much what
they always were; the hidden poetry of vernacular speech, the unfathomable
mystery of human existence and the power of memory, however fallible convey the
paradise we have all lost”.
In “Party Time”, appears a lot of characters, but some of them are a man
who has bad-temperament and is jealous, he scorns his wife, is cruel; her wife,
who loves her husband a lot; a man who is a good friend of the previous man and
his wife; an old woman, who is friend of all of them and reminds the party… All
of them, and the rest of characters, are worried about their lives, their
social position, about love… but no about the outside, the world, the society
(it reminds to “The Dumb Waiter”). These characters only want to their
happiness, and forget the rest of people, of society (very different to “The
Collection”, where characters have worries, and were worried about the life and
the world.
To sum up, Harold Pinter has been compared with a lot of authors, but he
is always one of the most important British dramatists after the Second World
War. To summarize, his first plays were influenced in the “Absurd Theatre”, and
in the theatre of Beckett and Kafka. But gradually, his theatre changed to
Realism, and it left the illogical actions and the mystery to become more
realist actions, more normal day after day. And then, Pinter returned to
political topics again, like al first. He turns to write against the society,
the world, the distrust in the felicity, in the modernity, and the search of
the own felicity. Moreover, I want to emphasize one characteristic of Pinter.
He is a social writer, but he leaves that the readers reflect and interpret the
play. This separates Pinter to other writers. In my opinion, Pinter’s plays are
difficult because his sense is confused. But I think that if we make the effort
to understand Pinter’s plays, we can enjoy a lot with them.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/research/fa/pinter.html
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hpinter.htm
http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/h/ha/harold_pinter.html
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0839126.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/pinter/pinter-timeline.shtml