Pinter, Harold

Pinter, Harold (1930- ), major post-war British playwright. The description “comedy of menace”—a phrase first used by the critic Irving Wardle in 1958—has often been applied to Pinter’s cryptic and original plays. In a typical Pinter work the characters attempt and often fail to communicate as they react to an invasion or the threat of an invasion of their narrow lives. Pinter’s dialogue reflects the difficulties inherent in verbal communication and explores the layers of meaning produced by pauses and silence. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005.

He was born on October 10, 1930, to British-born Jewish parents, in Hackney, London, where his father was a tailor. One of his earliest experiences was being evacuated to Cornwall during World War II, and the Blitz became an abiding memory for him. After attending Hackney Downs Grammar School, he gained entry to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), but left to pursue an acting career with various repertory companies touring the British Isles. He was fined in 1949 for his refusal to do National Service.

Pinter’s first short play, The Room, appeared in 1957. His first full-length play to be produced professionally, The Birthday Party, staged at the Lyric Hammersmith in 1958, closed after only a week in the face of hostile reviews from critics, but later went on to be acknowledged as a classic of modern theatre. It was inspired by the playwright’s experience of staying in digs in Eastbourne while working as a jobbing actor. In the play, an out-of-work pianist, Stanley Webber, is visited in a boarding house by two menacing men, Goldberg and McCann, who intimidate him by holding a spurious birthday party in his honour. In The Caretaker, a lonely tramp, Davies, who talks repeatedly of going to Sidcup to collect the papers that will restore some impetus to his aimless life, is offered the job of caretaker of a dingy bedsit by Aston, a young man who bears the psychological scars of electroconvulsive therapy, and his wide-boy brother, Mick. Staged in London in 1960, the play was Pinter’s first major success. Other plays by Pinter include The Dumb Waiter (1960), The Lover (1963), The Homecoming (1965), Old Times (1971), No Man's Land (1975), Betrayal (1978), and Remembrance of Things Past (2000), adapted from the novel by Marcel Proust.

He has also written several shorter works for the stage, including A Kind of Alaska (1982), Mountain Language (1988), Ashes to Ashes (1996), and Celebration (1999), and for television and radio. Among his screenplays are The Servant (1963), The Pumpkin Eater (1964), Accident (1967), The Go-Between (1971), The Last Tycoon (1976), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Handmaid’s Tale (1990), The Comfort of Strangers (1990), The Trial (1993), and Sleuth (2007). He also appeared in The Servant and Accident, as well as acting in the films Mojo (1997), Mansfield Park (1999), and The Tailor of Panama (2001).

In addition to directing his own work, Pinter has directed plays by other writers, such as The Man in the Glass Booth (1967) by Robert Shaw, Butley (1971) by Simon Gray, The Trojan War Will Not Take Place (1983) by Jean Giraudoux, and Oleanna (1993) by David Mamet. His Various Voices: Poetry, Prose, Politics, 1948–1998 was published in 1998. In 2002 Pinter was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus; after surgery and chemotherapy he made a successful recovery. Into his 70s, Pinter continues to act, giving a poignant performance of the Samuel Beckett play Krapp's Last Tape at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in 2006, and be active in political debate, publicly criticizing the UK and US governments’ military action in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. In 2004 he won the Wilfred Owen Award for Poetry for his collection War (2003), a polemic against the War on Iraq. He is married to the writer Antonia Fraser. He was made a CBE in 1966 and a Companion of Honour in 2002.