A Holistic Perspective on Harold Pinter's Drama: Shackles of Anxious Souls 1527551628, 9781527551626

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A Holistic Perspective on Harold Pinter’s Drama

A Holistic Perspective on Harold Pinter’s Drama: Shackles of Anxious Souls By

Aslı Tekinay

A Holistic Perspective on Harold Pinter’s Drama: Shackles of Anxious Souls By Aslı Tekinay This book first published 2023 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2023 by Aslı Tekinay All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-5162-8 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-5162-6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface ...................................................................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 The Room “Trespassed” and the Subsequent Disintegration of Identity .... 15 The Room ............................................................................................ 16 The Birthday Party.............................................................................. 22 A Night Out ......................................................................................... 28 A Slight Ache....................................................................................... 31 Tea Party ............................................................................................ 36 The Homecoming ................................................................................ 39 Private Worlds, Non-Verifiable Pasts, and Reconstructed Memories ...... 49 Landscape ........................................................................................... 54 Silence ................................................................................................. 57 Night ................................................................................................... 58 The Basement ...................................................................................... 59 Old Times ............................................................................................ 62 No Man’s Land ................................................................................... 68 The Collection ..................................................................................... 71 The Lover ............................................................................................ 75 Betrayal............................................................................................... 77 A Kind of Alaska ................................................................................. 80 Moonlight ............................................................................................ 84 Ashes to Ashes ..................................................................................... 88 Power Games and Politics ........................................................................ 93 The Hothouse ...................................................................................... 96 The Dumb Waiter .............................................................................. 101 The Caretaker ................................................................................... 104 One for the Road ............................................................................... 106 Mountain Language .......................................................................... 109 The New World Order ....................................................................... 111 Party Time......................................................................................... 114 Celebration ....................................................................................... 117

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To Conclude: Pinter Precisely… ............................................................ 123 Works Cited ............................................................................................ 127

PREFACE

As a sophomore at the English Department of Bogazici University, I was enrolled in the Modern Drama course taught by a legendary drama professor, Oya Basak. She began her lecture on Uncle Vanya with a brief statement that deeply intrigued me: Chekhov’s drama is an acquired taste. Although I was not exactly sure what she meant at the time, the idea stayed at the back of my mind. Years later, I read my first Pinter play, The Room, which puzzled and attracted me so much that I wanted to read another play. It was followed by more until I finally realized that reading Pinter had become my acquired taste. I was drawn to his mysterious world peopled with enigmatic characters. The result is this book project that aims to take a holistic approach to Pinter’s drama. I want to express my gratitude to Erhan Gulmez for all the support he has given me over the years. With his keen eye for detail, he has devoted a lot of time to the formatting phase of this book. I cannot thank him enough. My dearest sister Sirin, always the joy and pride of our family, listened to my musings and helped me choose a title for the book. Emeritus Professor Cevza Sevgen has been my guide and pillar of support throughout my academic career. For me, no project would be complete without acknowledging the value of her presence in my life. I dedicate this book to my mother, my crown, Sevim Tekinay, and the memory of my dear father, Selahattin Sulhi Tekinay. Istanbul, 2023

INTRODUCTION

British drama in the 1940s and early 1950s was a parade of drawingroom comedies and thrillers set among the upper-middle class. Then, suddenly in 1956, John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger exploded on the stage, giving impetus to what may be called a stage revolution. Labels like Angry Young Man or Angry Theater emerged from the depiction of the play’s hero, Jimmy Porter. “What John Osborne and the Angries did was to break through into the conventional theater by their sheer vitality to encourage young dramatists to believe that plays could be produced, and to release a tremendous amount of energy and interest.”1 Osborne, freeing the stage from the hold of middle-class drama, initiated a new wave in British drama. This was a renaissance and its major dramatists were John Osborne, John Arden, Arnold Wesker, Tom Stoppard, and Harold Pinter, who emerged as the leading figure. Coming from lower-middle-class origins, these dramatists broke down class barriers on stage. This new awakening in British drama went along with an enormous increase in critical and scholarly research that gave rise to two mutually exclusive categories: angry theater which became common parlance through John Russel Taylor’s book titled The Angry Theater and Theater of the Absurd, coined by Martin Esslin in 1961 in his book by that title. Both schools liberated drama from traditional restraints. Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot embodies the subject matter and style of the theater of the absurd. Writing in French, Beckett was the leading exponent of French absurdism whose “sudden outburst may in part be explained as a nihilistic reaction to the recent atrocities, the gas chambers, and the nuclear bombs of the war. Theater of the Absurd revealed the negative side of Sartre’s existentialism and expressed the helplessness and futility of a world that seemed to have no purpose.”2 Beckett’s plays portray man trapped in a universe, totally indifferent to

1

Arnold Hinchliffe, Harold Pinter (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1967), 24. J.L. Styan, Modern Drama in Theory and Practice 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 125. 2

2

Introduction

him, giving the impression that it is an infinite chaos.3 Having no plot to speak of, Beckett’s works created a different convention of drama. Martin Esslin, in Absurd Drama, names Samuel Beckett, Eugene lonesco, Arthur Adamov, Fernando Arrabal, Edward Albee, and Harold Pinter as playwrights coming from different backgrounds but meeting under a large umbrella: the Theater of the Absurd, expressing a sense of shock at the absence or loss of clear and well-defined systems of beliefs or values which lie at the root of the well-made plays of Western Drama. Quoting Ionesco, “absurd is that which is devoid of purpose ... Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless.”4 With its foundations in the existential philosophy of Heidegger, Sartre, and Camus, the theater of the absurd, avoiding discursiveness in dramatizing it, translates existentialism to the stage: its basic theme is the sensation of metaphysical anguish when confronted by the absurdity of the human condition. Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot, are two clown-like figures who eat, sleep, quarrel, and wait endlessly for Godot who does not come to depict the irrationality and purposelessness of the universe in which we live. This is the theme of absurdist drama, revealed in terms of concrete images, rather than plot. Harold Pinter has frequently acknowledged his debt to Samuel Beckett; for Pinter, he is the greatest writer of our time. Harold Bloom calls Pinter “the legitimate son of Beckett.”5 Fortunately, “Beckett has proved to be inimitable,” writes J. L. Styan.6 Due to such critical comments, Pinter is commonly known as a follower of Beckett and an absurdist dramatist. Yet, Pinter deviates significantly from Beckett and the absurdists. In fact, the dramatist detests classification. Saying “What goes on in my plays is realistic, but what I’m doing is not realism,” Pinter hints that angry theater and absurd theater may not be after all irreconcilable.7 Distrusting definitive labels, he insists that he has “never started a play from any kind of abstract idea or theory and never envisaged [his] own characters as messengers of death, doom, heaven, or the Milky Way or, in other words, 3 Aysegül Yüksel, introduction to Samuel Beckett: Bütün OyunlarÕ 1, Samuel Beckett, trans. U÷ur Gün (Istanbul: Mitos Boyut YayÕnlarÕ, 1993), 8. 4 Eugene Ionesco, “Dans les armes de la ville,” Cahiers de la Compagnie Madeleine Renaud-Jean-Louis Barrault, no. 20, (October 1957), quoted in Martin Esslin, Theatre of the Absurd (New York: Penguin, 1991), 14. 5 Harold Bloom, ed., Harold Pinter (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 1. 6 J. L. Styan, Modern Drama in Theory and Practice 2, 134. 7 Harold Pinter, “Writing for Myself,” in Plays Two (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), ix.

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as allegorical representations of any particular force, whatever that may mean.”8 Pinter makes it clear that he does not have a philosophical ax to grind; in other words, he does not build his drama on any current philosophy of the absurd. Recognizing Pinter’s affinities to the absurdists, it can safely be said that in contemporary theater, Pinter’s work is original in method and unique in its effect on the stage. According to Arnold Hinchliffe, Pinter is responsible for “the assimilation of the absurd drama into the British way of life and this ability to fuse European absurdity with the English way of life, the foreign with the native, the timeless and universal with the immediate and local, gives Pinter’s plays a lasting quality.”9 This assimilation is a reconciliation of surface naturalism with a sentiment of absurdity. Although Pinter moves away from realism in a narrow scope, he nevertheless makes use of realistic methods.10 The setting of Pinter’s plays is well-defined; the décor is depicted in its minutest details. The audience knows where they are—a private territory that might as well be theirs. The surrealistic elements that the audience is confronted with in the plays by the European absurdists are completely absent from Pinter’s plays. With the corpse that keeps on growing in the bedroom, the mushrooms sprouting all over the house and the protagonist finally vanishing into the Milky Way, Ionesco’s Amédée is very far removed from Pinter’s realistic depiction of a married couple in Landscape—though in terms of sentiment, the two plays do share a common ground. Likewise, Beckett’s Play, in which three urns occupy the stage and the heads of wife, husband, and mistress—sticking out of those urns—conduct monologues and dialogues, is echoed by Pinter in Silence but in Pinter’s case, there is no shocking poetic image on the stage. As most absurdist plays fall within the symbolist tradition in terms of their imagery, Pinter’s plays stand aloof from that plane of reference. Another basic distinction between Pinter and the absurdists is emphasized by Walter Kerr, according to whom Pinter is the only playwright “who writes existentialist plays existentially.”11 As existentialism at root reverses the ancient Platonic view that essence/idea precedes existence/form, insisting that existence precedes essence, it gives birth to the idea that “man does not come to the planet with an identity; he spends

8

Harold Pinter, “Writing for the Theater,” in Plays One (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), ix. 9 Hinchliffe, Harold Pinter, Preface. 10 Cevat Çapan, De÷iúen Tiyatro (Istanbul: Metis YayÕnlarÕ, 1992), 114. 11 Walter Kerr, Harold Pinter (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 3.

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Introduction

his time on the planet arriving at an identity.”12 Many absurdist playwrights, incorporating existentialist themes into their plays, build their plays as Platonists; that is, they first form an abstract concept of man’s nature and role, the essence, and then present it to us in its original conceptual form, individualizing only very slightly. In these plays “we are not concerned with persons forming themselves; we are concerned with persons inhabiting set forms they cannot escape.”13 Beckett, for instance, starts with the essence of man—lonely, isolated, homeless, helpless, and weak—and then individualizes it with the help of effective images: he takes his curtain up upon a woman buried waist-deep in sand, three people in three urns, a couple confined to ashbins, the immobilized Didi and Gogo waiting under a tree. Thus, Beckett uses the Platonic sequence: he imposes upon the audience a concept that precedes the kind of existence that is presented on the stage. Such is the pattern of all absurdist playwrights. Harold Pinter, however, in line with his assertion that he doesn’t conceptualize in any way, is unique in his transformation of the existentialist sequence (first comes existence, then essence) onto the stage. Pinter’s plays concentrate on the exploratory movement in the void, without the playwright’s preconception. As to the formation of the concept or the essence, it is the job of the audience to derive it from the concrete existence presented on the stage. Pinter’s drama revolves around the theme of man’s existential anxiety and fear which the dramatist approaches not as an abstraction but as something concrete, real, and familiar. Harold Bloom, taking a comment Pinter made about Shakespeare, considers substituting Pinter for Shakespeare: “Pinter writes of the open wound and through him, we know it open and know it closed. We tell when it ceases to beat, and tell it at its highest peak of fever.”14 However, Bloom says, Pinter cannot close any wound whatsoever. As a Jewish dramatist writing in the post-World War II era, Pinter is obsessed with the open wound lying in the heart of humanity: a horror of violence, cruelty, alienation, and isolation in a world governed by power games. Despite Bloom’s efforts to find implicit in the world of Pinter’s dramas the “normative values of the Jewish tradition,”15 the audience comes out of Pinter’s plays with the final sense that our cosmos is the “kenoma”16 of the Gnostics. Such is the cosmos of Beckett’s plays—an emptiness into which we have been thrown after a catastrophe12

Kerr, Harold Pinter, 5. Kerr, Harold Pinter, 7. 14 Bloom, Harold Pinter, 1. 15 Bloom, Harold Pinter, 2. 16 Bloom, Harold Pinter, 2. 13

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creation. In Pinter’s vision, there is no light. Unable to inject a remedy to the individual’s plight in our irrational universe, Pinter ends many plays with the hopeless, broken-down individuals blinded or immobilized. There is absolutely nothing to be done: Stanley’s body shudders, relaxes, his head drops, he becomes still again, stooped [The Birthday Party].17 (Rose stands. clutching her eyes.) ROSE. Can’t see. I can’t see. I can’t see [The Room].18 He [Gus] stops, body stooping, his arms at his sides [The Dumb Waiter].19 She [Flora] crosses to [the blinded] Edward with the tray of matches and puts it in his hands [A Slight Ache].20 Lamb in chair. He sits still, staring, as in a catatonic trance [The Hothouse].21 Disson in the chair, still, his eyes open [Tea Party].22

Pinter calls himself a traditional playwright for writing curtain lines. It is impossible not to catch the irony in Pinter’s statement which is not to be taken seriously because Pinter’s curtain lines never offer a resolution or an ending to the plays. As Pinter says, A play is not an essay, nor should a playwright under any exhortation damage the consistency of his characters by injecting a remedy or apology for their actions into the last act, simply because we have been brought up to expect rain or sunshine, the last act resolution. To supply an explicit

17

Harold Pinter, “The Birthday Party,” in Plays One (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 79. 18 Harold Pinter, “The Room,” in Plays One (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 110. 19 Harold Pinter, “The Dumb Waiter,” in Plays One (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 149. 20 Harold Pinter, “A Slight Ache,” in Plays One (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 184. 21 Harold Pinter, “The Hothouse,” in Plays One (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 328. 22 Harold Pinter, “Tea Party,” in Plays Three (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 139.

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Introduction moral tag to an evolving and compulsive dramatic image seems to be facile, impertinent, and dishonest.23

Instead of a resolution, Pinter’s plays end with the understanding of the audience that there is no future for the characters. The curtain lines imply a terrible state of stasis that promises putrefaction—if not continued stagnation—for the characters concerned. Their visions and their hopes, which are proven to be beyond their grasp, are betrayed in such a way that the future is eliminated from Pinter’s plays. Bernard Dukore draws attention to Pinter’s plays as conforming to the cardinal characteristics of modern tragicomedy. Pinter’s distinctive tragicomedies “not only begin comically and then reach a point where laughter stops, but from that point on, the sources of the noncomic are the same as those of the comic, and they deny the comic qualities they have established.”24 Pinter, while assimilating European absurdity to the British way of life, has largely leaned on the European realist tradition. First of all, his revolutionary introduction of the realistic English language to the English stage made such a great impact that a term like Pinteresque language has found a place in current dramatic criticism. Pinter’s peculiar style earned him the epithet Pinteresque, which is both a mode of repression and an idiosyncratic use of language. In Language and Silence, Esslin cites the most obvious features of Pinteresque language: recurrent tautologies and repetitions, which are employed by the dramatist as the linguistic devices of the realistic tradition. The ancient art of rhetoric with its clear and wellproportioned stage dialogue even persisted in naturalistic drama, in plays by Ibsen or Shaw. What Pinter did to stage language was to purify it from all art and infuse it with illogicalities, repetitions, tautologies, verbal absurdities, and nonsensicalities that abound in everyday language. Pinter’s language of non-communication has its roots in Strindberg and Wedekind, who created characters that talked past each other rather than to each other. As to the oblique dialogue in which the text hints at a hidden subtext, it was brought in by Chekhov.25 Pinter’s trained audience knows that to comprehend the characters, they need to focus on the subtext, the Freudian slips, and compulsive repetitions, for these are the things that give the characters away. Pinter’s realistic language is associative rather 23 Harold Pinter, “Writing for the Theater,” in Plays One (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), X. 24 Bernard F. Dukore, Where Laughter Stops: Pinter’s Tragicomedy (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1976), 4. 25 Martin Esslin, “Language and Silence,” in Harold Pinter, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987),140.

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than logical for association is the principle of spoken language. Cloaked under the apparent absurdity of a Pinteresque dialogue, there is a high degree of realism: MEG. Is Stanley up yet? PETEY. I don’t know. Is he? MEG. I don’t know. I haven’t seen him PETEY. Well then, he can’t be up. MEG. Haven’t you seen him down? PETEY. I’ve only just come in. MEG. He must be still asleep. What

down yet.

time did you go out this morning, Petey? PETEY. Same time as usual. MEG. Was it dark? PETEY. No, it was light. MEG. But sometimes you go out in the morning and it’s dark. PETEY. That’s in the winter. MEG. Oh, in winter. PETEY. Yes, it gets light later in winter. MEG. Oh.26

Guido Almansi calls Pinter “a maestro in orchestrating not small but minute talk: the almost unnoticeable curves in an evasive conversation.”27 Pinteresque dialogue merges into dramatic action in Pinter’s drama. In the early plays, Pinter’s fresh realism lies in his famous depiction of the phonetic stammerer as reflecting his conceptual stammering into phonetics. In the later plays, the treatment of inarticulacy disappears and leaves its place to two new mannerisms: the mannerism of the hard of hearing and the mannerism of the hard of understanding: ROBERT. I thought you knew. JERRY. Knew what? ROBERT. That I knew. That I’ve JERRY. You thought I knew?28

known for years. I thought you knew that.

Pinter’s language functions as a veil that hides the truth locked beneath it. It is a language of insincerity and deceit. In Almansi’s words, Pinter has “never stooped to use the degraded language of honesty, sincerity, or

26

Pinter, “The Birthday Party”, 4-5. Guido Almansi, “Harold Pinter’s Idiom of Lies,” in Harold Pinter, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 102. 28 Harold Pinter, “Betrayal,” in Plays Four (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 186. 27

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Introduction

innocence that has contaminated the theatre for so long.”29 In his early plays, Pinter’s language covers up a contemporary form of terror exploited by the dramatist. It is a sort of angst on a personal level. In his later plays, through language past merges into the present. Harold Pinter wrote for the theatre for half a century, from 1957 to 2007. With its affinities to realism and the absurd, his drama is unique as it defies categorization. The emergence of such terms as Pinteresque dialogue, Pinteresque silence, and Pinteresque curtain line points to the stylistic and linguistic originality of the dramatist. Like his characters, Pinter as the playwright is evasive; he is known for withholding a great deal of information from his audience. Disguising things within one’s chest is a general rule that one breaks at one’s peril in Pinter’s plays. As Peter Hall, Pinter’s most responsive stage director says: “To shout is a weakness. You have to contain everything.”30 Pinter does not shout at his audience; he is a unique playwright who writes obliquely in the postmodernist tradition, refusing all conciliatory blandishments of his audiences. As the death of the author in our post-modernist era has given rise to the birth of the reader, Pinter’s drama has initiated the birth of the audience. Like conceptual art, what is foregrounded in Pinter’s work is the audience’s reaction to it. Pinter allows his reader/ audience to think, get puzzled, and struggle with his own emotional and intellectual incompetence in the process of comprehending whatever is offered to him. While Pinter’s plays may be deemed minimalist on the surface, it is non-arguable that they harbor an intricate web of interpretation beneath what is said and done. As will be discussed in the following chapters, a sense of anxiety and anticipation of violence emanates from Pinter’s plays. Paul Saint-Amour in Tense Future: Modernism, Total War, Encyclopedic Form argues that the anticipation of violence can be regarded as a form of violence as well and bases his argument on the fact that war technologies of the 20th century, particularly aerial bombings of cities, led civilians to traumatizing anticipation of violence.31 This idea modifies the concept of total war, which is customarily defined as a conflict that exempts no one, disregarding any difference between soldier and civilian. The broadened analysis of the concept of total war applies to the very essence of Pinter’s

29

Almansi, “Harold Pinter’s Idiom of Lies,” 89. Peter Hall, “A Directors Approach: An Interview with Peter Hall,” in A Casebook on Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming. ed. John Lahr (New York: Grove Press, 1971), 22. 31 Paul K. Saint-Amour, Tense Future: Modernism, Total War, Encyclopedic Form (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 30

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drama in that constant fear and anxiety of the future engulfs Pinter’s characters. As Stephen Watt argues in Pinter, Time, and Total War, Pinter’s plays abound with allusions to world wars and these allusions do not simply refer to past events in that they “contribute to an anxious temporality well defined by recent articulations of the concept of ‘total war’, a concept that erases distinctions between periods of war and peace and replaces these with a sense of totalizing violence. Inherent to the definition of total war is a sense of foreboding and a future of displacement and unease that is always alive in the present”.32 Stephen Watt’s take on the topic of total war situates Pinter’s drama on fertile ground as it illuminates the ghosts lurking behind all the violence and anxious temporality that is present in the plays. Earlier, Kierkegaard had discussed how anxiety is related to the future and how individuals project their past disturbances to the future. Heidegger, too, in Being and Time sees the past as the source of anxiety and the future as possibility. Within this context, anxious temporality dominates Pinter’s drama. At this point, it is inevitable not to refer to his childhood fears that were deeply rooted in his psyche. As Steven H. Gale quotes from Pinter in Butter's Going Up: A Critical Analysis of Harold Pinter's Work:33 “On the day I got back to London, …I saw the first flying bomb. I was in the street and I saw it come over… There were times when I would open our back door and find our garden in flames. Our house never burned, but we had to evacuate several times”.34 Talking about childhood memories, Pinter once said “I carry it with me. If you really remember everything, you would blow up You can’t carry the burden”.35 Hence, the continuing thread of anxiety and the presence of anxious souls in Pinter’s drama. Pinter’s reference to carrying childhood memories with him and calling them ‘the burden’ is quite worthwhile for it may be regarded as the very foundation of his drama. From his earliest plays onwards, there is usually an overriding sense of anxiety—be it in varying degrees—which hints at 32

Stephen Watt, “Pinter, Time, and Total War,” in Harold Pinter Review, Vol. 1, (State College: Penn State University Press, 2017), 1. 33 Steven H. Gale, Butter's Going Up: A Critical Analysis of Harold Pinter's Work, (Durham N.C.: Duke University Press, 1977). 34 Gale, Butter's Going Up: A Critical Analysis of Harold Pinter's Work, 8. 35 Mel Gussow, “A Conversation [Pause] With Harold Pinter,” The New York Times, (Dec. 5, 1971): 42.

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Introduction

the presence of a ghost lurking behind the seemingly well-defined setting. Not falling into the trap of biographical criticism, Pinter scholars have not ignored the dramatist’s personal ghosts that throw light upon his mysterious plays. Michael Billington, having conducted numerous interviews with the playwright, expresses his inference that Pinter has the ability to retrieve incidents from his own life that occurred 50 years ago, change them and elaborate upon them, and also invest them with dramatic and poetic weight … Pinter’s imagination seems constantly to have been fired by an experience—or the memory of an experience— drawn from his own life… It’s the recollection of an image, a phrase, an experience, an event that seems to ignite Pinter’s muse…His creative imagination is shaped by his own experience and is often fired by the potency of his intensely alive and vivid memory.36

As Billington acknowledges, despite the changes in Pinter’s plays— changes of form, content, topic, class, and milieu—, “what does not change is the obsession with memory, with space and territory, and with the insecurity of the moment and the roles life forces us to adopt or play”.37 In addition to the aforementioned obsessions, there seems to be another constant in Pinter’s plays and that is the expectation of the arrival of the unexpected—hence a shock—on the part of the audience. In David Hare’s words, “…over his work hovers a sort of leonine, predatory spirit which is all the more powerful for being held under in a rigid discipline of form, or a black suit… The essence of his singular appeal is that you sit down to every play he writes in certain expectation of the unexpected”.38 At this point, quoting from Per Wastberg, the chair of the Swedish Academy’s Nobel Committee, is timely. Addressing Harold Pinter, the recipient of the 2005 Nobel Prize, Wastberg said: “In your works, seductively accessible and frighteningly mysterious, the curtain rises on dense life landscapes and harrowing confinement. In poetic images, you

36

Michael Billington, “An Experience of Pinter: Address to the International Conference on Harold Pinter,” Gillen, Francis and Steven H. Gale, ed. 2000. The Pinter Review Collected Essays 1999 and 2000 (Tampa: The University of Tampa Press, 2000), 42-44. 37 Billington, “An Experience of Pinter: Address to the International Conference on Harold Pinter,” 46. 38 David Hare, contribution in Harold Pinter: A Celebration, ed. Richard Eyre (London: Faber and Faber, 2000), 21.

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illuminate an existence where fantasy and the nightmare of reality clash.”39 This study endeavors to throw light upon the quintessence of Pinter’s dramatic world peopled with elusive characters that can never be fully possessed for no one can ever be fully known in this world. Pinter’s plays have often been studied within the context of absurd theatre, as well as both modernist and postmodernist aesthetics. While it is inevitable and even rewarding to associate the output of such a creative and prolific dramatist with literary movements and theories to provide a helpful lens to approach his oeuvre, it should be marked that Pinter writes in a peculiar personal style and one should “beware of easy generalizations”.40 Hence, despite references to vantage points of selected theoretical discourse, this book does not rely on any theory to provide interpretive ground on which to analyze Pinter’s dramatic works.

39 Per Wastberg, “Presentation Speech for the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature,” in The Pinter Review, ed. Francis Gillen and Steven Gale, Vol. 2005-2008. (Tampa: The University of Tampa Press, 2008), 5. 40 Esslin, “Language and Silence,” 243.

“In most modern instances, the interpretation amounts to the Philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.” Susan Sontag

“We are closed in, and the key is turned on our uncertainty.” (William Butler Yeats from The Stare’s Nest by My Window)

THE ROOM “TRESPASSED” AND THE SUBSEQUENT DISINTEGRATION OF IDENTITY

The title of Harold Pinter’s first play, The Room, is probably the most frequently used word in all Pinter criticism. The room constitutes the germ of Pinter’s drama. In one of his rare interviews, published in The Twentieth Century, the playwright said: I certainly don’t write from any kind of abstract idea. And I wouldn’t know a symbol if I saw one. … The germ of my plays? I’ll be as accurate as I can about that. I went into a room and saw one person standing up and one person sitting down, and a 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.41

The evasive nature of Pinter’s remarks concerning the thematical germ of his plays, coupled with his rejection of the traditional notion of definitive statements and of definitive dramatic language, forms the core of the problematics in Pinter criticism. Yet, Pinter’s attachment to that particular constant in his plays, the presence of the room, has led critics to treat the room as the central symbol or metaphor of Pinter’s art, despite the playwright’s own aversion of such terms. According to Susan Rusinko, “Pinter’s rooms are metaphors for the psychological rooms that his characters have built for themselves.”42 Richard Hollis says that the room is “suggestive of the encapsulated environment of modern man.”43 Hedwig Bock regards the room as the key symbol in Pinter’s plays, which “either as room, garden, house or van, gives warmth and protection against a

41 Pinter, “Writing for Myself,” in Plays Two (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), viii-ix. 42 Susan Rusinko, British Drama: 1950 to the Present (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989), 54. 43 James Hollis, Harold Pinter: The Poetics of Silence (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 19.

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The Room “Trespassed” and the Subsequent Disintegration of Identity

threatening world, but is a prison and a threat in itself.”44 Jak Deleon equates the room with a “pseudo-womb, a warm and well-lit area in the middle of the dark and hostile ocean of existence.”45 The room is surely a recurring Pinteresque image of great significance: marking a confined place belonging to one or more people, the room separated from the outside world, from society by a certain door becomes the setting of almost all Pinter plays. As Bock points out, although Pinter gives the impression that society is completely excluded from his plays—most of his characters are borderline cases who do not conform to any norm set by society—we nonetheless know that there is a society functioning outside Pinter’s rooms, and one of the main themes of Pinter’s plays is the threat of the intruder from the outside, from society.46 Thus, entrance(s) to and exit(s) from the room are of vital importance for the situational difference between the before and the after of an entrance is often so drastic and shocking that it constitutes the structural and thematic core around which the play revolves. The change that occurs as a result of the intrusion from the outside into the room is the focal point of a Pinter play. Pinter’s preoccupation with well-defined boundaries within which individuals confine themselves seems to go hand in hand with that fierce insistence on privacy—a hallmark of Pinteresque characters. The outside, as a source of some unknown menace, is not so much of an objective phenomenon as an external projection of an internal fear of attack, annihilation, or imprisonment. According to some critics like Harold Bloom and Martin Esslin, Pinter’s art has some undefined relation to the Holocaust and the horror of violence, of inevitable harm embodied in outside forces has its roots in the dramatist’s Jewish descent.

The Room The Room (1957), Pinter’s first play, is about two people in a room. Apart from the introduction of the room as a central image in Pinter’s drama, the play also incorporates several typical stylistic and linguistic elements that are to abound in Pinter’s later plays. Rose and Bert Hudd are a middle-aged couple living in a shabby room in a large house. The play 44 Hedwig Bock, “Harold Pinter: The Room as Symbol, in Essays in Contemporary Drama,” ed. Hedwig Bock and Albert Weltheim (Munich: Max Hueber Verlag, 1981), 171. 45 Jak Deleon, The Harold Pinter Tradition in Contemporary Drama, (Istanbul: Bogazici University Press, 1986), 20. 46 Bock, “Harold Pinter: The Room as Symbol,” 171.

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opens with Rose fussing over her husband, a van driver, who does not speak to her. Rose’s monologue is on the virtues of the room they live in. Her constant references to the warmth and coziness of the room in sharp contrast to the cold wintry weather outside are significant for they help to build the image of the room as a protective womb. Rose’s obsession with the security of their room where no one bothers them is telling of her identification with the room: the room, all-important for Rose, is kind of a territory that truly belongs to her. It may be a shell or a womb, but whichever is the case, Rose is surely willing to remain in it to preserve the status quo. Rose’s aversion to the basement, dark and damp, is an extension of her fear of everything that lies outside of the room. Interestingly enough, however, her fear is coupled with her curiosity about the outside world. Peeping through the curtains and putting her ear to the door, Rose exhibits a fusion of fear and desire of the external world. If the room is the protective womb, then the embryo rejects the traumatic experience of birth fearing that menace is the ultimate principle of life, while at the same time, it is curious to know what the outside world is like. Rose’s repeated remarks about her happiness and comfort are to be taken as her attempt at disguising her fear of losing the security of the room, her fear of an alien world. Rose needs Bert to respond to her with understanding, comfort, and love but Bert is silent throughout. This is Rose’s struggle: If they ever ask you, Bert, I’m quite happy where I am. We’re quiet, we’re all right. You’re happy up here. It’s not far up either when you come in from outside. And we’re not bothered. And nobody bothers us.47 … This is a good room. You’ve got a chance in a place like this. I look after you, don’t I, Bert? Like when they offered us the basement there I said no straight off. I knew that would be no good... I wonder who has got it now. I’ve never seen them, or heard of them. But I think someone’s down there.48

Bert’s silence as he hears Rose’s extended talk is intriguing in that it is quite open-ended. While it may show plain disinterestedness, it may also be an intentional refusal to acknowledge Rose’s demands to confirm their peace, security, happiness, and their relationship in the ways defined by her. Hence, the unanswered questions lead to an escalating sense of unease in Rose, who seems to be drawn to the basement as well as the windy and 47 48

Pinter, “The Room,” 87. Pinter, “The Room,” 89.

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cold world outside the house in an almost obsessive way. Both the basement and the outside world are presented as filthy and insecure places to be shunned away from; yet, they are a constant blend of curiosity and anxiety for her. The Room contains more than one intrusion into Rose’s house. The first intruder is Mr. Kidd, the landlord, who arrives, and talks but does not communicate. The dialogue between Rose and Mr. Kidd is typically Pinteresque and it is to be linguistically reworked in many other later plays by the dramatist: ROSE. It must get a bit damp downstairs. MR. KIDD. Not as bad as upstairs. ROSE. What about downstairs? MR. KIDD. Eh? ROSE. What about downstairs? MR. KIDD. What about it? ROSE. Must get a bit damp. MR. KIDD. A bit. Not as bad as upstairs though.49

This conversation, like several others in the play, does not point at the failure to communicate but at the intentional refusal to communicate. Pinter seems to be keen on this very distinction which is of vital importance in his dramatic art. In a speech he delivered at the National Student Drama Festival in Bristol in 1962, Pinter said: We have heard many times that tired, grimy phrase: ‘failure of communication’... and this phrase has been fixed to my work quite consistently. I believe the contrary. I think that we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves. Communication is too alarming. To enter into someone else’s life is too frightening. To disclose to others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility.50

Mr. Kidd does not disclose any information about himself, his heritage, or his past. All he says is so vague, strange and contradictory that Rose is left perplexed:

49

Pinter, “The Room,” 92. Harold Pinter, “Writing for the Theater,” in Plays One (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), xiii. 50

A Holistic Perspective on Harold Pinter's Drama: Shackles of Anxious Souls ROSE. I thought you had a woman to help. MR. KIDD. I haven’t got any woman. ROSE. I thought you had one when we first came. MR. KIDD. No women here. ROSE. Maybe I was thinking of somewhere else. MR. KIDD. Plenty of women round the corner. Not

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here though.51

The subtext in Mr. Kidd’s reference to “plenty of women round the corner” may be linked to Rose’s compulsion to peep through the curtains to check out the street. Who are those women? Can there be a connection between Rose and those women? The audience is puzzled. The second intrusion into the room is by a young married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Sands, who are looking for a room in the house. Introducing verbal comedy to the play, the episode of this second intrusion heightens the fear and suspense as Rose learns that a man sitting in the dark basement has told the couple that Room Seven, Rose’s room, is vacant. Mr. Kidd comes again and verifying what the couple has said, informs Rose that the man will not go away unless he sees her. Alarmed by the clear threat at her security, Rose is nonetheless convinced to see the stranger before Bert comes back. In a way, she is drawn to confront that which threatens her, to meet this stranger who says he knows her and who has declared her room vacant. “Like Faust with the poodle, she decides to invite the darkness into her narrow circle of light.”52 This final intrusion into the room is that of a blind black man, named Riley, with whom Rose refuses to have any acquaintance. Her fear, mixed with hostility and detestation at the trespasser, is poured out in a torrent of verbal abuse: …You’ve got a grown-up woman in this room, do you hear? Or are you deaf, too? You’re not deaf too, are you? You’re deaf and dumb and blind, the lot of you. A bunch of cripples. … Well, you can’t see me, can you? You’re a blind man. An old, poor blind man. Aren’t you? Can’t see a dickeybird. … They say I know you. That’s an insult for a start. Because I can tell you, I wouldn’t know you to spit on, not from a mile off53.

51

Pinter, “The Room,” 90. Hollis, Harold Pinter: The Poetics of Silence, 25. 53 Pinter, “The Room,” 106-107. 52

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Rose is terrified as Riley calls her Sal and tells her that her father is expecting her to come back home. Her initial fear and fierce rejection are gradually transformed into sort of a submissive affection towards Riley: RILEY. I want you to come home. ROSE. No! RILEY. With me. ROSE. I can’t. RILEY. I waited to see you. ROSE. Yes. RILEY. Now I see you. ROSE. Yes. RILEY. Sal. ROSE. Not that. RILEY. So, now. (Pause) So, now. ROSE. I’ve been here. RILEY. Yes. ROSE. Long. RILEY. Yes. ROSE. The day is a hump. I never go RILEY. No. ROSE. I’ve been here. RILEY. Come home now, Sal.54

out.

Rose’s transformation from aggression to submission is quite typical of the playwright who—deliberately keeping the past vague—imparts no cause-and-effect comfort to the audience. As Rose starts to touch Riley’s eyes, head and temples with her hands, Bert enters into the room. Moving from one end of the scale to the other, that is from fearful passivity to active passion, Rose presents her own fundamental ambivalence. The intruder into the room is both feared and desired; and as Austin Quigley aptly points out, Riley, as the disrupting intruder, bases his power more on the individual vulnerabilities of Rose than on any other remarkable powers of his own.55 Noting that the blind man is invited in, Rose comes forth not as the victim of an arbitrary trespasser but her own psychology. Her internal conflict as regards her imprisonment in her room is externalized as Bert confronts Riley savagely:

54

Pinter, “The Room,” 108-109. Austin Quigley, “The Room,” In Harold Pinter, ed. Harold Bloom, (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 50. 55

A Holistic Perspective on Harold Pinter's Drama: Shackles of Anxious Souls RILEY. Mr. Hudd, BERT. Lice!

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your wife—

(He strikes the NEGRO, knocking him down, and then kicks his head several times against the gas stove. The NEGRO lies still, BERT walks away. Silence. ROSE stands clutching her eyes.) ROSE. Can’t see. I can’t see. I can’t see.56

The curtain falls on the blinded Rose. Critical attempts at allegorizing the blind black man have been numerous. However, it seems like due to his silence and passivity, Riley functions basically to catalyze, as the much feared but also longed-for trespasser into Rose’s room, the destructive elements already present in the victim’s psyche. Perplexed, Rose is blinded. The pseudo-womb or the shell is shattered not to give birth but to annihilate the existing self. Bert, the husband, gets rid of the intruder by violence only to preserve the wholeness of the room but damage has already been done and there is nothing to be done for that. Rose loses her sight: she no longer can see or perceive. The Room, Pinter’s first play, is paramount for Pinter scholars in that it contains various seeds of later development in his drama. Staged only months after John Osborne’s groundbreaking play Look Back in Anger (1956), The Room (1957) perplexed audiences and critics alike. While Jane Morgan considered the play to be “a series of emotional experiences rather than a concrete development of plot”57 like Beckett’s plays, the eminent Sunday Times theatre critic Harold Hobson remarked that What exactly the plot is, where the elusive landlord really lived, who are the unexplained couple seeking lodgings, why the lorry driver husband is so long mute, what is the parentage of the woman who clings so desperately to shabby respectability, are questions that do not admit of precise solution. They do not need to. The play makes one stir uneasily in one’s shoes and doubt for a moment the comforting solidity of the earth.58

Concurring that The Room is an experience, Hobson poses questions that apply to the majority of Pinter’s plays. While the set seems realistic— even reminiscent of kitchen-sink realism—the characters and the events are ambiguous and mysterious, which will not change throughout the

56

Pinter, “The Room,” 110. Jane Morgan, “Students and the Theatre” Plays and Players Vol. 34 no: 2 (February 1958): 13. 58 Harold Hobson, “Larger than Life at the Festival,” Sunday Times, (July 6, 1969): 52. 57

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dramatist’s long career. The discrepancy between the realistic setting and the unrealistic/ absurd situation is one of the hallmarks of Pinter’s drama. Specifically, the audience is shaken to the core when Rose and Bert, a seemingly ordinary middle-aged couple, act in a completely unpredictable way, thus subverting all that is rational. Bert murders the blind Negro intruder, while Rose loses her sight. Thus, The Room introduces a pattern that will turn out to be quite familiar for the trained Pinter audience: subtextual allusions and linguistic strategies hint at character transformations so masterfully that the audience learns to expect the unexpected.

The Birthday Party The Birthday Party (1958) is Pinter’s first full-length play and also one of his most popular ones. Raymond Williams, who regards Pinter’s drama as the “domestication, in an English theatrical idiom, of what had been a strange form”59, finds in The Birthday Party a skillful adaptation of “what had been the strange world of Kafka, now in an English seaside boarding house.”60 Though, in terms of its atmosphere, the play may be seen as Kafkaesque, it surely is much more Pinteresque, containing all the typical elements of the dramatist’s style: dialogue with its silences and misunderstandings as non-communication, the central image of the room, the theme of the intruder, profound anxiety of the vulnerable character and the problem of unverifiable identity. The room is a boarding house in a seaside resort. The owners are Meg and Petey Boles; the only lodger is Stanley Webber. The intruders are Nathaniel Goldberg and Dermot McCann. The play’s title refers to the birthday party of Stanley, whose birth is to be equated with his death. Around his late thirties, Stanley is incapable of leading an independent life outside and thus, he has taken refuge in this boarding house. An ex-pianist, he has apparently failed or been an outcast as an artist and then retreated into a shell of his own, away from society. In the boarding house where he stays, “he is able to lord it over his adoring landlady [Meg] and gain recognition as a concert pianist of superhuman accomplishment, but even in this protected atmosphere there are menacing intrusions: he cannot banish the memory of arriving to give a recital and finding the hall locked

59

Raymond Williams, “The Birthday Party: Harold Pinter,” in Harold Pinter, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 19. 60 Williams, “The Birthday Party: Harold Pinter,” 19.

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up for there are enemies,” in Irving Wardle’s words.61 Jacqueline Hoefer finds in the play the theme of an “alienated artist opposed to society, an artist accused of social betrayal for having left the organization”62 and states that the playwright expresses the “finality of a post mortem in which the artist has lost his function before the play begins.”63 It seems, however, that approaching Stanley’s plight as that of the alienated artist opposed to society is reading into the play a worn-out cliché. Stanley is a human being, like Rose in The Room, for example, who is simply scared of the outside world. As Pinter put the matter in an interview with Kenneth Tynan in 1960, “people are scared of what is outside the room. Outside the room is a world bearing upon them, which is frightening … We are all in this, all in a room, and outside is a world … which is most inexplicable and frightening, curious and alarming.”64 In many other Pinter plays like The Room, A Slight Ache, and Tea Party, the intruders are passive figures, merely emissaries from the outside world, invited in by the victims themselves. That is why, critical appraisal revolves around their functions as catalysts. In The Birthday Party, however, the intruders force themselves on Stanley. Representing a world of unmotivated cruelty, they give the play an atmosphere reminiscent of Kafka’s novels, The Trial and The Castle. This unidentified threat is actually not much different from that presented by Riley in The Room or the match-seller in A Slight Ache, except for its physical violence. Otherwise, by reminding the victim of the insecurity of the outside and of his own fears, inadequacies, and complexes, the intruders all serve the same function. Whether from a secret organization —as in the case of Goldberg or McCann— or simply from the front of the back gate (the match-seller in A Slight Ache), the intruders come, trespass the secluded territory, confront the victim in different ways and finally break his shell, leaving him utterly helpless and blinded to himself and the outside world. Stanley is obliged to leave the security of his room for an unknown outside.

61 Irving Wardle, The Birthday Party, review of The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter, Encore (July-August 1958): 39-40. 62 Jacqueline Hoefer, “Pinter and Whiting: Two Attitudes Towards the Alienated Artist,” Modern Drama, Vol. 4 (February 1962): 402-408, quoted in Arnold Hincliffe, Harold Pinter (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1967), 50. 63 Hoefer, “Pinter and Whiting: Two Attitudes Towards the Alienated Artist,” 50. 64 Kenneth Tynan, 1960 interview with Harold Pinter quoted in Margaret Rose, Harold Pinter The Birthday Party, educational ed. (London: Faber and Faber, 1993), 18.

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Staged only a year after The Room, The Birthday Party subverted realism as its predecessor had done and in so doing, puzzled critics and audiences who were not yet familiar with Pinter’s methods. As Keith Peacock posits, “For some critics, Pinter’s omission of explicit motive, background and plot was obviously the major obstacle to an understanding of the play. …In the absence of those character and plot details that underpin realism, some critics sought symbolism, but even this apparently turned out to be unenlightening.”65 Needless to say, the confusion came about on account of the dramatist’s revolutionary use of language and stage action, to which British theatre had been unaccustomed until then. While the play resembles la piéce bien faite—with an exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution—, the resemblance does not go beyond a superficial one given the absence of character motivation and unverifiability. Also, the play—starting as a comedy—gradually evolves into horror, which led the critic Irving Wardle to label the play as a “comedy of menace” in the September 1958 issue of Encore. The term stuck to Pinter’s early plays and became a catchphrase for surface comedy that cloaks lurking peril, the cause of anxiety and terror in the character. The beginning of the play is typically Pinteresque: a middle-aged couple Meg and Petey at the breakfast table, with the woman talking in a suffocating manner of motherly attentiveness and self-praise. She is like Rose in that she, too, identifies herself with her room and closes herself to the outside world. Based on a habitual arrangement, Meg’s relationship with her husband, Petey, is far from being a satisfactory one for her. Petey has a job outside; he is an independent person. What Meg needs, however. is someone to concentrate upon, to feed, and to satisfy her sexual desires. As Petey withdraws, Meg adopts Stanley as a substitute son-cum-lover. Meg’s intense concentration on Stanley is suffocating on the one hand; on the other, though, it offers to him the much-desired security and protection of the womb against the dangers of the outside world. Hedwig Bock discusses the oedipal entrapment of Stanley in his attraction to the mother figure and interprets his ultimate blindness as equivalent to the punishment given to Oedipus for having sexual desires for his mother. It is Stanley’s attachment to the seclusion of the womb and his deadly fear of leaving it that make him the helpless victim of Goldberg and McCann. As it is typical in Pinter’s plays, it is first and foremost the vulnerability or fragility of the victim that victimizes him/her. External forces are of 65 Keith D. Peacock, Harold Pinter and the New British Theatre (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1997), 62.

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secondary importance, even to the degree of being imaginary. Similar to that of Rose in The Room, Stanley’s past is left unclear. In a letter he wrote to the director of the first performance of the play, Pinter maintained that “though nonconformist, Stanley is neither a hero nor exemplar of revolt. Nothing salutary for the audience to identify with. And yet, at the same time, I believe that a greater degree of identification will take place than might seem likely.”66 Time has proved Pinter right. The play is considered to be groundbreaking in terms of its depiction of the protagonist as well as enigmatic subtextual channels—linguistic and thematic—that are worked on in so many subsequent plays. Stanley’s extreme fear of the two prospective lodgers and anxiety pertaining to his future is telling of his vulnerability to the unknown. Almost paranoid, he wants Meg to partake in his nightmare: STANLEY (advancing). They’re coming today. They’re coming in a van. MEG. Who? STANLEY. And do you know what they’ve got in that van? MEG. What? STANLEY. They’ve got a wheelbarrow in that van. MEG. (breathlessly). They haven’t. STANLEY. Oh yes, they have. MEG. You’re a liar. STANLEY (advancing upon her). A big wheelbarrow. And when the van

stops, they wheel it out, and they wheel it up the garden path, and then they knock at the front door. MEG. They don’t. STANLEY. They’re looking for someone. MEG. They’re not. STANLEY. They’re looking for someone. A certain person. MEG (hoarsely). No, they’re not! STANLEY. Shall I tell you who they’re looking for? MEG. No! STANLEY. You don’t want me to tell you? MEG. You’re a liar!67

This is like a “prophecy of doom in a Greek tragedy.”68 The doom at stake is the disintegration of Stanley’s shell world, and the destruction of the womb. From the very beginning of the play, Stanley’s identity is mysterious and his personality is unstable and never completely defined. Pinter’s 66

Harold Pinter, “Letter to John Wood,” The Kenyon Review 3, (Summer 1981): 5. Pinter, “The Birthday Party,” 18. 68 Ronald Hayman, Harold Pinter (London: Heinemann, 1968), 21. 67

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concern with identity as unknowable draws him close to Samuel Beckett and other absurdist playwrights. Stanley asks Meg: “Mrs. Boles, when you address yourself to me, do you ever ask yourself who exactly you are talking to?”69 There is no way for Meg to know who Stanley really is because not even Stanley himself knows who he is. That is why, his encounter with the intruders takes the form of a self-confrontation, finally leaving Stanley silent and lifeless, just like a corpse. The new lodgers are invited by Meg to Stanley’s birthday party. Though Stanley rejects that it is his birthday, everyone is more than willing to accept that it is. The birthday party may be seen as a kind of initiation ritual by which Stanley is to be expelled from the room in order to go out into the world. In other words, Stanley is to leave the womb and thus, to be reborn. The violence of the initiation ritual, however, denies the festivity which would accompany rebirth. Instead, gradual death is at stake. Stanley faces his death first with violence, then as violence subsides, with complete submission. During the birthday party, Goldberg and McCann the intruders challenge Stanley’s integrity: GOLDBERG. …Do you know your own face? MCCANN. Wake him up. Stick a needle in his eye. GOLDBERG. You’re a plague, Stanley. You’re an overthrow. MCCANN. You’re what’s left. GOLDBERG. But we’ve got the answer to you. We can sterilize you. MCCANN. What about Drogheda? GOLDBERG. Your bite is dead. Only your pong is left. MCCANN. You betrayed our land. GOLDBERG. You betray our breed. MCCANN. Who are you, Webber? GOLDBERG. What makes you think you exist? MCCANN. You’re dead. GOLDBERG. You’re dead. You can’t live, you can’t think, you can’t

love. You’re dead, you’re a plague gone bad. There’s no juice in you. You’re nothing but an odor.70

Snatching his glasses and breaking them, Goldberg and McCann force Stanley to play blind man’s buff during the party. Stanley seems like a savage man, totally possessed: STANLEY stands blindfold. … STANLEY begins to move, ... MCCANN picks up the drum and places it sideways in STANLEY’s path. STANLEY walks into

69 70

Pinter, “The Birthday Party,” 15. Pinter, “The Birthday Party,” 46.

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the drum and falls over with his foot caught in it. … STANLEY rises. He begins to move towards MEG, dragging the drum on his foot. He reaches her and stops. His hands move towards her and they reach her throat. He begins to strangle her. MCCANN and GOLDBERG rush forward and throw him off.71

The drum is a boy’s drum, Meg’s birthday present for Stanley. Replacing the piano, the drum signifies Stanley’s relation to Meg as her boy. His attempted murder of the mother-Meg during the game played at the party shows his savage desire to escape from the incestuous and suffocating relationship with Meg and to free himself but he cannot do that on his own. Lulu, the neighbor tart joins the party and Stanley, in the darkness, attacks her, trying to rape her. Having refused Lulu’s previous appeals to him to go out of the room, Stanley can only get involved in sex through aggression and violence. In light, with his glasses on, he is completely impotent. Goldberg and McCann clearly draw the contrast between the vicious adult world and the safe world of the child. That corresponds to the contrast between the outside world of threat and the inner world of the room/ womb one of protection and security. Stanley is interrogated: McCann, as an Irish Catholic, challenges him as regards issues of politics and religion (that is, treachery and heresy); whereas, Goldberg, a Jew, attacks him with questions about sex and property. Stanley thinks they are a dirty joke. According to Peacock, “With their transformation into Stanley’s tormentors, the pair become, like the Furies of Greek tragedy, agents of retribution. What Stanley must make retribution for is never made explicit.”72 The ambiguity creates an uncertain terror and implies that Stanley has to conform to be integrated into the outside world. Stanley suffers a nervous breakdown and is completely silent during the last part of the play; he cannot resist the brainwashing of the duo. Stanley loses his freedom, individuality, his language, his vision, and his mental liberty. Goldberg and McCann promise him a new life, a rebirth: GOLDBERG. We’ll make a man of you. MCCANN. And a woman. GOLDBERG. You’ll be re-oriented. MCCANN. You’ll be rich. GOLDBERG. You’ll be adjusted. MCCANN. You’ll be our pride and joy. GOLDBERG. You’ll be a mensch. 71 72

Pinter, “The Birthday Party,” 57-58. Peacock, Harold Pinter and the New British Theatre, 65.

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The Room “Trespassed” and the Subsequent Disintegration of Identity MCCANN. You’ll be a success. GOLDBERG. You’ll be integrated. MCCANN. You’ll give orders. GOLDBERG. You’ll make decisions. MCCANN. You’ll be a magnate. GOLDBERG. A statesman. MCCANN. You’ll own yachts. GOLDBERG. Animals. MCCANN. Animals.73

Stanley gets his broken glasses back, but as he is driven out of the house, he looks like a corpse carried away. His umbilical cord with the womb forcefully cut, he cannot live. In his dark suit and white collar, he is taken away to his funeral. Unable to talk, he assumes the posture of the embryo in the mother’s womb as he is taken out of the house: (… His head lowers, his chin draws into his chest, he crouches.) STANLEY. Ug-gughh … uh-gughhh … MCCANN. What’s your opinion, sir? STANLEY. Caaahhh … caaaahhh …74

The wheelbarrow is Stanley’s funeral carriage. Entrapped in his inadequacies, fears, and impotency, Stanley is driven out of the womb. The traumatic experience, initiated by the trespassers into his territory, has caused an annihilation of the self. In the end, Stanley is in complete darkness. Hence, the irony of the title. The Birthday Party stages a power game between the intruders and the weakling secluded in the seaside resort. Stanley, who cannot win the nightmarish game, has no option other than conforming to his oppressors. With his clean-shaven face, wearing a white shirt and a dark suit, Stanley is not his old self; he is broken down.

A Night Out A Night Out (1960) can be read as a companion piece to The Birthday Party, in a way offering Stanley Webber’s early case history. Again, revolving around the room-womb image, the play is devoid of mystery and intrusion which produces menace. Pinter maintains a realistic level throughout the play. 73 74

Pinter, “The Birthday Party,” 77-78. Pinter, “The Birthday Party,” 78-79.

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Albert Stokes, a twenty-eight-year-old young man, lives with his mother, a dominant figure in the house. A widow, Mrs. Stokes is modeled on Meg in The Birthday Party. The play opens with Albert desperately trying to get out of the house to join a farewell party organized for one of his colleagues: (shocked surprised). You’re going out? You know I’m going out. I told you I was going out. I told you last week. I told you this morning. Look, where’s my tie? I’ve got to have my tie. I’m late already. Come on, Mum, where’d you put it? MOTHER. What about your dinner? ALBERT (searching). Look … I told you … I haven’t got the… wait a minute … ah, here it is. MOTHER. You can’t wear that tie. I haven’t pressed it. ALBERT. You have. Look at it. Of course, you have. It’s beautifully pressed. It’s fine. (He ties the tie.) MOTHER. Where are you going? ALBERT. Mum, I’ve told you, honestly, three times. Honestly, I’ve told you three times I had to go out tonight. MOTHER. No, you didn’t. (Albert exclaims and knots the tie) I thought you were joking.75 MOTHER ALBERT.

Trying to prevent Albert from leaving the seclusion of the home, the mother is quite melodramatic in her behavior. For the possessive mother, home represents safety, sanity, and clean living: if he wants to go out, even if for just one evening, it must be because he is leading an unclean life and “mucking about with girls.”76 She makes Albert promise that he will not upset his father: ALBERT.

My father? How can I upset my father? You’re always talking about upsetting people who are dead! MOTHER. Oh, Albert, you don’t know how you hurt me, you don’t know the hurtful way you’ve got, speaking of your poor father like that. ALBERT. But he is dead. MOTHER. He’s not! He’s living! (Touching her breast.) In here! And this is his house! (Pause.) ALBERT. Look, Mum, I won’t be late … and I won’t … MOTHER. But what about your dinner? It’s nearly ready. ALBERT. Seeley and Kedge are waiting for me. I told you not to cook dinner this morning. Just because you never listen …

75

Harold Pinter, “A Night Out,” in Plays One (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 333. 76 Pinter, “A Night Out,” 359.

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MOTHER.

Well, what am I going to do while you’re out? I can’t go into Grandma’s room because there’s no light. I can’t go down to the cellar in the dark, we were going to have a game of cards, it’s Friday night, so what about our game of rummy?77

Albert leaves home with an extremely guilty conscience. He breaks away from the formerly inescapable room womb of Pinter’s earlier play. What awaits him in the outside world, however, is nothing but disappointment. His colleagues at the party scorn him and make fun of his weaknesses. Returning home, Albert comes to the verge of killing his mother who receives him with bitter reproaches for leaving her. Maddened by her, he storms out of the house and ends up in a coffee stall where he is picked up by a prostitute. Though he goes home with her, he feels unable to dissociate from his mother and the girl becomes the indirect victim of his impotent rage against his mother. Albert returns home to his mother as the only haven he knows, only to be confronted once again with the reality: a tight, suffocating grip on his neck. Nothing has changed; his mother has forgiven him: I’m going to forget all about it. We’ll have your holiday in a fortnight. We can go away. … We’ll go away ... together. (Pause.) It’s not as if you’re a bad boy... you’re a good boy … I know you are … it’s not as if you’re really bad, Albert, you’re not … you’re not bad, you’re good … you’re not a bad boy, Albert, I know you’re not …78

The tone of defiance in A Night Out and the absence of a resolution at the end make it easier for the Pinter critic to speculate a future for the protagonist, Albert. Breaking out of the destructive possessiveness of the room, though it is temporary, Albert encounters hostility and estrangement outside, fails, and returns to the room. The play offers enough evidence that Albert’s stay in the room-womb will not be long; there will be other nights out or perhaps longer flights away from it. As such, it is possible to see Albert as Stanley’s younger self: unable to function out of his mother’s protective periphery, Albert may find shelter in another room, with a mother-substitute figure.

77 78

Pinter, “A Night Out,” 335-336. Pinter, “A Night Out,” 375.

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A Slight Ache A Slight Ache (1959) is in many ways quite similar to The Room: changing his setting to an upper-middle-class country house occupied by a middle-aged couple—Edward and Flora—, Pinter once again dwells on an intrusion into the confined territory and its effects. The comfortable lifestyle of the couple is disrupted by an old match seller who, like Riley in The Room, is invited into the house. Excelling Riley’s passivity in his utter silence, the match seller, too, catalyzes the ultimate destruction of the couple’s marriage and the husband’s self-annihilation. Some critics interpret the confrontation of the match seller with the elegant, well-to-do gentleman on a social level. According to Augusta Walker, the match seller is a victim of the upper classes, “a specter of his class, their [Flora and Edward’s] discarded refuse come to haunt them.”79 Walker’s stance presents the play revolving around a theme of social tension, which—it must be admitted—is not in line with Pinter’s understanding of his own drama. As the match seller enters Edward and Flora’s lives, layer after layer of their comfortable existence peels off, and the play ends with Flora embracing the old man and placing his tray of matches, which are useless, around the blinded Edward’s neck. The play opens in the luxurious garden, with the couple conversing about honeysuckles, roses, and japonicas. The overtly floral poetic imagery of the opening scene has its counterparts in several other Pinter plays as fantasy imagery of food and furniture. Such imagery often presents a contrast to the animal appeal of one or more characters in the plays. In A Slight Ache, the floral imagery is contrasted with Edward’s savage instincts to protect himself and his territory on the one hand, and with the match seller’s animal appeal, on the other. In A Slight Ache, the image of the room is extended to a large garden and house, which in their elegance and sophistication define the social status of Flora and Edward, a former businessman and an intellectual writing on space and time. The tense dialogue with which the play starts is first on flowers, then it becomes argumentative in manner on whether wasps bite or sting. It ends with Edward finally killing the wasp by trapping it in the marmalade pot and then pouring boiling water onto it: FLORA. Kill it. EDWARD. Ah, yes.

Tilt the pot. Tilt. Aah … down here … right down … blinding him … that’s … it. FLORA. Is it? 79

Augusta Walker, “Messages from Pinter,” Modern Drama, 10, (May 1967):10.

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The Room “Trespassed” and the Subsequent Disintegration of Identity EDWARD.

Lift the lid. All right, I will. There he is! Dead. What a monster. (He squashes it on a plate.) FLORA. What an awful experience. EDWARD. What a beautiful day it is.80

The great satisfaction with which Edward kills the wasp, the first intruder in his territory, and his ensuing indifference towards it serve as a foreshadowing of a later malady. The way Edward kills the wasp by pouring hot water through the spoon hole of the pot mixed with the genuine fear the couple feels of the wasp is comic. The comedy, however, is to be denied as Edward himself is later destroyed in the presence of the match seller whose body he says is like jelly. As the wasp is dispatched, Edward starts to complain of a slight ache in his eyes. The ache intensifies as the protective shell which the couple has built around themselves starts to crack only to end in complete disintegration accompanied by Edward’s retreat into utter darkness. The second intrusion into the territory is by an old match seller who has been standing in the same spot right in front of the back gate for two months. Edward’s and Flora’s peculiar feelings towards the old man are a fusion of fear, antagonism, and curiosity, in a manner that is reminiscent of feelings of Rose towards Riley in The Room: FLORA. Do you find him interesting, Edward? EDWARD (casually). Interesting? No. No, I … don’t find him interesting. FLORA. He’s a very nice old man, really. EDWARD. You’ve spoken to him? FLORA. No. No, I haven’t spoken to him. I’ve nodded. EDWARD (pacing up and down). For two months he’s been standing on that

spot. Do you realize that? Two months. I haven’t been able to step outside the back gate. FLORA. Why on earth not? EDWARD (to himself). It used to give me great pleasure, such pleasure, to stroll along through the long grass, out through the back gate, and pass into the lane. That pleasure is now denied me. It’s my own house, isn’t it? It’s my own gate.81 … FLORA. Good Lord, what’s that? Is that a bullock let loose? No. It’s the match seller! My goodness, you can see him … through the hedge. He looks bigger. Have you been watching him? He looks … like a bullock.82 80

Pinter, “A Slight Ache,” 158. Pinter, “A Slight Ache,” 159-160. 82 Pinter, “A Slight Ache,” 161. 81

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… Why don’t you call the police and have him removed? (He laughs. Pause.) Why don’t you call the police, Edward? You could say he was a public nuisance. Although I … I can’t say I find him a nuisance. EDWARD. Call him in. FLORA. Me? EDWARD. Go out and call him in. FLORA. Are you serious? (Pause.) EDWARD. I could call the police or even the vicar. EDWARD. Go and get him.83

The old man is invited in by Flora. His identity being unknown, he does not break his silence throughout the play. With the completely passive role that he plays, the match seller becomes no more than a mirror to which Edward and Flora act out their inadequacies, hidden fears, and desires. Each encounters the old man alone, with the result being the destruction of a marriage, the establishment of a different order, and the disintegration of Edward’s identity. As in the case of Riley in The Room, the threat is not located in the intruder, but inside the characters themselves. It is through the old man that they turn their eyes inward to face what has been ignored or repressed for a long time. Neither Flora’s flowers nor Edward’s books were adequate to cover up their respective voids, their fears, and demands. As the uneasiness of the couple increases due to the silence of the old man, they feel irritated and challenged to express their thoughts compulsively, Edward’s interview with the match seller is based on questions not answered in return. Arousing laughter at the start, due to the verbal repetitions, clumsy diction, and inappropriateness to the particular situation, Edward’s monologue gradually denies comedy as his speech reveals itself as a mask for his insecurity, with Edward asking the old man: “You haven’t been laughing. You’re crying. (Pause.) You’re weeping. You’re shaking with grief. For me. I can’t believe it. For my plight. I’ve been wrong.”84 Edward’s first speech is on his personal history: bragging about his intellectual background, his cultural scope, his wife, and his house, he tries to preserve the poise he has been used to wearing. Towards the end of that speech, however, Edward’s mask starts to fall off: “I bought all the furniture in this house in a sale. The same sale. When I was a young man. You too, perhaps. You too, perhaps … At the same time, perhaps!”85 83

Pinter, “A Slight Ache,” 163-164. Pinter, “A Slight Ache,” 181. 85 Pinter, “A Slight Ache,” 171. 84

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Unable to settle the problem of who or what the match seller is, he, nonetheless, pretends to be in control of the matter as Flora questions him: FLORA. You’re not still frightened of him? EDWARD. Frightened of him? Of him? Have you seen him? (Pause.) He’s like jelly. A great bullock fat of jelly. He can’t see straight. I think as a matter of fact he wears a glass eye. He’s almost stone deaf … almost … not quite. He’s very nearly dead on his feet. Why should he frighten me? No, you’re a woman, you know nothing. (Slight pause.) But he possesses other faculties. Cunning. The man’s an imposter and he knows I know it.86

As Flora takes over the problem of solving his identity, the play takes on a different note: Do you know, I’ve got a feeling I’ve seen you before, somewhere. Long before the flood. You were much younger. Yes, I’m really sure of it. Between ourselves, were you ever a poacher? I had an encounter with a poacher once. It was a ghastly rape, the brute. High up on a hillside cattle track. Early spring. I was out riding on my pony. And there on the verge a man lay—ostensibly injured, lying on his front, I remember, possibly the victim of a murderous assault, how was I to know? I dismounted, I went to him, he rose, I fell, my pony took off, down to the valley. I saw the sky through the trees, blue. Up to my ears in mud. It was a desperate battle. (Pause.) I lost. (Pause.) Of course, life was perilous in those days. It was my first canter unchaperoned.87

This Lawrentian rape scene from Flora’s past, or more likely her imagination, is followed by her attempted seduction of the old man. Using her chiffon, caressing his body, and talking about love and sex, Flora verbalizes her hidden fantasies. Quite clearly, indeed, Flora betrays Edward. Giving a name to the old man—Barnabas, Flora says: My husband would never have guessed your name. Never. (She kneels at his feet. Whispering.) It’s me you were waiting for, wasn’t it? You’ve been standing waiting for me. You’ve seen me in the woods, picking daisies, in my apron, my pretty daisy apron, and you came and stood, poor creature, at my gate, till death we do part. Poor Barnabas. I’m going to put you to bed.

86 87

Pinter, “A Slight Ache,” 173. Pinter, “A Slight Ache,” 174-175.

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… And I’ll buy you pretty little things that will suit you. And little toys to play with. On your deathbed. Why shouldn’t you die happy?88 (176)

Connecting sexuality with a man’s childlike dependence, Flora projects onto the old man her innermost desires. Barnabas becomes for her the desirable and submissive combination of child, husband, and lover that the dominant Edward could never be. However, during the final interview with the intruder, Edward’s self-contained façade cracks, to bring out the naked self in all its fragility. The unidentifiable intruder into his well-defined territory makes Edward lose his sense of security and clarity of vision. The ache in his eyes intensifies: …Yesterday now, it was clear, clearly defined, so clearly. (Pause.) The garden, too, was sharp, lucid, in the rain, in the sun. (Pause.) My den, too, was sharp, arranged for my purpose … quite satisfactory. (Pause.) The house, too, was polished, all the banisters were polished, and the stair rods, and the curtain rods. (Pause.) My desk was polished, and my cabinet. (Pause.) I was polished.89

Edward’s sight worsens. He can no longer see if the old man is laughing or crying. Together with his sight, his psychological deterioration is observable. Edward falls to the floor and with a great, final effort he asks in a whisper, “Who are you?”90 The question denies the comic quality it had at the beginning for it now has adopted a self-reflexive quality. Imperceptive about flora and Flora and their marriage and himself, Edward ultimately loses his sight. He no longer knows who he is. Blinded to the external world, Edward’s curiosity for the unknown intruder has proved to be destructive. Once again, the menace lies not in the external force but in the self-confrontation of the victim. As Flora comes into the room, ignoring the blinded Edward, she offers Barnabas her hand: The summer is coming. I’ve put up your canopy for you. You can lunch in the garden, by the pool. I’ve polished the whole house for you. Take my hand. … Yes. Oh, wait a moment. (Pause.) 88

Pinter, “A Slight Ache,” 176-177. Pinter, “A Slight Ache,” 179. 90 Pinter, “A Slight Ache,” 183. 89

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The Room “Trespassed” and the Subsequent Disintegration of Identity Edward, here is your tray.91

The curtain falls on the utterly defeated Edward now carrying the match tray. As he has failed to destroy the second intruder of the day, the first being the squashed wasp, Edward has moved towards a final identification with the old man. Edward is silent and blinded. Confronted with his inner void, he cannot get over the shock of this recognition and he finally breaks down.

Tea Party Tea Party (1965), with the by-now-familiar Pinteresque images of the room and the intruder, is based on the gradual deterioration and finally the downfall of Disson, an industrial tycoon. In this case, however, Pinter plays with the imagery and gives it a fresh twist. Disson’s room is a modern office from which wealth and power emanate. As to the intruders into his self-constructed cocoon, they are his newlywed wife, his brotherin-law, and his new secretary. The way this triad, which step-by-step is transformed into a triumvirate, works on Disson’s psyche is quite inscrutable and mysterious, as it is characteristic of Pinter’s plays. In this case, however, to attribute a catalytic function to the presence of the triad is not as easy as it was in The Room and A Slight Ache. As the play’s perspective is Disson’s point of view, it is not possible to rely on what he sees for his perception gets blurred as he has problems with his sight. So, it is not possible to figure out whether the peculiar threesome—Disson’s wife, secretary, and brother-in-law is indeed a unified group working together to destroy Disson or merely reflections of the devils playing in Disson’s psyche. In other words, we cannot know if what Disson sees is real or imaginary. The main character of Tea Party, Disson, is reminiscent of Edward in A Slight Ache: a well-to-do, self-made businessman, he seems confident of his achievements in life and of his ability to be in control of everything around him. The opening scene of the play takes place in Disson’s luxuriously furnished office papered with Japanese silk all around. A humorous contrast to such elegance is the presence of individually designed wash basins, water closets, and bidets, all lit by hooded spotlights and set in alcoves along the walls. A manufacturer of sanitary ware, Disson’s pride in the early part of the play during the interview with his secretaryto-be, Wendy, suggests comedy. Indeed, it is characteristically Pinteresque 91

Pinter, “A Slight Ache,” 184.

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that a play, which starts humorously, promising comedy and evoking laughter, is gradually transformed in such a way that laughter begins to erode and comedy is totally denied at the end. In Tea Party, Disson’s brag about his bidets, a far cry from heroic accomplishment, is comic for it points at self-deception and the absence of realistic perspective. The triviality or marginality of what Disson is engaged in is comically contrasted with his pompous description of the sort of person he dislikes. This also anticipates what is to befall him: I think I should explain to you the sort of man I am. I am a thorough man. I like things to be done and done well. I don’t like dithering. I don’t like indulgence. I don’t like self-doubt. I don’t like fuzziness. I like clarity. Clear intention. Precise execution. … But I’ve no patience with conceit and self-regard. A man’s job is to assess his powers coolly and correctly and equally the powers of others. Having done this, he can proceed to establish a balanced and reasonable relationship with his fellows. … It seems to me essential that we cultivate the ability to operate lucidly upon our problems and therefore be in a position to solve them.92

According to Bernard Dukore, Tea Party focuses on “sense and sensuality.”93 In Dukore’s discussion of the play, sense refers to the physical sense of sight: sense and sensuality are initially sources of comedy but when the protagonist loses his sense of sight, comedy stops, as it does when he notices or imagines that the two women in his life engage in sexual activity with another man.94 Finally, the comic qualities of sense and sensuality are denied. However, it is also possible to interpret sense in an Austen-like context: the conflict between Disson’s sense and sensuality brings about his downfall. There is a great tension between his rational self, culminating in his desire for social status and respectability, and his sensual self, desperately longing for an attractive female body. His rational self is attracted to Diana his wife; whereas, his sensual self is attracted to Wendy, his secretary. Trying to forget his slum youth in the upper-class milieu he is now included in, Disson’s repressed inferiority complex mixes with his feelings of guilt born of his lust for Wendy. Disson’s security and certainty in his office are totally destroyed by the intrusion of Wendy, Diana, and Willy. Disson, who, before the intrusion was a successful businessman that would hire, acquire, and command by himself, becomes a man whose abilities are undercut. The triad, upon 92

Pinter, “Tea Party,” 104-105. Dukore, Where Laughter Stops: Pinter’s Tragicomedy, 47. 94 Dukore, Where Laughter Stops: Pinter’s Tragicomedy, 47. 93

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Disson’s invitation, enters his life and gets hold of his life and his business. Everything runs smoothly. Diana, his wife, starts to work in his company to be closer to him. Willy, his brother-in-law, becomes his general manager. Wendy, rather curiously, imprisons him to the degree that in this net, Disson is entangled. Losing his sight, Disson is unable to see. Physically, however, the doctor can find nothing wrong in his eyes. Yet, Disson is troubled: “…Most of the time … my eyesight is excellent. It always has been. But … it’s become unreliable. It’s become … erratic. Sometimes, quite suddenly, very occasionally, something happens … something … goes wrong … with my eyes.”95 It is not only his physical sight but also his perception of himself and others around him that becomes unreliable. Just like in The Room, A Slight Ache, and The Birthday Party, in Tea Party, too, physical blindness is accompanied by (or perhaps one should say that it is equated with) metaphorical blindness as regards the individual’s own identity, his relation to others, and his place in the world. Unable to establish a balanced relationship between his rational self and his emotions, Disson’s eyesight fails as he turns his eyes inward and encounters his true nature, which is in sharp contrast with the security and confidence emanating from his façade. With a chiffon tied around his aching eyes, the great industrialist, Disson is on all fours, eavesdropping to understand what is happening in the office adjacent to his. What he manages to see is the incestuous and lesbian relationship among the members of the triad—Wendy, Diana, and Willy. Disson’s vision is destroyed. The chiffon around his eyes is replaced by a tight bandage. He is now in utter darkness. His secretary, his wife, and his brother-in-law run things very efficiently in the company. As guests gather for the tea party, Disson’s absence does not attract too much attention. Suspicion, jealousy, and a growing fear of inadequacy have entangled Disson. As his paranoia increases, he sees everyone in conspirational postures, whispering together, discarding him from themselves. Possessed by self-doubt, with unclear perception, Disson diminishes more and more, to end in paralysis which is reminiscent of Melville’s Bartleby: falling to the floor in his chair, Disson cannot be pulled up from the chair by his family. WILLY. Anyone would think he was chained to it! DISLEY (pulling). Come out! MOTHER. Bobbie! (They stop pulling. DISSON in the chair, still, his DIANA comes to him. She kneels by him.) 95

Pinter, “Tea Party,” 112.

eyes open.

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DIANA.

This is …Diana. (Pause.) Can you hear me? (Pause.) Can he see me? (Pause.) Robert. (Pause.) Can you hear me? (Pause.) Robert, can you see me? (Pause.) It’s me. It’s me, darling. (Slight pause.) It’s your wife. (DISSON’s face in close-up. DISSON’s eyes. Open.)96

The curtain falls on Disson’s open eyes which no longer see. They look into an empty darkness; bereft of its previous order, clarity, and light. Security is lost, as is the certainty of identity.

The Homecoming A hallmark in Pinter’s career as a dramatist, The Homecoming (1965) is generally regarded as Pinter’s best play. The play contains all of Pinter’s favorite images and themes: the room, the intruders, the elusive nature of reality, the discrepancy between the façade and the truth locked behind it, power games, and physical and verbal violence … The intrusion into the room, however, does not initiate the familiar pattern of confrontation with and victimization by (or merely due to the presence of) the intruder. In this case, it is not clear at all who the victimizer and the victim are. The play has elicited a wide variety of interpretations and the target and form of the victimization have changed according to the point of view adopted. One approach to The Homecoming sees the theme of victimization exercised in reverse: it is not the inhabitant(s) of the room but the intruders who are entrapped. In other words, menace lies within the room, rather than outside. The plot of the play is a rather conventional one; the boy brings his bride to meet his family. It is their homecoming, but certainly a very different one. First of all, this is a male household. Devoid of any 96

Pinter, “Tea Party,” 139-140.

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touch of feminine affection, life in this house is based on aggression and violence. The father, Max, is an ex-butcher; Joey, the son, is a boxer; Lenny, the other son, is a pimp. As to Max’s brother, Uncle Sam, who somehow stands apart from the group, he is a cab driver. Teddy, the third son, is a philosophy professor in the United States and after six years, he returns home for a visit with his wife, Ruth. Teddy and Ruth are the intruders, who are welcomed by the family with mixed feelings: Teddy, with hostility, envy, and love; Ruth, with hatred, detestation, and longing. This intrusion initiates a peculiar and shocking arrangement which is to change the established order: Ruth and Teddy separate, with Ruth staying with the family as their common whore and Teddy returning to his home. The simplicity of the plot, however, hides behind it an intricate study of psychic ambiguity: the Oedipal syndrome, the Jungian archetypal with the father-son contest, the fertility rite on the sofa, the tribal sharing of the woman’s body … The Homecoming is perhaps Pinter’s most complicated study in character psychology, which as it is typical with the dramatist is revealed by the character’s way of dealing with whatever happens to be in his experience. In this play, the psychological drives of the characters come to the foreground through their shocking speeches and actions. Bert States, in Pinter’s ‘Homecoming’: The Shock of Nonrecognition, writes: It would be hard to conceive an action, in modern ‘family’ terms, which violates so many of our moral scruples with so little effort and so little interest in making itself credible. You may read causes into it, but the causes pale beside the facts, like the page of repentance at the end of a dirty book. The whole thing has about it a blatant improbability and artifice which depends not upon our sympathizing, or understanding its origins, but upon our seeing how far it has taken its possibilities … The reaction one has to the play comes nowhere near Pity and Fear, or any of their weaker derivatives, but is better described as astonishment at the elaboration. And it is precisely this quality of astonishment that is apt to disappear from any thematically oriented recovery of the play.97

Though States may have a valid point of reference in his assertion that a thematically oriented recovery of the play would deprive the play of its astonishing (or shocking) qualities; the same problem applies to most Pinter plays and doing so seems to be inevitable. The destructive forces or the menace inherent in the room are quite undeniable from the beginning of the play onwards. The relationship 97 Bert States, “Pinter’s Homecoming: The Shock of Nonrecognition,” in Harold Pinter, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 9-10.

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between the father, Max, and his son, Lenny, is based on violence and aggression. Lenny is devoid of any respect for old age, and Max of any fatherly affection towards his son. The two men, insulting one another, are constantly on the verge of physical attack. Max even tries to hit Lenny using his walking stick, which a critic interprets as “a phallic symbol of old age and impotence.”98 Verbal games among the family members seem to stem from their struggles for power or dominance within the family: Lenny calling Max sexless; Max bragging to Lenny about his gifted ability to deal with horses, a sex symbol; Max and Lenny challenging Sam’s claim to respectability as a first-class driver and revealing their doubts as to his still being a bachelor … Moreover, Max’s ambivalent attitude towards his dead wife, Jessie, the mother of his children, in a way foreshadows what is to befall Ruth: “Mind you, she wasn’t such a bad woman. Even though it made me sick just to look at her rotten stinking face, she wasn’t such a bad bitch. I gave her the best bleeding years of my life, anyway.”99 Even in his memories, Max establishes highly aggressive contact with Jessie. His relationship with Ruth, his bride, too, is modeled on his relationship with Jessie. For Max, Lenny, and Joey the father and the sons, the mother-whore image seems to be the only female image they are familiar with. For these men, suffering from an oedipal syndrome, the mother-whore type of woman is the only type of woman they can form contact with, through scorn and debasement. Lenny, in his very first encounter with Ruth, simply ignores the fact that she is his brother’s wife. Insulting Ruth, he tries to scare her off by proving his masculine dominance over her. The stories he tells her—imaginary or real—reveal his inherent hostility and aggression towards women. He tries to maintain his dominance over Ruth, but the attempted game works in reverse with the experienced mother-whore defeating him: LENNY. … And now perhaps I’ll relieve you of your RUTH. I haven’t quite finished. LENNY. You’ve consumed enough, in my opinion. RUTH. No, I haven’t. LENNY. Quite sufficient, in my opinion. RUTH. Not in mine, Leonard.

glass.

(Pause) LENNY. Don’t call RUTH. Why not? LENNY. That’s the 98

me that, please. name my mother gave me.

Bock, “Harold Pinter: The Room as Symbol,” 179. Harold Pinter, “The Homecoming,” in Plays Three (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 17.

99

42

The Room “Trespassed” and the Subsequent Disintegration of Identity (Pause) Just give me the glass. RUTH. No. (Pause) LENNY. I’ll take it, then. RUTH. If you take the glass … I’ll take you. (Pause) LENNY. How about me taking the glass without you taking me? RUTH. Why don’t I just take you? (Pause) LENNY. You’re joking. … RUTH. … Sit on my lap. Take a long cool sip. … Put your head back and open your mouth. LENNY. Take that glass away from me. RUTH. Lie on the floor. Go on. I’ll pour it down your throat. LENNY. What are you doing, making me some kind of proposal?100

Lenny’s struggle for power fires back as Ruth, calling him Leonard and inviting him to sit on her Lap, asserts her motherly dominance. Just like a boy, Lenny is frightened and unable to respond to her appeals, he shows his probable impotence. Max’s ambivalent attitude to Ruth is along the same lines as that of Lenny: MAX. Who’s this? TEDDY. I was just going to introduce you. MAX. Who asked you to bring tarts in here? TEDDY. Tarts? MAX. Who asked you to bring dirty tarts into this house? TEDDY. Listen, don’t be silly MAX. You been here all night? TEDDY. Yes, we arrived from Venice MAX. We’ve had a smelly scrubber in my house all night.

We’ve had a stinking pox-ridden slut in my house all night. TEDDY. Stop it! What are you talking about? MAX. I haven’t seen the bitch for six years he comes home without a word, he brings a filthy scrubber off the street, and he shacks up in my house! TEDDY. She’s my wife! We’re married. (Pause.) MAX. I’ve never had a whore under this roof before. Ever since your mother died. My word of honor. (To JOEY.) Have you ever had a whore here? Has Lenny ever had a whore here? They come back from 100

Pinter, “The Homecoming,” 41-42.

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America, they bring the slop bucket with them. They bring the bedpan with them. (To TEDDY.) Take that disease away from me. Get her away from me.101

A few lines later, in the very same scene, Max moves to the other end of the scale and this time approaches Ruth not with insults but with respect, for she is a mother: MAX. Miss. (RUTH walks RUTH. Yes?

towards him.)

(He looks at her.) MAX. You a mother? RUTH. Yes. MAX. How many you got? RUTH. Three. (He turns to TEDDY.) MAX. All yours, Ted?

(Pause.) Teddy, why don’t we have a nice cuddle and kiss, eh? Like the old days? What about a nice cuddle and kiss, eh?102

Max’s attitude towards Ruth has its origins in his relationship with Jessie, his wife. In their marriage Max played the mother’s role, stayed in the house, and took care of the children; whereas Jessie was usually outside, following the same profession that is to be seen as appropriate for Ruth. In the last scene, Sam, the uncle, blurts out a lifelong kept secret about Jessie and Max’s best friend, MacGregor: “Mac Gregor had Jessie in the back of my cab as I drove them along.”103 As Sam croaks and collapses right after he has uttered the truth, the truth elicits no response from the family: MAX (pointing at Sam). You know what LENNY. Has. MAX. Has! A diseased imagination.104

that man had?

Both Max and Lenny know that it is not the product of Sam’s diseased imagination; Jessie was a whore. Ruth, too, was a prostitute before she

101

Pinter, “The Homecoming,” 49-50. Pinter, “The Homecoming,” 51. 103 Pinter, “The Homecoming,” 86. 104 Pinter, “The Homecoming,” 86. 102

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married Teddy: “I was ... different ... when I met Teddy ...”105 Oscillating between her mother/wife and whore image, Ruth—one of the intruders into the house—falls prey to the menace lying within it. Ruth is entrapped. What should be noted, though, is that this entrapment is not caused by the use of force; what lies deep down in Ruth comes to the surface. This is nothing new for her. This is Ruth’s homecoming, her victimization by her primitive self, repressed for years by her ego ideal as the wife of a university professor and mother of three children. Now, however, the menace within the room initiates the smooth take-over of the primitive self of Ruth. Her wife/mother’s identity disintegrates as she easily responds to the sexual advances of Joey and Lenny. This, however, is no surprise for Teddy who anticipates the evil that is to befall her and their marriage. Teddy wants to go back to the United States because “it is so clean there”106: RUTH. Clean. TEDDY. Yes. RUTH. Is it dirty here? TEDDY. No, of course not.

But it’s cleaner there.107

This dirt is something Ruth is familiar with. In the astonishing scene where Ruth, Lenny, and Joey make love on the sofa, Max exclaims, “Christ, she’s wide open. (Pause.) She is a tart.”108 Ruth is open to the menace, that is, her vulnerability makes her an easy victim for it. A drastically different interpretive point of view considers Ruth to be the victimizer rather than the victimized. Just as the menace within the house disrupts the conscious surface of Ruth’s life, her homecoming also disrupts the conscious surface of life in her husband’s family home. According to this viewpoint, the homecoming of Ruth is reminiscent of the sale of the cherry orchard in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard which is used as “a means to evoke the characters’ innermost states of being.”109 Through her confrontations with the family members, Ruth catalyzes them into revealing enough about themselves in such a way that their protective shells are broken only to reveal the child within. Thus, it is Ruth who entraps them and the ending of the play is suggestive of such an entrapment. Ruth has accepted to stay with the family but it is clear that 105

Pinter, “The Homecoming,” 58. Pinter, “The Homecoming,” 62. 107 Pinter, “The Homecoming,” 62-63. 108 Pinter, “The Homecoming,” 66. 109 Susan Rusinko, British Drama: 1950 to the Present, 59. 106

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she is going to make the family members accept her terms of the contract. In other words, she will not be simply a whore for them; she will adopt the role of a mother and thus be the head of the family. It is Ruth who sets the terms of the arrangement: LENNY. We’d supply everything. Everything you need. RUTH. I’d need an awful lot. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be content. LENNY. You’d have everything. RUTH. I would naturally want to draw up an inventory of

everything I would need, which would require your signatures in the presence of witnesses. LENNY. Naturally. RUTH. All aspects of the agreement and conditions of employment would have to be clarified to our mutual satisfaction before we finalized the contract.110

The play’s final image is a very powerful one which strengthens the argument that Ruth is befitting the role of the temptress or the siren much more than that of the seduced victim: Ruth, sitting relaxed on her chair, is surrounded by the family members. Joey and Lenny are on their knees. Joey’s head is on her lap. As to Max, (He begins to groan, clutches his stick, and falls onto his knees by the side of her chair. His body sags. The groaning stops. His body straightens. He looks at her, still kneeling.) I’m not an old man. (Pause.) Do you hear me? (He raises his face to her.) Kiss me.111 (89, 90)

As such, the final image is one of a mother with her children. Ruth has become the whore/mother desperately needed by these seemingly violent men. It is because of the highly complicated texture that The Homecoming lends itself to such a wide variety of interpretations. This has also been reflected onto the play’s stage productions. Peter Hall’s 1965 production emphasized menace and savagery within the household and Ruth as vulnerable to the family’s appeal; whereas, Kevin Billington’s 1978 production stressed the underlying humanity and vulnerability of the 110 111

Pinter, “The Homecoming,” 85. Pinter, “The Homecoming,” 89-90.

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characters and Ruth as the strong earth-mother. Ruth is the mover of the action in The Homecoming; Teddy seems to remain in its periphery. However, since the only genuine idea in a play that contains almost no ideas at all belongs to Teddy, it is possible to argue that he is the focal point of the play.112 When he is challenged by Lenny regarding his profession as a philosopher, Teddy says: You wouldn’t understand my works. You wouldn’t have the faintest idea of what they were about. … It’s a way of being able to look at the world. It’s a question of how far you can operate on things and not in things. I mean it’s a question of your capacity to ally the two, to relate the two, to balance the two. To see, to be able to see! I’m the one who can see. That’s why I can write my critical works. Might do you good … have a look at them … see how certain people can view … things … how certain people can maintain … intellectual equilibrium. Intellectual equilibrium. You’re just objects. You just … move about. I can observe it. I can see what you do. It’s the same as I do. But you’re lost in it. You won’t get me being … I won’t be lost in it.113

One way of looking at Teddy’s calm and submissive manner in handing Ruth, his wife, over to his family, is to consider him as the speech quoted above dictates to be the cold intellectual he aspires to be. Teddy, knowing the dirt inherent in this household, feels that there is no escape from it and thus, he tries to maintain his integrity, his intellectual equilibrium and not to lower himself to their base level of mere instincts. In short, he desperately tries not to be victimized by his family. This is his way of running away from entrapment. However, from a totally different point of view, Teddy, as the intruder, is the source of all menace: he comes home with his wife knowing what is going to happen. As he is the one who can see, he has foreseen with his unusual capacity for observation the degeneration of his wife to the level of his family. Thus, Teddy is the schemer, the manipulator of everything that happens. Bert States refers to a New York psychologist who presented Teddy as an example of a withdrawn libido troubled by a basic hatred of women and a tendency toward homosexuality, who substitutes intellectual equilibrium for a proper sex life.114 In the end, when Teddy and Ruth are about to part, Ruth tells Teddy not to become a stranger. Teddy, however, has always been a stranger, a sterile intellectual who cannot or will not

112

Bert States, “Pinter’s Homecoming: The Shock of Nonrecognition,” 7. Pinter, “The Homecoming,” 69-70. 114 States, “Pinter’s Homecoming: The Shock of Nonrecognition,” 8. 113

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operate in things and love a woman, for that matter, which means getting involved with another human being on an emotional level. According to Martin Esslin, The universality of the archetypal situation in The Homecoming on the other hand, and its immense relevance, however deep down in their subconscious, to theatre audiences everywhere, seems to me also to provide the explanation for the powerful impact of the play in spite of an initial reaction of incomprehension and puzzlement over its apparent surface implausibility. However much audiences may reject the play on the rational level, they ultimately respond to it in the depth of their subconscious. Hence the abundance of the discussion and probing about The Homecoming.115

The play presents an intricately woven net of power relations among characters who come to terms with their suppressed selves. All the characters in the play operate in things as they come in their ways, with Teddy as the detached observer of all that happens. Teddy returns to civilization, leaving his family in a room.

115 Martin Esslin, The Peopled Wound: The Plays of Harold Pinter (London: Methuen & Co, 1970), 157.

PRIVATE WORLDS, NON-VERIFIABLE PASTS, AND RECONSTRUCTED MEMORIES

Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out. (Lord Darlington - from Lady Windermere’s Fan)

Harold Pinter’s craftsmanship lies in his creation of unintelligible characters who cannot be found out. His style “abhors the paradoxical truisms à la Wilde;” he wants characters who are born liars, and an audience who mistrusts them.116 Yet, Pinter has frequently been the target of criticism which focused on his disinterestedness in verifying the pasts and the identities of the characters and his reluctance to give the audience clues as regards what is real and what is imaginary. Such criticism misses the gist of Pinteresque drama which is based on the elusiveness of reality. As Pinter says, “The desire for verification on the part of all of us, with regard to our own experience and the experience of others, is understandable but cannot always be satisfied. I suggest there can be no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.”117 Verifying the past is equivalent to verifying identity and as such, it is not at all desired by the Pinter character for, as Aston says in The Caretaker: “… I feel much better now. But I don’t talk to people, now. I steer clear of places like that cafe. I never go into them now. I don’t talk to anyone … like that.”118 In almost all Pinter plays, the past is unclear because characters—who have found shelter in their private worlds—are not willing to give away their pasts, their backgrounds, and their identities, for as Pinter said, “communication is too alarming. To enter into someone else’s life is too frightening. To disclose to others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility.”119 Thus, the characters, in their desire to keep themselves to themselves, choose between two courses of action: to keep 116

Almansi, “Harold Pinter’s Idiom of Lies,” 92. Harold Pinter, “Writing for the Theater,” in Plays One (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), ix. 118 Pinter, “The Caretaker,” 55. 119 Pinter, “Writing for the Theater,” xiii. 117

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silent and not to speak at all or to talk without revealing anything about themselves. The latter course of action is only another form of silence. As Pinter says, There are two silences. One when no word is spoken. The other is when perhaps a torrent of language is being, employed. This speech is speaking of a language locked beneath it. That is its continual reference. The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don’t hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its place. When true silence falls, we are still left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.120

From his earlier plays onwards, Pinter plays with different forms of silence adopted by his characters to cover their nakedness. The dialogue between Meg and Petey at the end of The Birthday Party after Stanley has been taken out of the house, is—in a typically Pinteresque manner—silent: MEG.

… It was a lovely party. I haven’t laughed so much for years. We had dancing and singing. And games. You should have been there. PETEY. It was good, eh? (Pause.) MEG. I was the belle of the bell. PETEY. Were you? MEG. Oh yes. They all said I was. PETEY. I bet you were, too. MEG. Oh, it’s true. I was. (Pause.) I know I was.121

To avoid literal silence, Pinter’s characters talk without giving away any tangible information about themselves. Davies in The Caretaker responds to Aston’s direct question about where he was born: “I was … uh … oh, it’s a bit hard, like, to set your mind back … see what I mean… going back … a good way … lose a bit of track, like … you know …”122 With all his papers in Sidcup, Davies verifies neither his past nor his identity and the reader is expected to distrust whatever he says. As Mick tells Davies, “I can take nothing you say at face value. Everything you say is open to any number of interpretations.”123 Pinter’s characters may 120

Pinter, “Writing for the Theater,” ix. Pinter, “The Birthday Party,” 81. 122 Pinter, “The Caretaker,” 23. 123 Pinter, “The Caretaker,” 71. 121

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contradict themselves: they may have more than one name and nothing they say is to be taken at face value. Fearing to expose themselves, they turn into themselves and protect their shells by either revealing nothing of their real selves or creating substitute identities to serve as shields. In the process, memory is reconstructed. Sometimes, the line that parts reality and imagination is lost and memory becomes a playground in which fancy reigns uncontrolled. The unreliability of memory is a major theme of Pinter’s later plays. The past is unknowable and modifiable. Modification of the past is not always done intentionally by the characters for reality itself is a relative concept, changing from one person to another. It is this difficulty to which Pinter draws attention when he says, A moment is sucked away and distorted, often even at the time of its birth. We will all interpret a common experience quite differently, though we prefer to subscribe to the view that there is a shared common ground, a known ground. I think there’s a shared common ground, all right, but that it’s more like a quicksand.124

The very fact that there is no common ground shared by all implies a redefinition of reality, which is customarily regarded as fixed. If there is no common ground, then everyone has their own reality. The impossibility of verifying reality naturally leads to the problem of verifying identity. Such problematics is at the root of the failure of human communication which leads to the formation of isolated, private worlds. This seems to be the thematic focal point of Pinter’s later plays. Isolation, vulnerability, and victimization are the common themes in Pinter’s drama, especially in his early plays. The same themes impregnate his later plays, as well; but with noteworthy alterations. In the early plays, the private worlds of individuals are confined within the closure of four walls and a door. Such confinement is constantly under the threat of a door opening and some form of intrusion shattering the security. The danger rests outside and with the intrusion into the room, it annihilates the vulnerable self of the individual who collapses because of the confrontation with the unknown. In his later plays, however, the focus has shifted from the door signifying the boundary of the individual’s safety to the ego, which is the safest closure.

124

Harold Pinter, “Writing for the Theater,” in Plays One (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), x.

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According to Barbara Kreps, “shared time is a myth” in Pinter’s later plays (85).125 If shared time is a myth and common ground does not exist, then the safest characters are those who are enclosed within their egos and who do not put themselves in a vulnerable position by desiring satisfactory human contact. In order to avoid defeat and victimization, the individual withdraws, repressing the impulse for human contact and genuine communication which is impossible. Thus, the individual finds safety in emotional detachment and isolation by the conscious exclusion of the world. If he can “operate on things and not in things,”126 in Teddy’s words, then he will not be lost in life. Pinter’s interest in the individual’s idiosyncratic world as distinct from the external world led him to focus on memory which is the only source of reality. Just like reality, time, too, is reconstructed: past and present merge with flashbacks woven into the action of the play. In his memory plays, Pinter broke away from conventional dramatic time. In other words, he stopped using the strictly straightforward neoclassical time structure he employed in his early plays. If shared time is a myth, then time assumes an internal and personal meaning rather than an external and chronological one. Time as a personal concept which has been an existing vein in Pinter’s early drama is the focus of his three one-act memory plays, Landscape (1968), Silence (1969), and Night (1969). These plays are atypical in terms of their structure. They are experiments in static drama and as such, they are reminiscent of Maurice Maeterlinck’s words regarding the theatre of his time: Maeterlinck, in his influential essay The Tragical in Daily Life, posits that “there is a tragic element in the life of every day that is far more real, far more penetrating, far more akin to the true self that is in us than the tragedy that lies in great adventure.127 Also, he expresses his dislike of characters “who would tell me, at wearisome length, why he was jealous, why he poisoned, or why he killed … I have grown to believe that an old man, seated in his armchair, motionless as he is, does yet live in reality a deeper, more human and more universal life.”128 Maeterlinck’s description of static drama, with its preference for inaction and emphasis upon memory as the source of reality, seems to apply to many Pinter plays. 125

Barbara Kreps, “Time and Harold Pinter’s Possible Realities: Art as Life, and Vice Versa,” in Harold Pinter, ed. Harold Bloom, (New York: Chelsea House Publishers,1987), 85. 126 Pinter, “The Homecoming,” 69. 127 Maurice Maeterlinck, “The Tragical in Daily Life,” Theatre/ Theory/ Theatre, ed. Daniel Geroud (New York: Applause, 2000), 383. 128 Maeterlinck, “The Tragical in Daily Life,” 385.

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However, in these three plays, the reconstruction of memory and thus, the reshaping of reality, become the gist of the drama. Devoid of action, these plays are Pinter’s experiments in poetic drama. His stylistic preference for the methods of poetry in these plays is in harmony with his thematic concerns that his characters, withdrawn into their isolated, private worlds, share neither a common ground nor time. In Landscape, an old couple, sublimely unaware of each other, seem to exchange recollections while living in their own realities which do not intersect. In Silence, two men and a woman muse in separation, about a mysterious triangular relationship they had, haunted by images from a hazy past about to be forgotten. Night presents a married couple who are trying to reconstruct their common past but facing great difficulty for they remember things differently. In these plays, the silences, which are integral to the efficacy of Pinter’s drama, are in the very foreground and their utmost intensity. A deep silence surrounds the characters who, in their utter isolation, are in a way encapsulated so that they are totally unable to hear, understand, or respond to one another’s points of reference. If time has not been shared and if there is no common ground, then what can connect them? Words do not connect; conversation proceeds at different levels and rarely is there a point of intersection. Characters are caught in their prisons and Pinter gives this very thematic point its pictorial representation on the stage by placing them separately and offering them little room to move about, which—in all their exhaustion—they don’t feel like doing, anyhow. In these plays, Pinter abandons the room as his dramatic domain. Diminishing considerably in size, the territory that offers retreat now becomes the mind, which is capable of inventing its reality. The mind can play with time; it can make the past its present or it can even merge the past, the present, and the future. All in all, the plays that will be discussed in this section—Landscape, Silence (1968), Night (1969), The Basement (1966), Old Times (1970), No Man’s Land (1974), The Collection (1961), The Lover (1962), Betrayal (1978), A Kind of Alaska (1982), Moonlight (1993), and Ashes to Ashes (1996)—are based on an uneasy and anxious relationship with time so much so that the present moment lacks clarity of temporal reference: “the present is no longer conceivable as the lucid and inevitable culmination of a continuous series of past events, and the past is no longer recognizable as a trace in the present moment.”129

129

Craig Owens, “Time Out of Joint: Power, Performance, and the State of Exception in Harold Pinter’s Drama,” in The Harold Pinter Review, Vol 1 (State College: Penn State University Press, 2017), 31.

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Landscape Landscape (1967) has two characters, Beth and Duff, a middle-aged couple. They live in the house of their former employer, now dead. In the stage directions, Pinter writes that “Duff refers normally to Beth, but does not appear to hear her voice; Beth never looks at Duff, and does not appear to hear his voice.”130 The play is an example of static drama, without any action whatsoever. It is in the form of a long dialogue, a quite peculiar one, though, with two characters talking aloud without hearing each other. They both reminisce. Their memories, fixed in separate realms of reference, show their fundamental incompatibility or maybe in a Lawrentian mode, the completely different male and female sensibilities. Beth’s memories are romantic, gentle, and fragile; whereas, Duff’s memories are vulgar and aggressive. Beth, as the key figure in the play, lives in her peculiar dimension of time to which Pinter gives a dramatic effect. For Beth, the past, evoked by her memory, takes over from immediate reality. In fact, Beth is Pinter’s first character who survives without any relation to the present. She has frequently been compared with Rose in The Room, but Rose, though confined within the four walls of her room, lives in the present. She listens to the outside voices, peeps through the curtains, and worries about the weather ... Beth, however, has no contact with the present. Her mind, immersed in the past, creates its own reality. Verifying the past is of course an impossible game and it is not desired. Beth, herself, is not certain of the accuracy of her memories: There wasn’t a soul on the beach. Very far away a man was sitting, on a breakwater. But even so, he was only a pinpoint, in the sun. And even so I could only see him when I was standing, or on my way from the shore to the dune. When I lay down I could no longer see him, therefore he couldn’t see me. (Pause.) I may have been mistaken. Perhaps the beach was empty. Perhaps there was no-one there.131

Though memories are unverifiable guides to the past, they create a dramatic present that is real. Beth can reshape her time. The opening

130

Harold Pinter, “Landscape,” in Plays Three (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 166. 131 Pinter, “Landscape,” 171.

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sentences of the play tell of her ability to fuse the past, the present, and her wish for the future: I would like to stand by the sea. It is there. (Pause.) I have … I have done it. (Pause.) I’ll stand on the beach. On the beach. Well … it was very fresh. … People move so easily. Men. Men move. (Pause.) I walked from the dune to the shore. My man slept in the dune.132

Beth’s memories include the sea, the beach, and a man lying on a sand dune. She relives the lyricism and sensuality of her love, maybe her first love, and recreates beautiful, tender, and erotic images. In minute detail she constructs her feminine sensibility. The man on the beach may be Duff, or her employer, or a fusion of both, or someone else, or even nobody. Whichever may be the case, her physical and emotional separation from Duff is clear. Duff’s memories include his dog, a park, and a pub. His vulgar talk is a sharp contrast to the poetical Beth. He talks about the undrinkable beer which is piss, about fish and dogs. His memories seem to be closer to the present. He remembers telling Beth of his infidelity. He relates different episodes belonging to his profession as the butler of Mr. Sykes. He recalls Beth as a wonderful maid. What should be noted is that unlike Beth, Duff, does not cut his ties with the present. Desperately, he tries to evoke some feedback from Beth, who can immerse herself totally in the past and who, therefore, does not need to cope with present failures. Beth is safe; Duff is not: Do you like me to talk to you? (Pause.) Do you like me to tell you about all the things I’ve been doing? (Pause.) About all the things I’ve been thinking? (Pause.) Mmmnn? (Pause.) I think you do.133 … 132 133

Pinter, “Landscape,” 167. Pinter, “Landscape,” 179.

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Private Worlds, Non-Verifiable Pasts, and Reconstructed Memories We’re the envy of a lot of people, you know, living in this house, having this house all to ourselves. It’s too big for two people.134 … That’s what matters. anyway. We’re together. That’s what matters.135

Landscape is like a painting, containing no movement but two characters seated in two separate chairs. They are clear figures on the stage. They talk but the landscape they paint with their words is faint and shadowy. Their uncommunicativeness and estrangement throw light upon the mythical nature of shared time and common ground. The play ends on a note that shows that the private worlds of these two characters, who have been living in the same house for years, cannot intersect: DUFF.

I took the chair off and the thimble, the keys, the scissors slid off it and clattered down. I booted the gong down the hall. The dog came in. I thought you would come to me, I thought you would come into my arms and kiss me, even … offer yourself to me. I would have had you in front of the dog, like a man, in the hall, on the stone, banging the gong, mind you don’t get the scissors up your arse, or the thimble, don’t worry, I’ll throw them for the dog to chase, the thimble will keep the dog happy, he’ll play with it with his paws, you’ll plead with me like a woman, I’ll bang the gong on the floor, if the sound is too flat, lacks resonance, I’ll hang it back on its hook, bang you against it swinging, gonging, waking the place up, calling them all for dinner, lunch is up, bring out the bacon, bang your lovely head, mind the dog doesn’t swallow the thimble, slam— (Silence.) BETH. He lay above me and looked down at me. He supported my shoulder. (Pause.) So tender his touch on my neck. So softly his kiss on my cheek. (Pause.) My hand on his rib. (Pause.) So sweetly the sand over me. Tiny the sand on my skin. (Pause.) So silent the sky in my eyes. Gently the sound of the tide. (Pause.) Oh my true love I said.136

134

Pinter, “Landscape,” 180. Pinter, “Landscape,” 182. 136 Pinter, “Landscape,” 187-188. 135

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Silence Silence (1968) presents three characters Ellen, a girl in her twenties, Rumsey, a man of forty, and Bates, a man in his mid-thirties who are positioned in three separate areas of the stage equally appointed with a chair, a bed, and a table. Throughout the play, they remain isolated from one another. Like Landscape, Silence is a painting of mental landscapes. What is different, however, is that in this case the monologues do not have different realms of reference but revolve around the relationships of one woman and two men. The play is highly reminiscent of Beckett’s Play in which three characters are placed in three urns and conduct their dialogues and monologues from within those urns. Again, Silence is poetic drama. With almost no action, except for a few occasional approaches by one character to another (which are actually in the mental domain), Silence presents a melting pot of time and space. What is deduced from the cross-cutting monologues of the characters is that Ellen wanted to marry Rumsey, a gentleman older than herself and living in the country. Rumsey, however, urged her to find a younger man. Bates, younger than Rumsey and rougher as a person, was rejected by Ellen. Now, at this moment in time, they are living apart in isolated worlds and reminiscing about the past, they reconstruct their memories. But the past is hazy: ELLEN.

…Yes, I remember. But I’m never sure that what I remember is of today or of yesterday or of a long time ago. And then often it is only half things I remember, half things, beginnings of things.137

Exhausted by her drinking companion’s continual questioning as to whether she was ever married, she finally says yes: “My drinking companion for the hundredth time asked me if I’d ever been married. This time I told her I had. Yes, I told her I had. Certainly. I can remember the wedding.”138 Ellen’s claustrophobia, which stems from the presence of the silence and darkness around her, is shared by Rumsey and Bates, as well. All three are chained in their private worlds:

137 138

Harold Pinter, “Silence,” in Plays Three (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 204. Pinter, “Silence,” 204.

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ELLEN.

Around me sits the night. Such a silence. I can hear myself. My heart beats in my ear. Such a silence. Is it me? Am I silent or speaking?139

… RUMSEY.

Sometimes I see people. They walk towards me, no, not so, walk in my direction, but never reaching me, turning left, or disappearing, and then reappearing, to disappear into the wood.140

… BATES.

I walk in my mind. But can’t get out of the walls, into a wind. Meadows are walled, and lakes. The sky’s a wall.141

The feeling of imprisonment is so strong that even memory cannot set itself free: The sky’s a wall. Unlike Beth in Landscape, the characters struggle for some form of certainty and reassurance. Beth’s serenity in her personally constructed space and time is absent in Silence. However, the ending is promising that Ellen may be a second Beth. As the curtain closes, the last statement the audience hears from Ellen is an assertive repetition: “Certainly. I can remember the wedding.”142 At the end of the play, Ellen’s mental landscape achieves a certainty, a liberation, a clarity which it lacked before. Ellen is now no longer confined within the walls of her mind and just like an artist, she is ready to create her own reality. She can paint her wedding, thus populating her previously desolate landscape.

Night Night (1969) is a very short memory play with no movement. Unlike Landscape and Silence, however, it is based on a dialogue, and it tells a story. Once again, the characters are a middle-aged couple. As they exchange their recollections regarding their first stroll together, they realize that their memories are conflicting. They each have slightly different versions of the same story. However, the differences are not important enough to make their communication impossible. Night comes as a relief after the depressing notes of Landscape and Silence. The gentle humor and the celebratory conclusion seem to be Pinter’s consolatory note. The man’s and the woman’s accounts of their past memories may differ in terms of their details but in this case, there surely is a shared 139

Pinter, “Silence,” 201. Pinter, “Silence,” 198. 141 Pinter, “Silence,” 197. 142 Pinter, “Silence,” 209. 140

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ground and for a change, shared time is not a myth. Unlike Beth and Duff, the couple shares each other’s sensibilities. The landscape they paint is the result of a joint effort: WOMAN.

But my back was against the railings. I felt the railings ... behind me. You were facing me. I was looking into their eyes. My coat was closed. It was cold. MAN. I undid your coat. WOMAN. It was very late. Chilly. MAN. And then we left the bridge and we walked down the towpath and we came to a rubbish dump. WOMAN. And you had me and you told me you had fallen in love with me, and you said you would take care of me always, and you told me my voice and my eyes, my thighs, my breasts, were incomparable, and that you would adore me always. MAN. Yes I did. WOMAN. And you do adore me always. MAN. Yes I do.143

Night is a lovely short piece, an atypical work of Pinter in terms of its thematic reference to a beautiful shared past. In this play, past brings nostalgia, not the terror of inevitable isolation.

The Basement The Basement (1967), preceding Landscape, Silence and Night, is Pinter’s first play which is planted in the subjective world of space and time. The play unites the central theme of Pinter’s early drama—the room, anxiety, intrusion, fear of loss, and defeat—with the dramatist’s later interest in fantasy as the alternative to reality. The Basement is one of Pinter’s triangular plays and as such, it fits perfectly into a typically Pinteresque structure. One of Pinter’s favorite themes is centered on the relationships within a triad. He plays with all sorts of combinations: one man and two women (Old Times), one woman and two men (The Basement, The Collection, Betrayal) or three men (The Caretaker). His highly intricate studies of triads either concentrate on power games or struggles for dominance (The Caretaker, The Basement, Old Times) or present parodies of romances or comedies of manners. (The Collection, The Lover, Betrayal).

143 Harold Pinter, “Night,” in Plays Three (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 218219.

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The Basement should be read as a play that paved the way for Pinter’s later plays foregrounding memory. This is the dramatist’s first breakaway from conventional dramatic time. Yet, as Barbara Kreps points out, “most critics seem to have missed the radical nature of the play, because of their misconceptions about what Pinter is doing in it with time.”144 What Pinter is doing in the play is having the main character Law’s dream or fantasy acted out on the stage. So, the whole play is a memory, and both the characters playing on the stage and the action exist only in Law’s mind. The plot is quite a simple one but woven into it are Pinter’s subtle clues to warn the reader that this is not taking place in reality. However, Pinter is in this play trapped by the limitations of the stage for the Pinter audience who, by now, is used to the dramatist’s extreme talent in presenting the very unusual and the bizarre and the probable matter-offactly, does not suspect the reality of what is taking place on stage. Were The Basement devoid of its dramatic quality, like the three plays previously discussed, it would invariably make the same impact. As it is, the play is commonly read as a continuation of the old theme of the room, of Law’s displacement from it, and of his struggle to regain it. Law’s secluded world is a basement flat intruded upon amid a wintry night by his old friend, Stott, and his lover, Jane. Law takes them in and offers them hospitality. The peculiarity of the situation is obvious from the very start: (JANE begins to take her clothes off. In the background STOTT moves about the room, turning off the lamps. LAW stands still. STOTT turns off all the lamps but one, by the fireside. JANE, naked, gets into the bed.) LAW. Can I get you some cocoa? Some hot chocolate? (STOTT takes his clothes off and, naked, gets into the bed.) I was feeling quite lonely, actually. It is lonely sitting here, night after night. Mind you, I’m very happy here. Remember that place we shared? That awful place on Chatsworth Road? I’ve come a long way since then. I bought this flat cash down. It’s mine. I don’t suppose you’ve noticed the hi-fi stereo? There’s all sorts of things I can show you (148).145

The absurdity or improbability of the situation is intensified as Law, hearing Jane and Stott making love continues to read The Persian Manual 144

Kreps, “Time and Harold Pinter’s Possible Realities: Art as life, and Vice Versa,” 80. 145 Harold Pinter, “The Basement,” in Plays Three (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 148.

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of Love. This should be taken as one of the give-away clues Pinter put into the play to show that it is Law’s reality that is acted on the stage. Then the focus of the play naturally changes: as a common interpretation of the play would deem Law’s definition in space the crucial thing about this play, a more insightful approach would concentrate on Law’s definition in time as constituting the gist of the play. For the latter, story is not all-important: what counts is Law’s serving as a model to subsequent Pinter characters of the memory plays by his artistic ability to people his loneliness and to “create, define and destroy relationships as a private act of imagination.”146 Of course, memory, not being confined to the stage, is non-verifiable and the play becomes much more interesting when it is taken as a memory or dream acted out. Such is the artistic creation of Law; this is his imagining and as such, it is as true as real. Law’s scenario fits comfortably into Pinter’s drama where the individual identifies himself with his room and struggles desperately not to lose its possession against outside dangers and intrusions. The addition to this old pattern in this play is the introduction of a romance element: Law falls in love with Jane, one of the intruders into his secluded, well-defined, and lawful world. The rivalry between the two men develops. Violence pervades the play. Savage battles, humorous at times, take place. In the final scene, which repeats the opening scene, Jane has changed her lover. The owner of the basement, Law, is evicted with Jane. The doorbell rings. Stott welcomes his visitors, Law and Jane. It is a wintry night. The ending merely suggests a stage in an everrecurring cycle. This is a game, an ingenious artistic creation by Law STOTT (with great pleasure). Law! LAW (smiling). Hullo, Charles. STOTT. Good God. Come in! (STOTT laughs)

Come in! (LAW enters.) I can’t believe it! (164)147

Pinter’s obsession with the internal aspect of time, specifically the notion of the past affecting the present (and thus the present in effect being the past) seems to have emerged from Pinter’s close study of Proust. In 1972, Pinter wrote the screenplay of Proust’s A La Recherche du Temps Perdu with its internal awareness of time as an indivisible continuum of 146

Kreps, “Time and Harold Pinter’s Possible Realities: Art as life, and Vice Versa,” 82. 147 Pinter, “The Basement,” 164.

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past and present. His study of Proust led him to the Bergsonian concept of durée (with its compelling syllogism: “reality is change, change is indivisible, and in an indivisible change the past is one with the present”); so, to convey Bergson’s sense of lived time in the theatre (la durée vécue), Pinter often resorts to certain cinematic and televisual devices such as flashbacks and fade-ins.148

Old Times Old Times (1971), another triangular play, is perhaps Pinter’s tour-deforce in which the dramatist, moving away from static drama, achieves a wonderful exploration of the Bergsonian durée in fully dramatic terms. The three characters in the play are Kate and Deeley, a middle-aged married couple living on the seacoast, and Anna, a former roommate of Kate’s, back from twenty years ago, who comes to visit them. There develops a strong rivalry between the intruder Anna and the husband Deeley, who seems to suspect that the relationship between his wife and her friend may have had a lesbian nature. Through the use of cinematic devices, Pinter dramatically materializes the fusion of the past with the present on the stage. The play opens with Deeley and Kate in the foreground—two clear figures under bright light. While they are talking about Anna’s coming for a visit, Anna is perceived by the window, under dim light. As lights gradually brighten to reveal Anna lurking from the mist, the past and the present merge. Anna, as part of Kate’s shadowy past, becomes present on the stage. Thus, a sense of synchronic time is achieved in the play: light is reconciled with dark and the foreground with the background (where the window by which Anna was standing is situated) to reveal the smooth transition between past and present, or indeed to show that past is in present. Craig Owens posits that “Anna occupies what Derrida might call a hauntological space, her ontology—her being and her being-there—constituted and compromised by her somehow not being there, haunting the stage space as a ghost of the past come back to the present”.149 Anna’s remark about the unverifiable quality of memories plays a crucial role, for the play is based on the concept of time (and space) as personally created constructs:

148

Almansi, “Harold Pinter’s Idiom of Lies,” 85. Craig Owens, “Time Out of Joint: Power, Performance, and the State of Exception in Harold Pinter’s Drama,” 31.

149

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There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened. There are things I remember which may never have happened but as I recall them so they take place.150

Pinter elaborates on this idea in the interview he granted to Mel Gussow in connection with the New York opening of Old Times when he says, The fact is it’s terribly difficult to define what happened yesterday. So much is imagined and that imagining is as true as real. … The fact that they discuss something that he says took place —even if it did not take place—actually seems to me to recreate the time and the moments vividly in the present so that it is actually taking place before your very eyes—by the words he is using.151

As Anna and Deeley recreate their memories, the post becomes an arena of competition and its control comes to be a “life-and-death matter.”152 Each recreates the reality in his own way but the presence in this case of another person who can contradict that version by giving an alternate version of his own impregnates the play with a tension that is absent from earlier memory plays in which memory is a secure retreat which one can embellish as he pleases. In the memory contest which engages Deeley and Anna, both characters reconstruct their pasts, their identities, and their relationship to Kate, who through the play, remains silently enigmatic in her reactions to her husband’s and her friend’s recollections. Anna’s and Deeley’s memories sometimes revolve around the same anecdote but their versions are completely different from one another. Their varying accounts of the day they went to see the film Odd Man Out can be juxtaposed: DEELEY.

… so I marched in on this excruciatingly hot summer afternoon in the middle of nowhere and watched Odd Man Out and thought Robert Newton was fantastic. … And there was only one other person in the cinema, one other person in the whole of the whole cinema, and there

150

Harold Pinter, “Old Times,” in Plays Four (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 27-28. 151 Kreps, “Time and Harold Pinter’s Possible Realities: Art as life, and Vice Versa,” 76. 152 Stephen Martineau, “Pinter’s Old Times: The Memory Game,” in Contemporary British Drama 1970-1990, ed. Hersh Zeifman and Cynthia Zimmerman (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 13.

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she is [Kate]. … So it was Robert Newton who brought us together and it is only Robert Newton who can tear us apart.153 … ANNA.

… [Kate] insisted we visit that gallery, or this theatre, or that chamber concert, but of course there was so much, so much to see and hear, in lovely London then, that sometimes we missed things, or had no more money, and so missed some things. For example, I remember one Sunday she said to me, looking up from the paper, come quick, quick, come with me quickly, and we seized our handbags and went on a bus, to some totally obscure, some totally unfamiliar district, and almost alone, saw a wonderful film called Odd Man Out.154

The name of the film is explicitly telling of how Deeley feels in between his wife and Anna. He feels like the odd man out. In contrast to Kate’s London past, the couple now lives in the country and they rarely get to London. Kate’s misty past and the immense difficulty in verifying the past frustrate Deeley who defines his own security by his possession of Kate. Now, faced with a strong threat, his rivalry arises. Both Anna and Deeley, desiring to possess Kate, fight a battle for domination. The battle is between their memories of the past. Each wants to emerge victorious out of the battle and thus, in the process, they recreate their identities. Deeley comes forth as an egocentric, unimaginative, and crude person: Myself I was a student then, juggling with my future, wondering should I bejasus saddle myself with a slip of a girl not long out of her swaddling clothes whose only claim to virtue was silence but who lacked any sense of fixedness, any sense of decisiveness, but was compliant only to the shifting winds, with which she went, but not the winds, and certainly not my winds, such as they are, but I suppose winds that only she understood, and that of course with no understanding whatsoever, at least as I understand the word, at least that’s the way I figured it. A classic female figure, I said to myself, or is it a classic female posture, one way or the other long outworn? (Pause.) That’s the position I saw it then. I mean, that is my categorical pronouncement on the position as I saw it then. Twenty years ago (31, 32).155

Anna, however, pretends to be a more altruistic creator of Kate. Like a mother dedicated to the well-being of her daughter or like a lover, Anna pushes to be the central figure in Kate’s past: 153

Pinter, “Old Times,” 25-26. Pinter, “Old Times,” 34. 155 Pinter, “Old Times,” 31-32. 154

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I found her. She grew to know wonderful people, through my introduction. I took her to cafes, almost private ones, where artists and writers and sometimes actors collected, and others with dancers, and we sat hardly breathing with our coffee, listening to the life around us. All I wanted for her was her happiness. That is all I want for her still.156

Neither Anna nor Deeley is interested in Kate as a presently existing individual. What they try to do is to possess her by possessing her past. In other words, memories are invoked as a means of possession. Deeley is fighting to keep his wife and the security of his life in the house by the seashore; whereas Kate is fighting to get back what she had twenty years ago. The possessive urges of Anna and Deeley reach their climax in a wonderfully humorous scene that cloaks beneath it extreme tension. During the dialogue below, Kate is taking a shower: ANNA.

She floats from the bath. Like a dream. Unaware of anyone standing, with her towel, waiting for her, waiting to wrap it round her. Quite absorbed. (Pause.) Until the towel is placed on her shoulders. (Pause.) DEELEY. Of course she’s so totally incompetent at drying herself properly, did you find that? She gives herself a really good scrub, but can she with the same efficiency give herself an equally good rub? I have found, in my experience of her, that this is not in fact the case. You’ll always find a few odd unexpected unwanted cheeky globules dripping about. ANNA. Why don’t you dry her yourself? DEELEY. Would you recommend that? ANNA. You’d do it properly. DEELEY. In her bath towel? ANNA. How out? DEELEY. How out? ANNA. How could you dry her out? Out of her bath towel? DEELEY. I don’t know. ANNA. Well, dry her yourself, in her bath towel. (Pause.) DEELEY. Why don’t you dry her in her bath towel? ANNA. Me? DEELEY. You’d do it properly. ANNA. No, no. DEELEY. Surely? I mean, you’re a woman, you know how and where, and in what density moisture collects on women’s bodies. 156

Pinter, “Old Times,” 65.

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Private Worlds, Non-Verifiable Pasts, and Reconstructed Memories ANNA. No two DEELEY. Well,

women are the same. that’s true enough.

(Pause.) I’ve got a brilliant idea. Why don’t we do it with powder? ANNA. Is that a brilliant idea? DEELEY. Isn’t it? ANNA. It’s quite common to powder yourself after a bath. DEELEY. It’s quite common to powder yourself after a bath but it’s quite uncommon to be powdered. Or is it? It’s not common where I come from, I can tell you. My mother would have a fit. (Pause) Listen. I’ll tell you what. I’ll do it. I’ll do the whole lot. The towel and the power. After all, I am her husband. But you can supervise the whole thing. And give me some hot tips while you’re at it. That’ll kill two birds with one stone. (Pause) (To himself) Christ.157

The reasons for quoting the extensively long dialogue above are twofold: first of all, the language employed - with its verbal repetitions and tautologies - is typically Pinteresque, creating a common form of the silences peculiar to the dramatist; secondly, it is vital for an understanding of the thematic reference of the play. It points to the frightening possessiveness that lies at the heart of the play: Kate, for Anna and Deeley, is a child to be taken care of or a body to be sexually exploited. In either case, she is not deemed to be an individual in her own right. Kate comes out of the shower having dried herself off. Anna and Deeley, in a way ignoring her present state and identity, have been talking about her in the context of the past. As they are in the process of serious competition to describe her smile, Kate says: “You talk about me as if I am dead. Now.”158 As Kate comes out already dried off, she partakes in the conversation between Anna and Deeley, which assumes a new tone. Deeley tells her that he and Anna had met in the Wayfarers Tavern and she “took a fancy to [him].”159 It turns out Kate has known about it. But their sentiments— Anna’s attraction to Deeley and Deeley’s looking up her skirt—are mere trivia when compared with their feelings for Kate. For both Anna and Deeley, Kate is the central figure on whom they base their identities. Their past memories are based on Kate, who at the end of the play achieves her own independent identity by destroying the two smothering images of her past, namely Anna and Deeley. The two are shattered at the end. Each 157

Pinter, “Old Times,” 50-53. Pinter, “Old Times,” 31. 159 Pinter, “Old Times,” 65. 158

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expecting victory over the other and the complete possession of Kate, Anna and Deeley have been victimized by their emotional attachment to Kate, which made them vulnerable victims-to-be. Emotional detachment, as has been noted earlier, is the safest closure. Like Teddy in The Homecoming, Kate can operate on things, rather than in things. She tells Anna at the end of the play that she remembers her dead: Your pupils weren’t in your eyes. Your bones were breaking through your face. But all was serene. There was no suffering. It had all happened elsewhere. Last rites I did not feel necessary. Or any celebration. I felt the time and season appropriate and that by dying alone and dirty you had acted with proper decorum. It was time for my bath. I had quite a lengthy bath … When I brought him into the room your body of course had gone. What a relief it was to have a different body in my room, a male body behaving quite differently … We had a choice of two beds … He liked your bed.160

Deeley takes Anna’s place and as it is clear in Kate’s detached manner neither has been more than bed-partners for her. Anna and Deeley have lost; their identities have disintegrated. The curtain falls on Deeley quietly sobbing, seated slumped in the armchair, Anna lying on the divan, and Kate sitting, upright. She has deprived her husband and her friend of language and movement. Kate is victorious. She has protected herself with her silence and elusive manner. As Lawrence Eilenberg suggests, “the distribution of Kate’s lines is such as to make her rarely vulnerable to being located: she is rendered literally elusive by the nature of her part.”161 Kate is clearly reminiscent of Teddy in The Homecoming who says, “You’re just objects. You just ... move about. I can observe it. I can see what you do. It’s the same as I do. But you’re lost in it. You won’t get me being … I won’t be lost in it.”162 Unlike Anna and Deeley, Kate is not lost in it; that is how she protects her privacy from being shattered. Ego is the safest closure.

160

Pinter, “Old Times,” 68. Lawrence I. Eilenberg, “Rehearsal as Critical Method: Pinter’s Old Times,” in Contemporary British Drama 1970-1990, ed. Hersh Zeifman and Cynthia Zimmerman (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 22. 162 Pinter, “Homecoming,” 70. 161

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No Man’s Land No Man’s Land (1975) may be an ally to the memory plays in terms of the function of memory as the root of all artistic creation. In terms of its structure and thematic references, however, the play may as well be grouped with Pinter’s early plays. Planted in conventional dramatic time, the play incorporates the familiar element of the secluded world, the desire to enter a pre-defined territory, identity games, unreliability of memory, power struggles, verbal threats … The play’s central character, Spooner, is an intruder into the house of Hirst, a famous, prosperous writer. Spooner, on the other hand, is a down-at-heel, self-styled poet. Hirst invites Spooner home for a drink. This is the meeting of the rich with the poor, the genteel with the vagabond, the achiever with the failure in life. Wealth emanates from Hirst’s house, which shelters together with Hirst, his secretary Foster, and the housekeeper Briggs. Spooner intends to win the favor of his host and install himself in his home. His intrusion, however, is resented by Foster and Briggs. If No Man’s Land is a different version of The Caretaker, then Foster and Briggs jointly play the part of Mick, Hirst of Aston, and Spooner, the intruder, of Davies. But Spooner is a much more manipulative, subtle man; he is a creative artist. Spooner and Hirst reminisce. Spooner is the guide, the manipulator of the memory game. As the past cannot be verified, the characters feel free to embellish it as they like; they use it as an arena where their fancies play. Hirst, as Spooner states at the very end of the play, is “… in no man’s land. Which never moves, which never changes, which never grows older, but which remains forever, icy and silent.”163 His world is closed to the probable effects from the outside. Foster and Briggs secure Hirst against intruders who might alter his life and protect him from outside encroachment. Thus, Spooner’s efforts, his memory games, and his appeals fail; he is expelled from Hirst’s haven-home.164 163

Harold Pinter, “No Man’s Land,” in Plays Four (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 157. 164 According to Stephen Watt, while the play is “clearly indebted to T. S. Eliot’s Wasteland, Franz Kafka’s Castle, and, a somewhat problematic case, Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, it also constitutes one of Pinter’s most profound statements on what Jean-Francois Lyotard terms the postmodern condition.” “Pinter, Time, and Total War” in Harold Pinter Review, Vol. 1 (State College: Penn State University Press 2017), 92. Lyotard approaches knowledge in postmodern society as the end of metanarratives, which he calls grand narratives, and introduces the concept of micro-narratives to replace them. Clearly, the stories told by the characters in the play are so different and bereft of verifiable facts that they hearken to Lyotard’s

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Throughout the play, the unreliability and unverifiability of identity is a major concern. As Spooner talks, he creates. And through words, what is imagined in the mind is translated into reality. The shabby old man, Spooner redefines his own reality: Perhaps it’s about time I introduced myself. My name is Spooner. … I’m a staunch friend of the arts, particularly the art of poetry, and a guide to the young. I keep an open house. Young poets come to me. They read me their verses. I comment, give them coffee, make no charge. Women are admitted, some of whom are also poets. Some are not. Some of the men are not. Most of the men are not. But with windows open to the garden, my wife pouring long glasses of squash, with ice, on a summer evening, young voices …165

Through associations, Spooner is carried off, in his imagination. His free imagination and his free-floating images from his past memories also inspire Hirst, who tries to partake in Spooner’s mental landscapes: SPOONER.

When we had our cottage … when we had our cottage … we gave our visitors tea, on the lawn. HIRST. I did the same. SPOONER. On the lawn? micro narratives. While this is applicable to many other plays—such as The Homecoming, The Caretaker, and The Birthday Party—on a linguistic plane of reference, No Man’s Land lacks their structural depth; in the plays cited, there is a flashback structure that assures the reader of some background facts which shape the action of the play. Watt establishes a contrast between those plays “in which barely legible engravings exist under a clearer upper surface.” “Pinter, Time, and Total War,” 92. like the substrate of Freud’s Mystic Writing Pad and the horizontal structure of No Man’s Land that is flat and depthless. Watt draws attention to the title of the play, which may foster a postmodern reading of the play. Two seem to stand out among a few possible options to interpret the title: first, No Man’s Land refers to the empty area between the trenches in World War I and this reading insinuates that the room in Hirst’s house “exists on the berm between self and other”; second, no man’s land “alludes to the space between wickets in cricket, a space a batsman, at his hazard, must traverse if he is to score runs.” “Pinter, Time, and Total War,” 97. Either way, there is space to be filled, where the ‘nomadic subject’—fluid and adaptable to the locality— lives the moment. Spooner is a nomad subject that “embodies a multitude of possibilities” and “occupies a number of subject positions”: he is a poet, a painter, a collector, an editor, a sailor, an athlete, a husband, a father, and so on. He boasts of being a free man. Hirst, on the other hand, regrets that “In my day nobody changed. A man was. Pinter, “No Man’s Land,” 140. 165 Pinter, “No Man’s Land,” 91-92.

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Private Worlds, Non-Verifiable Pasts, and Reconstructed Memories HIRST. I did the same. SPOONER. You had a cottage? HIRST. Tea on the lawn. SPOONER. What happened to them?

What happened to our cottages? What happened to our lawns? (Pause.) Be frank. Tell me. You’ve revealed something. You’ve made an unequivocal reference to your past. Don’t go back on it. We share something.166

Hirst struggles to continue with his construction of that mental landscape, to merge past with present, and in the process create his artistic identity. He talks about the village church, maidens, and garlands. Spooner is excited for now the thinks they can bind through memory. “I am enraptured. Tell me more,” Spooner says, but Hirst can no longer produce: “There is no more (94).” Hirst cannot achieve a synchronic sense of time: the past is buried and he has lost his connections with it. Hirst, the old poet is desperately struggling to create his reality: My true friends look out at me from my album. I had my world, I have it. Don’t think now that it’s gone. I’ll choose to sneer at it, to cast doubt on it, to wonder if it properly existed. No. We’re talking of my youth, which can never leave me. No. It existed. It was solid … When I stood my shadow fell upon her. She looked up. Give me the bottle. Give me the bottle. (BRIGGS gives him the bottle. He drinks from it.) It’s gone. Did it exist? It’s gone. It never existed.167

The passage is reminiscent of Coleridge’s Kubla Khan: Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight ‘twould win me, With music loud and long, I would build that dome in air.

Hirst cannot revive the songs of the past. The present interrupts; he asks for more whisky but the past is gone; it is lost. The claims of the present, in terms of time and space, upon the poet are so strong that he is chained: an old man in the desolate landscape of the no man’s land—icy

166 167

Pinter, “No Man’s Land,” 92-93. Pinter, “No Man’s Land,” 109-110.

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and silent. “I remember nothing. I’m sitting in this room,”168 Hirst says, reminding us once again of Coleridge’s words. In Dejection: An Ode, the poet says: My genial spirits fail; And what can these avail To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?

Artistic creation and liberation are inhibited when past and present cannot fuse into one another. When there is no relief or outlet to offer an escape from the static, unchanging, and sterile no man’s land, the man is imbued with despair. What Foster says to Spooner, a kind of warning against his unwanted intrusion, is a misinterpretation of the artist’s need to create: Listen, my friend. This man in his chair, he’s a creative man. He’s an artist. We make life possible for him. We’re in a position of trust. Don’t try to drive a wedge into a happy household. You understand me? Don’t try to make nonsense out of family life.169

The family life offered to him by his two servants within the confinement of his big house is far from being a haven for Hirst. Spooner tries in vain to aid Hirst to fly between his past and his present but the result is failure. Spooner is thrown out. Hirst is back in his no man’s land. In No Man’s Land it is impossible to verify reality and to distinguish between genuine reminiscences, memories modified by the process of time, and recollections trammeled for strategic purposes. In this play, the non-verifiable nature of reality is considered to be the channel that paves the way for the mind’s liberation and individualized artistic creations. The problematics that are inherent in the concept of time and reality are foregrounded in two rather humorous triangular plays—The Collection and The Lover.

The Collection The Collection is based on two interlocking triangles: a married couple (James and Stella) and the woman’s lover; a hintedly homosexual couple (Harry and Bill) and the wife of the other couple. All four characters are West End fashion designers and their lives intertwine when James sets out 168 169

Pinter, “No Man’s Land,” 110. Pinter, “No Man’s Land,” 114.

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to find the truth about Stella’s confessed adultery with Bill when both were on a business trip in Leeds. The title of the play is worth dwelling on. Bernard F. Dukore in The Pinter Collection harkens back to Samuel Beckett’s description of Finnegans Wake to define Pinter’s plays: “Here form is content, content is form … His writing is not about something; it is that something itself.”170 In line with this description, he argues that Pinter’s titles reflect what the audience sees on the stage; it may be a place (a room, a basement), a person (a caretaker, a lover), an event (a birthday party, a homecoming, a night out, a tea party), an object (a dumb waiter), a landscape painted in the mind’s eye, or old times “embodied in the stage action.”171 However, all the titles have a deeper subtextual reference and Dukore’s interpretation of the collection in the title is that it conforms to the playwright’s habitual way of giving titles to his plays: “On the literal level, the title refers to dress designers’ collection at Leeds, where Stella and Bill, before the play begins, may or may not have committed adultery. Metaphorically, however, the title refers to what the spectator sees and hears from the stage. To appropriate once more Beckett’s statement about Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, The Collection is not about a collection, it is a collection.”172 The play offers several different versions of the adultery, including the possibility that it may not even have taken place at all. Grounded on lies, The Collection adopts a humorous point of view to delve into Pinter’s constant thematic concern about the elusive nature of reality, its unknowability, and the multiplicity of truth. These same concerns are shared by Old Times, as already discussed, but the strenuous tension of the latter with its life-and-death-matter aspect is absent in The Collection. As Pinter says, When an event occurs—some kind of sexual event in The Collection for example—it is made up of many little events. Each person will take away and remember what is most significant to him. The more other people try to verify the less they know.173

170

Bernard F. Dukore, “The Pinter Collection,” Educational Theatre Journal, Vol 26, No: 1, (March 1974): 82. 171 Dukore, “The Pinter Collection,” 82. 172 Dukore, “The Pinter Collection,” 82. 173 Harold Pinter, quoted in Elin Diamond, “Parody Play in Pinter,” in Harold Pinter, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 130.

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Naturally, attempts at verification lead to speculation, creating an air of uncertainty and inconclusiveness. The play opens with a question. Calling up Bill, James asks Harry on the phone: JAMES. Is that you Bill? HARRY. No, he’s in bed. JAMES. In bed? HARRY. Who is this? JAMES. What’s he doing

Who’s this? in bed?174

The question, constituting a search for verification, underlines the whole play: Did Bill have an affair with Stella? James’ quest is to find out where the truth is but as Guido Almansi points out, Pinter’s characters are always “intelligent enough in their capacity as conscientious and persistent liars, whether lying to others or to themselves, to hide the truth if they know truth’s truthful abode.”175 The Collection ends unresolved but the complication created beneath the simplicity of the problem is a clear statement that shared reality is a myth. In Parody Play in Pinter, Elin Diamond considers The Collection to be a parody of “two related popular dramatic styles, nineteenth-century domestic melodrama and television soap opera. That is, Pinter parodies the melodramatic plot conventions in which past sins create emotional chaos in the present and the soap-opera convention of the unending problem, unraveling in an atmosphere of unanswered questions, stammering, accusations, and tears.”176 Moreover, The Collection parodies comedy of manners – a popular genre in Restoration theatre. In The Collection, “the instant gratifications of melodrama and soap opera are absent from Pinter’s emotional spectrum. Feelings are filtered through a highly contrived arrangement of pause and silence and verbal maneuvering. As opposed to the verbosity of suffering in soap opera, the more acute the experience in a Pinter work, the less articulate its expression.”177 Tears and grief are definitely absent in the play. The initial encounter of James and Bill, with James’ interrogation of the latter, is a hilarious one. Combining comedy of manners and detective story techniques, Pinter creates this fantastic parody. In this initial scene, 174 Harold Pinter, “The Collection,” in Plays Two (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 109. 175 Almansi, “Harold Pinter’s Idiom of Lies,” 90. 176 Elin Diamond, “Parody Play in Pinter,” 130. 177 Elin Diamond, “Parody Play in Pinter,” 131.

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Bill denies ever meeting Stella. “Do you believe her?” Bill asks James, who affirms. “Everything she says? Sure!”178 Later on in the play, Bill warns James: “Mirrors are deceptive.” The latter, however, is the idealist: “I don’t think mirrors are deceptive.”179 In the next scene, when Harry meets with Stella, we get a totally different version of the reality: “It’s never happened before … my husband has suddenly dreamed up such a fantastic story, for no reason at all.”180 Bill’s next story, however, is totally different. It is a confession that James has been awaiting: “It’s a thing regretted, never to be repeated. No past, no future … I’ve apologized, she’s apologized. Honestly, what more can you want?.”181 Upon this confession, Harry breaks in with Stella’s contradictory version which is actually Harry’s made-up story. It’s a lie: “Your wife … you see … made a little tiny confession to me. … what she confessed was … that she’d made the whole things up.”182 James is bewildered: JAMES. Isn’t it strange that you confirmed the whole of her story? BILL. It amused me to do so. JAMES. Oh? BILL. Yes. You amused me. You wanted me to confirm it. It amused

me to

do so.183

The final version comes again from Bill: BILL.

I’ll … tell you … the truth. … I never touched her … we sat … in the lounge, on a sofa … for two hours … talked … we talked about it … we didn’t … move from the lounge … never went to her room … just talked … about what we would do … if we did get to her room … two hours … we never touched … we just talked about it …184

At the play’s end, neither James nor the audience knows where the truth lies. James’s quest to mirror reality has ended with failure. In Pinter’s plays, “since everyone lies, the genuine liar no longer exists.”185 Almansi emphasizes the novelty of Pinter’s exploitation of “man’s 178

Pinter, “The Collection,” 121. Pinter, “The Collection,” 134. 180 Pinter, “The Collection,” 136. 181 Pinter, “The Collection,” 139. 182 Pinter, “The Collection,” 141-142. 183 Pinter, “The Collection,” 142. 184 Pinter, “The Collection,” 144-145. 185 Almansi, “Harold Pinter’s Idiom of Lies,” 93. 179

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supreme cultural gift, which is mendacity (98).”186 Mendacity is man’s attempt to create an alternate reality by reconstructing his memories. Its results may vary: on one end of the spectrum, mendacity may lead to affirmative results—consolation, retreat into a haven or artistic creation—; on the other end, however, it may lead to quite destructive results—failure of communication, isolation, or alienation. At the end of The Collection when James returns to his wife to obtain verification of Bill’s story, her silence places him in a vulnerable position. Pinter ends the play in halflight, revealing the couples, each reflective of the other, each containing a man shattered or insecure for he cannot verify his partner’s fidelity. The reality that is lost in the web of lies destroys the security of the status quo in both houses.

The Lover The Lover (1962) starts as a play that clearly juxtaposes itself with The Collection. Its opening, too, suggests a parody of comedy of manners. Another triangular parody, the play is based on a married couple Richard and Sarah, and the woman’s lover, Max. Unlike James in The Collection, Richard, the cuckolded husband, is quite complaisant about the visits of his wife’s lover, and comedy is caused by his agreeable and matter-of-fact attitude to this extramarital affair: RICHARD (amiably). Is your lover coming today? SARAH. Mmnn. RICHARD. What time? SARAH. Three. RICHARD. Will you be going out … or staying in? SARAH. Oh … I think we’ll stay in.

… RICHARD.

Have a pleasant afternoon.187

The same situation in The Collection is duplicated but the total frankness and clarity that surrounds The Lover presents the play as a sharp contrast to the former one. RICHARD. …Pleasant afternoon? SARAH. Oh yes, quite marvellous. RICHARD. Your lover came, did he? 186

Almansi, “Harold Pinter’s Idiom of Lies,” 98. Harold Pinter, “The Lover,” in Plays Two (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 149.

187

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Private Worlds, Non-Verifiable Pasts, and Reconstructed Memories SARAH. Mmnn. Oh yes. RICHARD. Did you show

him the holly hocks?188

This sort of inversion of conventional attitudes produces laughter particularly in the first half of the play. Comedy continues to pervade when Sarah asks Richard about his mistress, whom he discusses in all his frankness with a clinical tone: “But I haven’t got a mistress. I’m very well acquainted with a whore, but I haven’t got a mistress. There’s a world of difference.”189 The extremity of such frankness is shocking, but as Richard tells Sarah, “Frankness at all costs; essential to a healthy marriage.”190 The Lover can be interpreted as Pinter’s teasing of his audience. A playwright whose essential concerns have been noncommunication, evasive reality, and seclusion provided by private worlds … is now offering, through a drastically different perspective, the possibility of sincerity, honesty, linguistic generosity, and openness. But Pinter always likes to perplex and to shock his audiences. At about the midpoint in the play, when Max, Sarah’s lover, arrives, the secret is revealed: Max is Richard in a different costume. As Bill says in The Collection, “mirrors are deceptive” and reality is too slippery a term.191 The situation changes in The Lover to adopt a misty air in sharp contrast to the clarity of light brought by the utmost honesty of the first part of the play. Preaching about openness essential for a healthy marriage, neither Sarah nor Richard have been honest enough about themselves. Their innermost fears and desires have been repressed beneath the cloak of a respectable marriage. Not only social decorum but also the alarming aspect of true communication prevents Sarah and Richard from playing their genuine selves. As Pinter had said in the already quoted pivotal quotation, “communication is too alarming. To enter into someone else’s life is too frightening, to disclose to others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility.”192 Sarah can play one role at a time: wife or where; just like Richard who can be either husband or lover. As Richard talks about his imaginary mistress (we later learn she is no one else but Sarah), he tells Sarah: … I wasn’t looking for your double, was I? I wasn’t looking for a woman I could respect, as you, whom I could admire and love, as I do you. Was I? 188

Pinter, “The Lover,” 151. Pinter, “The Lover,” 155. 190 Pinter, “The Lover,” 156. 191 Pinter, “The Collection,” 134. 192 Pinter, “Writing for the Theater,” xiii. 189

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All I wanted was … how shall I put it … someone who could express and engender lust with all lust’s cunning. Nothing more.193

Sarah comments on that, saying “I’m sorry your affair possesses so little dignity,” to which Richard answers: “The dignity is in my marriage.”194 It is quite clear that the husband-lover and wife-whore play is not merely a sexual game; it is much more than that. True communication not achieved in their dignified marriage, Richard and Sarah let their repressed selves act out as the lover and the whore. From that angle, the play is reminiscent of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger in which Jimmy and Alison can make love only as a bear and a squirrel; revealing their need for affection and protection and gentle physical touch only when they assume their animal selves. The Lover at the end shows how difficult it is for a mirror to reflect reality: mirrors are deceptive for they just show the façade, unable to penetrate into the several layers beneath it. If the function of the theatre stage may be likened to that of the mirror, then nothing the audience sees is to be trusted for it can in no way be verified.

Betrayal In Betrayal (1978) Pinter provides the audience with what he refused to provide in earlier plays: verification. The audience is privileged in this play. Unlike The Collection, the audience know much more than the characters do and learn everything well ahead of them. The play is highly gratifying for the Pinter scholar, as well, for the dramatist here offers a chance to have his typical linguistic maneuvers to be fully comprehended. Knowing more than the characters, one can catch the characters’ maneuvers of evasion or masking or simply lying. Naturally, the cinematic nature of the play is responsible for that. In Betrayal Pinter has set about to adopt cinematic time and make it work within the limitations imposed by concrete stage space. The nine scenes in the play are like filmed shots in which the past and the future of the present time on the stage merge. In other words, as Enoch Brater points out, the play makes us concerned with “the unities and disunities of time, with deception and self-deception, with the past in the present and the present in the past.”195 These themes can work on the stage only because Pinter has abandoned conventional 193

Pinter, “The Lover,” 157. Pinter, “The Lover,” 157. 195 Enoch Brater, “Cinematic Fidelity and the Forms of Pinter’s Betrayal,” in Harold Pinter, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 110. 194

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dramatic time based on a chronological sequence as he did in most of his memory plays. Betrayal has a plot that revolves around the conventional triangle. Emma and Robert are a married couple; Jerry is Emma’s lover and Robert’s friend. Both men are in the publishing business. The play goes backward rather than forward. It progresses and regresses along the lines of the adulterous affair between Emma and Jerry. As it regresses in time, the ending of the affair is to be found in the initial scenes, the beginning in the final one. When the curtain rises, the couple has already parted. The beginning is the end. Regressing in time, the play progresses from apathy to passion, from indifference to love. The play can be seen as a product of Pinter’s excessive interest in time, but unlike his other plays in which time past is discussed or remembered, Betrayal dramatizes it. Flashback is a cinematic device, but had Pinter not been able to adopt it to the stage, the only alternative left for him would have been to revert to static drama as he did in plays like Landscape and Silence. The play is about betrayal. Adultery is a form of betrayal which is a wide concept. As Bernard Dukore states, “betrayal resonates more widely than adultery; for Pinter it seems to be the irreducible fact of modern consciousness.”196 In each scene, there is a betrayal of some sort, detected at that moment only by the audience who, as pointed out earlier, is way ahead of the characters in terms of the reality of their affair. In the first scene of the play. Jerry and Emma meet at a pub. We learn that this is the aftermath of their relationship; they separated two years ago. Here Emma betrays Jerry by implying that she feels bad because she told her husband of their affair only the night before. In this play, there are three forward movements and all forward movements are centered on a direct confrontation with betrayal. In the first scene, Jerry is not aware of the fact that he is betrayed by Emma who lies to him. In the next scene, there is a forward movement Robert and Jerry meet at Jerry’s house: JERRY.

The fact is I can’t understand … why she thought it necessary … after all these years … to tell you … so suddenly … last night … … ROBERT. No, she didn’t. She didn’t tell me about you and her last night. She told me about you and her four years ago. … JERRY. What? ROBERT. I think I will sit down. (He sits.)

196

Bernard F. Dukore, Harold Pinter (London: The MacMillan Press, 1982), 108.

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I thought you knew. JERRY. Knew what? ROBERT. That I knew. That I’ve known for years. I thought JERRY. You thought I knew? ROBERT. She said you didn’t. But I didn’t believe that.

you knew that.

(Pause.) Anyway, I think I thought you knew. But you say you didn’t?197

Emma has betrayed both Robert and Jerry. Robert has betrayed Jerry by not telling him he knew. Both lied. The third scene goes two years backward in time and the audience witnesses the very end of Jerry and Emma’s relationship in the flat where they have been meeting in the afternoons. Apathy, exhaustion and lack of romance pervade their affair. The next scene takes place in Robert and Emma’s house; Jerry is there, too. Here the audience realizes that Robert knows of the affair. Jerry is to leave for America, this is his farewell. After he leaves, the audience watches Emma quietly crying on her husband’s shoulder. In the fifth scene, a year earlier, Emma and Robert are in a hotel room in Venice. Jerry’s letter to Emma is given to Robert who, as he passes it on to her, asks, ROBERT.

… Was there any message for me in the letter?

… EMMA. No message. ROBERT. No message.

Not even his love? (Silence.) EMMA. We’re lovers. ROBERT. Ah. Yes. I thought it might be something like that, something along those lines. EMMA. When? ROBERT. What? EMMA. When did you think? ROBERT. Yesterday. Only yesterday. When I saw his handwriting on the letter. Before yesterday I was quite ignorant.198

Scene six presents a forward movement. Back from Italy, Emma is with Jerry in their flat, making love. Jerry is ignorant about Robert’s having learned of the affair. In the next scene, there is another forward movement. Robert and Jerry are eating lunch together. Both betray each other by the things they hide. Scene eight shows Jerry and Emma in the 197

Harold Pinter, “Betrayal,” in Plays Four (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 185186. 198 Pinter, “Betrayal,” 225-226.

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flat which they have just recently rented as a love nest. Love and passion permeate the air. In the last scene, the backward movement takes the audience three years further to the past. At Robert and Emma’s house, there is a party going on. Jerry, drunk, confesses his intense attraction to Emma: JERRY.

I was best man at your wedding. I saw you in white. I watched you glide by in white. … I should have had you, in your white, before the wedding. I should have blackened you, in your white wedding dress blackened you in your bridal dress, before ushering you into your wedding - as your best man. EMMA. My husband’s best man. Your best friend’s best man. JERRY. No. Your best man.199

The end is the beginning and the audience, having already witnessed the end of the affair and its aftermath, understands how transitory feelings and passions can be. Time sweeps away everything and change is the ultimate reality.

A Kind of Alaska A Kind of Alaska (1982) is a one-act play based on the book Awakenings by the British neurologist Oliver Sachs, who worked with survivors of the 1920s disease encephalitis lethargica (the so-called sleeping sickness) that attacks the brain and causes the patients to enter a catatonic state – unable to talk and move. Sacks treated the patients who had been unable to move for decades and his experience with them constituted the basis of his book. It is important to note that Pinter proclaimed Awakenings as the source of inspiration for his play, which is unprecedented in his drama and had factual information about the disease printed at the beginning of the play: A Kind of Alaska was inspired by Awakenings by Oliver Sachs M.D., first published in 1973 by Gerald Duckworth and Co. In the winter of 1916-17, there spread over Europe, and subsequently over the rest of the world, an extraordinary epidemic illness which presented itself in innumerable forms – as delirium, mania, trances, coma, sleep, insomnia, restlessness, and states of Parkinsonism. It was eventually

199

Pinter, “Betrayal,” 269.

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identified by the great physician Constantin von Economo and named by him encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness. Over the next ten years almost five million people fell victim to the disease of whom more than a third died. Of the survivors some escaped almost unscathed, but the majority moved into states of deepening illness. The worst-affected sank into singular states of sleep—conscious of their surroundings but motionless, speechless, and without hope or will, confined to asylums or other institutions. Fifty years later, with the development of the remarkable drug LDOPA, they erupted into life once more.”200

Giving factual information about the disease, the passage quoted above not only prepares the groundwork for the plot but also situates the play in the realm of “total realism” in Martin Esslin’s words.201 Needless to say, this is a unique initiative in Pinter’s dramatic oeuvre. Within the span of an hour, the audience watches what is happening to the awakened character, Deborah, and that is actuality. As Ann C. Hall argues, “it looks real, and follows the Aristotelian articulation of time, which limits tragedy’s passage to one revolution of the sun.”202 The play centers on Deborah, who was struck by the disease when she was sixteen years old and opens her eyes after twenty-nine years. The doctor that injects the miracle drug is Dr. Hornby, married—later to be divorced—to Deborah’s younger sister, Pauline. When Deborah wakes up, she thinks she has opened her eyes to her sixteen-year-old self: “…Where is everyone? Where is my dog? Where are my sisters? Last night Estelle was wearing my dress...”203 “I’ve seen this room before. What room is this? It’s not my bedroom. My bedroom has blue lilac on the walls. The sheets are soft, pretty. Mommy kisses me.”204 The reality is that she is now a middle-aged woman, her mother died, and her father is blinded. Making subtle references to Sleeping Beauty, the play is a deconstructive version of the fairy tale. Deborah enquires about the magical nature of her awakening: DEBORAH.

How did you wake me up? (Pause.)

200

Harold Pinter, “A Kind of Alaska,” in Plays Four (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 305. 201 Martin Esslin, Pinter the Playwright, (New York: Methuen, 1984), 220. 202 Ann C. Hall, “The Terror of Time: Pinter’s A Kind of Alaska,” in The Harold Pinter Review, Vol 1, (State College: Penn State University Press, 2017), 98. 203 Pinter, “A Kind of Alaska,” 311. 204 Pinter, “A Kind of Alaska,” 313.

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Private Worlds, Non-Verifiable Pasts, and Reconstructed Memories Or did you not wake me up? Did I just wake up myself? All by myself? Or did you wake me with a magic wand? HORNBY. I woke you with an injection. DEBORAH. Lovely injection. Oh how love it. And am I beautiful? HORNBY. Certainly. DEBORAH. And you are my Prince Charming. Aren’t you? (Pause.) Oh speak up. (Pause.) Silly shit. All men are alike. (Pause.) I think I love you. HORNBY. No you don’t. DEBORAH. Well, I’m not spoilt for choice here, am I? There’s not another man in sight. What have you done with the others? There’s a boy called Peter. We play with his trains, we play… Cowboys and Indians… I’m a tomboy. I knock him about. But that was…205

Deborah’s awakening is nothing like that of the sleeping beauty restored to a they-lived-happily-ever-after kind of life by the charming prince. Pinter problematizes time, memory, and consciousness in a fashion different from his earlier plays like Landscape and Old Times, in which the past is presented as co-existing with the present and memories as a safe retreat. Benedict Nightingale points out that Pinter is intrigued by the “submerged nine-tenths of the human personality and one-tenth that breaks the surface. Since Landscape and Silence, he has made a special study of those areas of the mind in which memory is sometimes blurred, sometimes curiously in sharp existence.”206 Deborah’s past is divided in that her memories until the day that she stopped are happy memories filled with love; however, Dr. Horny tells her that “one day suddenly you stopped …you fell asleep and no one could wake you. But although I use the word sleep, it was not strictly sleep.”207 Deborah’s childhood memories are clear but her next twenty-nine years are vague and claustrophobic: “…I’ve been dancing in very narrow spaces. Kept stubbing my toes and bumping my head…. The most crushing spaces. The most punishing spaces. That was tough going. Very difficult.”208 Having experienced lost time, Deborah is disoriented. When the subject is unconscious, time does not exist as a subjective phenomenon. For Deborah, there was no time for 205

Pinter, “A Kind of Alaska,” 321-322. Benedict Nightingale, “Time Passing,” The New Statesman, Oct. 22, 1982. 207 Pinter, “A Kind of Alaska,” 323. 208 Pinter, “A Kind of Alaska,” 326-327. 206

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twenty-nine years and no memories for that matter. Yet, objective time passed and left marks on her physically. Finding herself in a woman’s body with a girl’s mind, she awakens to a present that is alien to her. The conflict is articulated by Dr. Hornby: “You have been asleep for a long time. You are older, although you do not know that. You are still young, but older.”209 On a deeper subtextual level, passing time’s relation to youth and old age is problematized as an enigma. According to Nightingale, the play can be read as an “extreme metaphor for a feeling we must all have at times. Where did time go? What did I do while I was sleeping?”210 Given that Deborah has lost time—twenty-nine years—, her sister Pauline and Dr. Hornby come to the fore as voluntary storytellers to make up for the times she has missed: PAULINE. Shall I tell HORNBY. Both.211

her lies or the truth?

… PAULINE.

Debby. I’ve spoken to the family. Everyone was so happy. I spoke to them all, in turn. They’re away, you see. They’re on a world cruise.212

Pauline and Hornby fictionalize Deborah’s past, her lost time. In Judith Roof’s words, “her presence lacks both the history and memory that condition the presence of Hornby and Pauline. At the same time, Deborah’s present exists within the timescape of Hornby and Pauline’s long observation of her sleep, which exists within and as the exemplary condensed temporality of the stage.”213 The relationship between the three characters (with Deborah at the center) is reminiscent of the relationship between Kate, Anna, and Deeley (with Kate at the center): in both plays, the central character’s past is fabricated by the duo. The play ends on a note of surrender on Deborah’s part: You say I have been asleep. You say I am now awake. You say I have not awoken from the dead. You say I was not dreaming then and am not dreaming now. You say I have always been alive and am alive now. You say I am a woman. (She looks at PAULINE, then back at HORNBY.) 209

Pinter, “A Kind of Alaska,” 309. Nightingale, “Time Passing.” 211 Pinter, “A Kind of Alaska,” 329. 212 Pinter, “A Kind of Alaska,” 330. 213 Judith Roof, “Time Out: Time: Now,” in The Harold Pinter Review, Vol. 1 (State College: Penn State University Press, 2017), 22. 210

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Private Worlds, Non-Verifiable Pasts, and Reconstructed Memories She is a widow. She doesn’t go to her ballet classes anymore. Mummy and Daddy and Estelle are on a world cruise. They’ve stopped off in Bangkok. It’ll be my birthday soon. I think I have the matter in proportion. (Pause.) Thank you.214

In the final analysis, the play delineates objective versus subjective representations of time. The treatment in earlier plays of time as an idiosyncratic phenomenon for each individual constitutes the groundwork of the play.

Moonlight Moonlight (1993) is a full-length play that evokes themes, tropes, and characters from earlier plays. First and foremost, it is a play about the past and memories of the past. The stage is divided into three separate sections: in one section, Andy, a bedridden ill man, and his wife Bell; in the second section, their estranged sons Jake and Fred; and in the third section upstage Bridget, Andy’s deceased daughter. There are two other characters, Maria and her husband Ralph, who appear from darkness to visit different sections of the stage. As Martin Esslin points out, “two of the simultaneously visible acting areas in Moonlight are realistic; the third above and behind them is a dream area where Bridget, the protagonist’s dead daughter haunts his dreams and appears in flashbacks to earlier times.”215 The themes in Moonlight hearken back to earlier plays in several ways. In terms of the subjectivity of memory, the play reminds the reader of Landscape, Silence, and most notably Old Times, where Anna—like Bridget—emerges from the past and past becomes present, thus creating synchronic time on the stage. Besides, the “idea of family life as a brutal battleground” is a familiar trope, the most renowned example of which is found in The Homecoming.216 Also, the unverifiability of the truth, “unknowability of one’s lifelong partner, the hunger for an ascertainable past”, and language games constitute the groundwork of the play.217 Despite these thematic affinities to previous plays, Moonlight opens new 214

Pinter, “A Kind of Alaska,” 342. Martin Esslin, “Harold Pinter: from Moonlight to Celebration,” in The Pinter Review Collected Essays 1999 and 2000, edited by Francis Gillen and Steven H. Gale (Tampa: The University of Tampa Press, 2000), 23. 216 Michael Billington, Harold Pinter, new and updated ed. (London: Faber and Faber, 2007), 339. 217 Billington, Harold Pinter, 339. 215

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vistas: this is a play about old age and an old man’s fear of death, and grief over loss as well as estrangement. The darkness and gloom hanging over the play has led some critics to approach the play as a “tone poem”.218 Indeed, Moonlight is a lyrical play. It opens with Bridget’s ghostly presence in faint light: “I can’t sleep. There’s no moon. It’s so dark. I think I’ll go downstairs and walk about…But I don’t want anyone to know I’m moving about in the night. I don’t want to wake my father and mother…. I know that when they look at me they see that I am all they have left of their life.”219 What may strike the reader as a romantic utterance at the outset, is actually quite grim in that Bridget, Andy and Bel’s deceased daughter represents what her parents have left of their life, which is nothing other than death. Following Bridget’s address from the hazy upper stage, Andy and Bel converse in a typical Pinteresque fashion. Andy’s initial question— “Where are the boys? Have you found them?”220—turns out to be a heavily loaded question in that Jake and Fred—both in their late twenties—are not only physically away from their father but also emotionally estranged. So, on the literal and figurative levels, they do not want to be found. Andy, formerly a civil servant, yearns to contact his sons before he dies. His relationship with his wife is inconsistent; it wavers between appreciation and derision: “…You are the proper target for a cat’s derision. And how I loved you. (Pause.) What a wonderful woman you were. You had such a great heart. You still have, of course. I can hear it from here. Banging away. …My God, she’s taking the piss out of me. My own wife. On my deathbed. She’s as bad as that fucking cat.”221 Andy’s language, similar to Max’s in The Homecoming, is scatological. Using obscene language and swearing frequently, Andy admits “I would never use obscene language in the office. Certainly not. I kept my obscene language for the home, where it belongs.”222 Pinter’s audience expects the unexpected; hence, they are not easily shocked at what they hear. Nonetheless, the couple’s frank confession to each other makes a shock effect. ANDY.

Oh, there’s something I forgot to tell you. I bumped into Maria the other day, the day before I was stricken. She invited me back to her flat

218

Billington, Harold Pinter, 339. Harold Pinter, “Moonlight,” Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 2nd expanded ed. (Chatham, Kent: Mackays of Chatham, PLC, 2005), 319. 220Pinter, “Moonlight,” 319. 221 Pinter, “Moonlight,” 321. 222 Pinter, “Moonlight,” 334. 219

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Private Worlds, Non-Verifiable Pasts, and Reconstructed Memories for a slice of plumduff. I said to her, if you have thighs, prepare to bare them now. BEL. Yes, you always entertained a healthy lust for her. ANDY. A healthy lust? Do you think so? BEL. And she for you. (334) … ANDY. Anyway, admit it. You always entertained a healthy lust for Maria yourself. And she for you. But let me make something quite clear. I was never jealous. I was not jealous then. Nor am I jealous now. BEL. Why should you be jealous? She was your mistress. Throughout the early and lovely days of our marriage. ANDY. She must have reminded me of you. (Pause.) The past is a mist.223

The play is unique in that it deters readers from making a subtextual interpretation. At times, it is quite funny. Bel refers to Andy’s language as “coarse, crude, vacuous, puerile, obscene, and brutal” and adds that “most people were ready to vomit after no more than ten minutes in your company.”224 Yet, she finds a “delicate, even poetic sensibility”225 behind the repelling exterior. The rationale of the contrast between the coarse façade and the latent poetic interior is not insinuated in any way. The episodic structure allows the play about the last days of a dying man to wander off to different planes in the past and the present, thus refraining from a monotonous mood. A flashback scene goes back to the teenage years of the siblings and depicts the quarrel over whether Jake will take them to a party. Andy seems to be unaware of Bridget’s death and keeps expecting his grandchildren to come before he dies: “…But what if I cross this horizon before my grandchildren get here? They won’t know where I am. What will they say? Will you ever tell me? Will you ever tell me what they say? They’ll cry or they won’t, a sorrow too deep for tears, but they’re only babies, what can they know about death?”226 Bel’s consolation to Andy is touching as she strives to convince him that “the really little ones …know something about death… we’ve forgotten death but they haven’t forgotten it. They remember it.”227

223

Pinter, “Moonlight,” 336. Pinter, “Moonlight,” 335. 225 Pinter, “Moonlight,” 335. 226 Pinter, “Moonlight,” 358. 227 Pinter, “Moonlight,” 358. 224

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Andy rages against death, expresses his feelings of longing for his lost daughter— “Ah darling. Ah my darling”228—and discusses Bel’s lesbian relationship with Maria as well as her affair with Ralph. The boys Jake and Fred, while creating laughter with their name-dropping, language games, and Pinteresque mannerisms, seem to be obsessed with their father despite their estrangement. In response to Fred’s scornful remarks about their father, Jake defends him, saying “He loved me. And one day I shall love him. I shall love him and be happy to pay the full price of that love,” which Fred clarifies as “which is the price of death.”229 The inference is that it is only after death that repressed feelings of love and affection are revealed. Andy dreams of being visited by his imagined grandchildren on his deathbed. Maria and Ralph, however, brag about the success of their three children when they visit him—a visit which must be a figment of Andy’s imagination. The most heartbreaking part is when Bel phones Jake and Fred to let them know their father is dying. Jake picks up the phone: JAKE. Chinese laundry? BEL. Your father is very JAKE. Chinese laundry?

ill.

(Silence.) BEL. Your father is very ill. JAKE. Can I pass you to my colleague?

(Fred takes the phone.) Chinese laundry? (Pause.) BEL. It doesn’t matter.230 FRED.

While the sons avoid acknowledging the urgency of their father’s condition, they fantasize about a mock memorial service: JAKE. Pity you weren’t at d’Orangerie’s memorial. FRED. I’m afraid I was confined to my bed with a mortal JAKE. So I gather. Pity. It was a great do.231

….. JAKE. Well, you loved him yourself, didn’t you? FRED. I loved him. I loved him like a father.232

228

Pinter, “Moonlight,” 360. Pinter, “Moonlight,” 367. 230 Pinter, “Moonlight,” 381. 231 Pinter, “Moonlight,” 384. 232 Pinter, “Moonlight,” 386. 229

disease.

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Michael Billington draws attention to the biographical component of the play: “Moonlight deals partly with the ambivalence of sons towards fathers, but it is also about a father’s fear of estrangement from his sons. To what extent is it inspired by the relationship between Harold Pinter and Daniel? Pinter himself is understandably reluctant to see the play as autobiographical. Nevertheless, you can’t help feeling that it is constantly informed by a sense of private pain.”233 Whether it is autobiographical or not, the play is about loss, longing for the past, solitude, and fear of death. It is worth noting that as Andy approaches death, he asks “What’s happening (Pause.) What is happening?”234, the same question Deborah poses as she is waking up in A Kind of Alaska. Both characters are at a loss for words when they find themselves at a juncture where they confront a foreign experience like death or rebirth. The play ends with the deceased daughter Bridget’s enigmatic words: “When I got to the house it was bathed in moonlight. The house, the glade, the lane, were all bathed in moonlight. But the inside of the house was dark and all the windows were dark. There was no sound. (Pause.) I stood there in the moonlight and waited for the moon to go down.”235 Hence, the final note in the play is an anticipation of complete darkness, which is death.

Ashes to Ashes Ashes to Ashes (1996) is a play that carries Pinteresque language and Pinteresque tropes to a masterful zenith. Here, Pinter plays the by-now familiar chords of ambiguity and evasion through his use of pauses and silences, and foregrounds memory as a battleground. The ashes to ashes in the title is a familiar phrase for the Christian audience; the reference that comes from the book of Genesis is used by priests in burial services: “We, therefore, commit this body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life.” The phrase in the title, then, while referring to the song that Rebecca and Devlin sing, connotes the inevitability of the lifecycle: we rise from ashes and we return to dust. The extended one-act play has two characters in their forties, Rebecca and Devlin, who live in a house in the country. The setting is their living room on a summer evening. The string of ambiguities is crowned with the mysterious relationship between the couple: Is Devlin Rebecca’s lover, 233

Billington, Harold Pinter, 345. Pinter, “Moonlight,” 383. 235 Pinter, “Moonlight,” 387. 234

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husband, or therapist? The fact that he asks so many questions in the manner of an interrogation reminds the readers of Stanley’s interrogation in The Birthday Party. Rebecca’s evasive responses are reminiscent of Kate’s in Old Times and her monologues, which have an aquatic quality, may be likened to Beth’s in Landscape. Ashes to Ashes seems to fuse the dramatist’s previous treatments of time and memory with territorial seclusion and intrusion. The interpersonal relationship between Devlin and Rebecca seems to be overshadowed by a serious traumatic past, the ghosts of which continue to haunt Rebecca—and possibly Devlin as well. Extremely poignant and mysterious, Ashes to Ashes may be the only play that keeps the nature of the relationship between the two characters in the dark, which takes the enigmatic quality of the conversation to new heights. The play begins in-medias-res, with Rebecca sitting and Devlin standing with a drink in his hand: REBECCA.

Well… for example…he would stand over me and clench his fist. And then he’d put his other hand on my neck and grip it and bring my head towards him. His fist … grazed my mouth. And he’d say, “kiss my fist.” DEVLIN. And did you? REBECCA. Oh yes. I kissed his fist. The knuckles. And then he’d open his hand and give me the palm of his hand…to kiss…which I kissed.236

The dialogue continues as Devlin questions Rebecca forcefully to elicit highly personal information from Rebecca: DEVLIN. So your legs REBECCA. Yes.237

were opening?

Devlin’s questions seek the truth of Rebecca’s past: “There are so many things I don’t know. I know nothing … about any of this. Nothing. I’m in the dark. I need light.”238 The search for light is for enlightenment on Devlin’s part. Yet, as the stage directions dictate, through the play “the lamplight has become very bright but does not illumine the room.”239 The search for truth is a lost battle in Pinter’s drama. Devlin is at pains to learn the dates and details of Rebecca’s professed love but it is all in vain. Rebecca evades his question “…when did all this happen exactly? I

236

Harold Pinter, Ashes to Ashes, (London: Faber and Faber, 1996), 3. Pinter, “Ashes to Ashes”, 7. 238 Pinter, “Ashes to Ashes”, 11. 239 Pinter, “Ashes to Ashes”, 1. 237

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haven’t …how can I put this…quite got it into focus. Was it before you knew me or after you knew me? That’s a question of some importance.”240 Devlin calls Rebecca his darling and sweetheart, which astounds Rebecca: “How odd to be called darling. No one has ever called me darling. Apart from my lover.”241 In a dream-like sequence, Rebecca speaks monologues, none of which serve as responses to Devlin’s direct questions posed to elicit specific information from her. She begins each monologue with by the way and floats from one memory to another. Her lover was a travel guide who “used to go to the railway station and walk down the platform and tear all the babies from the arms of their screaming mothers.”242 This abrupt reminisce is shocking. From this point onwards, the play may be seen as a post-Holocaust play owing to the references of platforms, trains, bundles, and babies snatched from their mothers’ arms: DEVLIN.

I inferred from this that you were talking about some kind of atrocity. Now let me ask you this. What authority do you think you yourself possess that would give you the right to discuss such an atrocity? REBECCA. I have no such authority. Nothing has ever happened to me. Nothing has ever happened to any of my friends. I have never suffered. Nor have my friends.243

While Rebecca distances herself from the atrocity temporally, she confirms how the past functions as a constant backdrop to her present. Ann Hall postulates that “in Ashes to Ashes, the Holocaust rolls in like mist as the play progresses, prompting the main character, Rebecca, to recall a terrifying incident that could only have occurred during the Holocaust, but it is an incident she was clearly too young to have experienced. Her recollection’s effect is clear—the past, no matter how long ago, envelops us all.”244 The primacy of the subtext, a hallmark of Pinter’s drama, puts its imprint on the play. Devlin’s reaction to Rebecca’s calling the pen that rolled off the table, “innocent” is loaded with meaning: “you can’t know it was innocent…because you don’t know how many other hands have held it, how many other hands have written with it, what other people have been 240

Pinter, “Ashes to Ashes”, 33. Pinter, “Ashes to Ashes”, 13. 242 Pinter, “Ashes to Ashes”, 27. 243 Pinter, “Ashes to ashes”, 41. 244 Ann C. Hall, “The Terror of Time: Pinter’s A Kind of Alaska,” in The Harold Pinter Review, Vol 1 (State College: Penn State University Press. 2017), 97. 241

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doing with it. You know nothing of its history. You know nothing of its parents’ history.”245 Devlin is anxious because he is in the dark regarding what took place in the past and he feels he is “in a quicksand.”246 He attempts to bring order to their relationship and claim control by forcing Rebecca to kiss his fist, as Rebecca’s professed lover did in the past. This act is typically ambiguous in that it recalls the mystery in Landscape: could Devlin be the past lover Rebecca was talking about? Powerful images surface in Rebecca’s dreamy world and invite the reader to flow away with them. In one of the monologues, she remembers a beautiful summer day in Dorset when she saw people on the beach: “the guides …were ushering all these people across the beach. It was such a lovely day. It was so still and the sun was shining. And I saw these people walk into the sea. The tide covered them slowly. Their bags bobbed about in the waves.”247 While the repercussion of this mental scene for the readers is the death of multitudes by drowning, Devlin is only interested in when Rebecca lived in Dorset, a question that is expectedly unanswered by Rebecca, who instantly jumps to another monologue, the visual image of which is almost surreal. The previous image of drowning is replaced by an image of suffocation: “This mental elephantiasis means that when you spill an ounce of gravy, for example, it immediately expands and becomes a vast sea of gravy. It becomes a sea of gravy that surrounds you on all sides and you suffocate in a vast sea of gravy. It’s terrible.”248 The terrifying state of drowning and suffocation has to do with loss of breath and as such, it is associated with death. Rebecca transitions to another memory: “And my best friend, the man I had given my heart to, the man I knew was the man for me the moment we met, my dear, my most precious companion, I watched him walk down the platform and tear all the babies from the arms of their screaming mothers.”249 Constituting the climax of the play, this memory is followed by silence, to be broken by Devlin’s turn to the present: “Did you see Kim and the kids?.”250 Devlin struggles to bring Rebecca to the present: “Now look, let’s start again. We live here. You don’t live …in Dorset… or anywhere else. You live here with me. This is our house. You have a very nice sister. She lives close to you. She has two lovely kids. You are their

245

Pinter, “Ashes to ashes”, 37. Pinter, “Ashes to ashes”, 39. 247 Pinter, “Ashes to ashes”, 49. 248 Pinter, “Ashes to ashes”, 51. 249 Pinter, “Ashes to ashes”, 53. 250 Pinter, “Ashes to ashes”, 55. 246

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aunt. You like that.”251 However, Rebecca’s reply is “I don’t think we can start again. We started…a long time ago. We started. We can’t start again. We can end again.”252 A momentary merging is insinuated when they sing together “Ashes to ashes / And dust to dust / If the women don’t get you / The liquor must.”253 Yet, despite Devlin’s urges, Rebecca cannot dissociate herself from the past memories: REBECCA. They took us to the trains ECHO. the trains REBECCA. They were taking the babies away ECHO. the babies away REBECCA. I took my baby and wrapped it in my ECHO. my shawl REBECCA. And I made it into a bundle ECHO. a bundle.254

shawl

Her baby having been snatched from her bosom, Rebecca utters the final words of the play: “I don’t know of any baby.”255 She may desire to forget but to no avail; the text is proof of its impossibility. Pinter’s approach to time is based on its fluid nature. Just like Beth or Kate, Rebecca’s memories constitute her present. While all three are elusive women, Rebecca’s past is inferred to be the most traumatic. The final stage direction of the play reads “long silence”, followed by “blackout.” A typical Pinteresque ending, this utter darkness is both literal and metaphorical.

251

Pinter, “Ashes to ashes”, 65. Pinter, “Ashes to ashes”, 67. 253 Pinter, “Ashes to ashes”, 69. 254 Pinter, “Ashes to ashes”, 76-77. 255 Pinter, “Ashes to ashes”, 85. 252

POWER GAMES AND POLITICS

Harold Pinter was commonly considered to be an apolitical playwright for about a quarter of a century – until the early 1980s. According to Susan Rusinko, “if Osborne represents the dramatists with a social conscience, Harold Pinter epitomizes the cool, apolitical non-polemicists among the new writers.”256 Kenneth Tynan groups Pinter together with Simon Gray, Joe Orton, and Alan Ayckbourn, all quiet, apolitical stylists; the other group consisting of John Osborne, John Arden, and Arnold Wesker, all “heated, embattled, socially committed playwrights.”257 Such an approach to Pinter’s drama was enhanced not only by critical views of his works but also by the dramatist’s own vision of what he was doing in his plays. Pinter dislikes talking about his works; yet, his minimalist theorizing resonates widely: No, I’m not committed as a writer, in the usual sense of the term, either religiously or politically. And I’m not conscious of any particular social function. I write because I want to write. I don’t see any placards on myself, and I don’t carry any banners. Ultimately, I distrust definitive labels.258

More than two decades after he made the above-quoted remarks, looking back, Pinter elaborated on his political non-commitment: “I wouldn’t say that my political awareness during those years was dead. Far from it. But I came to view politicians and political structures and political acts with something I can best describe as detached contempt. To engage in politics seemed to me futile.”259 There is an invisible political level in Pinter’s plays and it revolves around the theme of authority as menace. From a certain perspective, many plays by the dramatist (particularly those that belong to the early phase of his career) are centered on the use and 256

Susan Rusinko, British Drama: 1950 to the Present, 47. Kenneth Tynan, “Withdrawing with Style from the Chaos,” The New Yorker, December 19, 1977. 258 Harold Pinter, “Writing for Myself,” in Plays Two (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), X. 259 Nicholas Hern, “A Play and its Politics,” in One for the Road by Harold Pinter (New York: Grove Weidenfeld. 1986), 10. 257

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abuse of authority and power games. Politics does not constitute the basis of Pinter’s art; Pinter’s characters do not discuss subjects like wars, politics, race relations, economics, or unemployment but such subjects influence their attitudes, actions and diction. Pinter does not write discursive plays about political or social awareness; his plays do not generalize or theorize. Grounded firmly in the concrete and the particular, Pinter concentrates upon human relations and it is in that plane of reference that his political stance can be deduced. Pinter’s plays are about power, about what Martin Esslin calls “the basic political problems: the use and abuse of power, the fight for living space, cruelty, terror.”260 That is to say that a retroactive scrutiny of Pinter’s drama, from the earliest phase onwards, illustrates his ever-present political consciousness. Although Pinter was habitually read as an apolitical dramatist, even the earliest plays can be approached as seeds of his explicitly political plays Interpersonal power struggles, oppression by the powerful party, and submission of the weak to the power holder are Pinteresque themes that sprout into larger scales in politics. Violence (verbal or physical), fear of losing the territorial comfort zone, and anxiety about the future are Pinter’s thematic variables. While they are oblique in most of his dramatic works, they become quite overt in his political phase. In other words, his political plays do not depict a new direction in his dramaturgy but a shift to the foreground of several latent tropes in his earlier drama. Peter Hall in his book entitled Directing Harold Pinter’s Plays states that in Pinter’s threatening world, words are weapons that cause anxiety or destruction. He argues that “his content—the unknown threat, the confrontation in the confined space, whether it be territorial, or the personal tensions of the subconscious—has hardly changed in forty-five years. The threats have always been political metaphors of power”.261 Hence, it would not be wrong to claim that the entirety of Pinter’s anxiety-ridden dramatic oeuvre is politically themed. His plays do not explore party politics strictly but they exhibit a firm political consciousness, which was announced to the world in the playwright’s Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech entitled Art, Truth and Politics in 2005. That confirmed the fact that despite his earlier announcement some four decades ago that he was not committed as a writer, Pinter evolved into being a politically conscious and articulate artist and his perennial metaphors of power transformed into specific opinions on world politics. 260

Martin Esslin, The Peopled Wound: The Plays of Harold Pinter, (London: Methuen & Co, 1970), 24. 261 Peter Hall, Directing Harold Pinter’s Plays (London: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 160

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The essence of his speech lay in his condemnation of the United States and British governments’ policies to sustain power by oppressing weak countries. The speech, articulating his bitter criticism of the subjugation of nations and people, illustrates how informed and involved he is in world politics. The Neruda poem he quotes—“I’m Explaining a Few Things” ends with the line “Come and see the blood in the streets.”262 While Pinter’s Nobel lecture startled people who were expecting a speech on his dramaturgy, which brought him the prize, it was actually not much of a surprise for the trained Pinter audience and the Pinter scholar who pursued the thread of the foundational tropes of violence, power games, abuse and exploitation of the vulnerable, as well as the disintegration of the self in Pinter’s plays. Thus, his overtly bitter condemnation of the politics of powerful countries carried the perennial sub-text of his drama to the surface in a plain text of utmost clarity. Pinter’s Nobel lecture shouts at the audience, which contradicts with his drama. As it has already been pointed out in the introduction, in Pinter’s plays, “to shout is a weakness; you have to contain everything”.263 While Pinter’s drama is close-lipped and taciturn, his Nobel Speech is extremely vocal. In his article entitled Pinter’s Weasels published in The Guardian, David Edgar wrote that “the idea that Pinter was a dissenting figure only in later life ignores the politics of his early work. Playwrights tend to start out political and end up personal. Harold Pinter appeared to follow the opposite course.”264 Yet, Pinter’s personal drama found its fertile soil in the dramatist’s political consciousness. The plays that are discussed below are Pinter’s plays based on power games and overtly political plays. The Hothouse is a play that belongs to the dramatist’s early phase; however, it clearly manifests the seeds of his perennial political awareness. The Dumb Waiter delineates the authoritysubject relationship. One for the Road (1984), Mountain Language (1988), The New World Order (1991), Party Time (1991), and Celebration (2000), as the plays of the 80s and 90s, are generally accepted as Pinter’s overtly political plays.265 262

Pablo Neruda, “I’m Explaining a Few Things,” accessed August 6, 2023, https://allpoetry.com/I-Explain-A-Few-Things. 263 Peter Hall, “A Directors Approach: An Interview with Peter Hall,” in A Casebook on Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming. ed. John Lahr (New York: Grove Press, 1971), 22. 264 David Edgar, “Pinter’s Weasels,” The Guardian, December 29, 2008. 265 Craig Owens in Time Out of Joint: Power, Performance, and the State of Exception in Harold Pinter’s Drama, draws attention to the fact that these political plays “situate themselves in the context of ruptures in social and political norms.

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The Hothouse The Hothouse (1958) delineates the potential threat that lies within power. The threat is threefold: 1) the desire to possess power is so strong that once the possibility for possession emerges, it negates all sorts of human considerations, and 2) once possessed, power degenerates or distorts the human psyche and negates human values that may block or contradict its terms, and 3) power brings out the repressed sadistic tendencies within its holder. The play may be aptly called a comedy of menace, a fusion of grim humor and horrifying power games. The comedy stems from Pinter’s use of his typical linguistic devices: repetitions, tautologies, verbal absurdities, incoherent associations, and illogical dialogues. The horror lies in the realization that authority so easily deprives the individual of his essential humanity. The Hothouse takes place in an “institution of evil”266 not clearly defined; it is sort of a rest home or convalescent home. The patients are The social disorder in these plays’ backgrounds suggests states of martial law supporting recently emerging and fragile, but nonetheless ruthless regimes. Whether by focusing on an old order’s bootlicking and pandering to a new military regime, as in Party Time, or on the administration of menacing interrogations, as in The New World Order, Mountain Language, and One for the Road, these plays represent a state of affairs consonant with what Giorgio Agamben describes as an increasingly common juridico-political phenomenon in his book State of Exception. Agamben, drawing on a deep and varied archive of historiography, historical theory, and political philosophy, describes states of exception as political crises or transition periods that allow for extraordinary extralegal measures to be taken to secure state power,” Time Out of Joint: Power, Performance, and the State of Exception in Harold Pinter’s Drama (State College: Penn State University Press, 2017), 30. 266 “In addition to evil actions by perpetrators who hold power in their hands, Pinter insinuates the presence of inherent evil in certain institutions. In line with Pinter, theorists writing about the concept of evil focus not only on evil action and evil character but also evil institutions. According to Claudia Card, a social practice may be deemed evil ‘when it is reasonably foreseeable by those with power to change it that intolerably harmful injustices will result from its normal or correct operation.’ The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 20. The age-old connection between authority and evil gained a new dimension after Hannah Arendt’s ground-breaking work in the field. In The Origin of Totalitarianism, Arendt, trying to comprehend the evil practices of the Nazi death camps, condemns totalitarian regimes as the source of evil practices. … However, it is Arendt’s seminal concept, the banality of evil, which opened up new vistas in the field of cultural theory. In Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,

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governed by military discipline under such enormous pressure that they lose all sense of individuality and identity. They forget their real names for they are called by numbers, for the sake of order. Roote, the head of this establishment is an old, exhausted man. He has all the power within the four walls of the hothouse. Now and then he has lapses to common sense but he, being entrapped by the fixed rules and regulations of the establishment, has no initiative of his own: ROOTE.

Still, I sometimes think I could have instituted a few more changes—if I’d had time. I’m not talking about many changes or drastic changes. That’s not necessary. But on this number’s business, for instance. It would make things so much easier if we called them by their names. Then we’d all know where we were. After all, they’re not criminals. They’re only people in need of help, which we try to give, in one way or another, to the best of our discretion, to the best of our judgement, to help them regain their confidence

Arendt analyzes the individual’s culpability for evil. She argues that Adolph Eichmann, the Jew who was sued in Jerusalem for his major role in the deportation of Jews to the Nazi concentration camps, is just a desk murderer who simply acted without thinking much. … Arendt’s so-called cog theory posits that Eichmann was a “tiny cog in the machinery of the final solution.” Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin, 1977), 289. Arendt bases her argument on the idea that “the essence of totalitarian government, and perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to dehumanize them.” Eichmann in Jerusalem, 289. … She distinguishes Eichmann from Shakespeare’s infamous evil characters like Iago, Macbeth, and Richard III in that Eichmann was not a villain with evil motives: ‘Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives at all. And this diligence in itself was in no way criminal; he certainly would never have murdered his superior in order to inherit his post.’ Eichmann in Jerusalem, 287. In other words, he is a terrifyingly ordinary man with banal motives. Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil has been very influential upon subsequent theorists. Philip Zimbardo’s well-known Stanford Prison Experiment confirms Arendt’s conviction that social conditions can turn ordinary individuals into evil agents. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (New York Random House, 2008). It is remarkable how Harold Pinter’s minimalist dramatic style nurtures seeds that may come to full bloom in the light of the afore-mentioned theories on the concept of evil, among many others. The horror lies in the realization that authority so easily becomes a source of evil and deprives individuals of their essential humanity. Asli Tekinay, “The Arch of Pinteresque Drama: Power and Evil,” in Piercing the Shroud: Destabilizations of Evil, ed. Murray Rallie and Stefanie Schnitzer Mills (Boston: Brill Rodopi, 2019), 44-46.

Power Games and Politics

98 … GIBBS.

Would you like me to place further consideration of this matter on the agenda, sir? ROOTE (sharply). Certainly not, we can’t. … You know damn well we can’t. That was one of the rules of the procedure laid down in the original constitution. The patients are to be given numbers and called by those numbers. And that’s how it’s got to remain.267

The figure of authority is imprisoned by the order of which he is a part. Engulfed within the order, the staff in the hothouse are made up of people who have become like robots; mechanical and bereft of human emotions. The order necessitates that the patients have no free will and no control over their bodies. Women are freely raped by the staff and even that is legitimized: If a member of the staff decides that for the good of a female patient some degree of copulation is necessary then two birds are killed with one stone! It does no harm to either party. At least, that’s how I’ve found it in my experience. (With emphasis.) But we all know the rule! Never ride barebacked. Always take precautions. Otherwise, complications set in. Never ride barebacked and always send in a report. After all, the reactions of the patient have to be tabulated, compared with others, filed, stamped and if possible verified! It stands to reason. Well, I can tell you something, Gibbs, one thing is blatantly clear to me. Someone hasn’t been sending in his report!268

When a woman patient gives birth to a baby, Roote panics for that may stain the reputation of the institution. The measure to be taken is to find someone who would assume the responsibility of the action, thus to clarify the records by naming the guilty person, and to do something about the baby: GIBBS. What shall I do about the baby-sir? ROOTE. Get rid of it. GIBBS. The mother would have to go with it, ROOTE. Why? GIBBS. Can’t live without the mother. ROOTE. Why not?

267

sir.

Harold Pinter, “The Hothouse,” in Plays One (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 197-198. 268 Pinter, “The Hothouse,” 219.

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The mother feeds it.269

The clinical detachment and the emotional coldness with which such human concerns are foregrounded is telling of how authority distorts the psychology of its possessor. The patients become no different from animals to be tamed and kept under control in order to preserve the order which is the key principle. No deviation is allowed; uniformity is the central idea. The implications of the administrative system in the hothouse naturally lead the audience to make their own associations to the political systems which are hinted at in the play. Gibbs is an efficient administrator; in his utter ruthlessness and total inhumanity, he carries on and fulfills his duties as the system necessitates. He finds a devoted servant of the establishment, a man called Lamb, responsible for keeping all the doors locked at all times. Expecting promotion in the power chain, Lamb is willing to help in any way he can: “… I must say I’ve always enjoyed my work here tremendously … I mean, you really get the feeling here that something … important is going on, something really valuable, and to be associated with it in any way can’t be seen in any other light, than as privilege.”270 Taken into the sound-proof experimentation room, Lamb is electrocuted and interrogated so as to find out if he is the man who impregnated the patient who has just had a baby. Gibbs knows that Lamb has nothing to do with the affair but someone has to take on the guilt. The interrogation scene is typically Pinteresque: reminiscent of the interrogation scene in The Birthday Party in which the authority figures Goldberg and McCann bombard Stanley with questions that can have no sensible answers, here Gibbs and Cutts engage in the same terrifying game: CUTTS. Are you often puzzled by women? LAMB. Women? GIBBS. Men. LAMB. Men? Well, I was just going to answer the question about women— GIBBS. Do you often feel puzzled? LAMB. Puzzled? GIBBS. By women. LAMB. Women? CUTTS. Men. LAMB. Uh—now just a minute, I … do you want separate answers or a

joint answer? After your day’s work, do you ever feel tired, edgy?

CUTTS. 269 270

Pinter, “The Hothouse,” 220-221. Pinter, “The Hothouse,” 236.

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Gibbs plays with Lamb just as a cat does with a mouse. Finally, he brings him to the point where he becomes totally submissive, yielding to whatever Gibbs says. The power game necessitates ruthlessness at all costs. The ambitious Gibbs manipulates everything to suit his own ends. The final scene takes place not in the hothouse but in the ministry with which it is affiliated. The shocking news that Gibbs gives to the ministry is that the whole staff except himself has been slaughtered. The implications to the audience are clear that he is the murderer. From the point of view of the ministry, however, he is now the indispensable man to be rewarded for having things under control in the establishment. Gibbs claims that the massacre was done by the patients whose doors were unlocked by Lamb, the man in charge of locks. The reason for the assumed rebellion was, according to Gibbs, that Roote—the head of the establishment—was unpopular with the patients: “Two things especially had made him rather unpopular. He had seduced patient 6459 and been the cause of her pregnancy, and he had murdered patient 6457. That had not gone down too well with the rest of the patients.”272 The Hothouse dramatizes human relationships as a battle for dominance, with the characters carefully calculating their opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, as if they were players in a hard-fought game. With his insatiable need to dominate, to be the prime power in the establishment, Gibbs finally gets what he has for long been awaiting, at the expense of a horrifying slaughter. As to Lamb, now totally destroyed, he is in the sound-proof room. The curtain falls on “Lamb in chair. He sits still, staring, as in a catatonic trance.”273

271

Pinter, “The Hothouse,” 245-247. Pinter, “The Hothouse,” 328. 273 Pinter, “The Hothouse,” 328. 272

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The Dumb Waiter The Dumb Waiter (1960) is probably Pinter’s most comic play. The plot of this one-act comedy is quite simple: Ben and Gus are in a basement flat, waiting to be told of their next job. It is only towards the end of the play that the nature of their job is revealed to the audience; it is murder. Ben and Gus are professional killers. They take their order from an authority figure the audience does not see on the stage. Ben takes the final order but this time the victim is Gus. The Dumb Waiter probes the authority—subject relationship from a fresh angle. Ben and Gus are part of an organization and they are used to do the job planned by the authorities; they know neither the identity of the person to be killed nor the reasons for the murder. They just do what they are told to do. The quantity of unknown facts in the play is overwhelming. What is in the foreground, however, is the attitude of the two characters to the source of power that controls them. Both are willing to obey orders without inquiring into the mysteries behind them. Comedy takes on a mysterious tone as a box of matches is slid under the door for them to light the gas stove; the audience is now well made aware that Ben and Gus are not alone in the room. The room is not offering any safety in this case; on the contrary, the power above is overhearing and overseeing whatever takes place there. Cloaked behind fantastic comedy, the presence of immense tension is felt by the audience. As a serving-hatch, a dumb waiter held by pulleys descends from above, Ben and Gus start to serve. The scene is extremely amusing. The activities of the dumbwaiter, which comes down, gives orders written on a piece of paper, and then ascends without warning affect Gus and Ben deeply, but in different ways: Gus is much more frantic and unable to cope than Ben, who is more self-possessed and calmer. Their pathetic efforts to obey the orders underline high comedy: GUS (reading). Macaroni Pastitsio. Ormitha Macarounada. BEN. What was that? GUS. Macaroni Pastitsio. Ormitha Macarounada. BEN. Greek dishes. GUS. No. BEN. That’s right. GUS. That’s pretty high class. BEN. Quick before it goes up. (GUS puts the plate in the box) GUS (calling up the hatch). Three McVitie and Price! One

Lyons Red Label! One Smith’s Crisps! One Eccles cake! One Fruit and Nut! BEN. Cadbury’s.

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(up the hatch). Cadbury’s! (handing the milk). One bottle of milk. (up the hatch). One bottle of milk! Half a pint! (He looks at the label) Express Dairy! (He puts the bottle in the box.) (The box goes up) Just did it. BEN. You shouldn’t shout like that. GUS. Why not? BEN. It isn’t done.274 GUS BEN GUS

Their pathetic efforts to please the power above by sending up all they have got with them to eat and their devotion to serve are very funny indeed. However, the other dimension is that the audience sees two gunmen on the stage, obeying an invisible, omnipotent authority figure like God. Comedy that is a result of the power’s demands for unusual food and Gus’ insufficient supplies is undercut as the food Gus has sent up it rejected and sent down by the unseen power: “the Eccles cake was stale; … the chocolate was melted; … the milk was sour; … the biscuits were mouldy.”275 Rejection of all that Gus has been able to send upstairs turns out to be a rejection of Gus himself. Gus has been asking too many questions. Dissatisfied with the physical conditions of the room, he has been expressing worry and curiosity about their job: GUS.

I wonder who it’ll be tonight. … BEN. Stop wondering. You’ve got a job to do. Why don’t you just do it and shut up?276

The job is murder. Gus thinks about their last job; they have killed a girl for reasons of which they are ignorant: GUS.

Who clears up after we’ve gone? I’m curious about that. Who does the clearing up? Maybe they don’t clear up. … BEN (pityingly). You mutt. Do you think we’re the only branch of this organization? Have a bit of common. They got departments for everything.277 274 Harold Pinter, “The Dumb Waiter,” in Plays One (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 136. 275 Pinter, “The Dumb Waiter,” 140. 276 Pinter, “The Dumb Waiter,” 127. 277 Pinter, “The Dumb Waiter,” 131.

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Gus asks questions he is not supposed to ask. Authority desires full submission. Once they enter the organization, they are no longer individuals on their own rights but merely parts of the whole. Ben recognizes this; Gus does not: Who is it upstairs? … Who moved in? I asked you. You said the people who had it before moved out. Well, who moved in? … What’s he doing it for? We’ve been through our tests, haven’t we? We got right through our tests, years ago, didn’t we? We’ve proved ourselves before now, haven’t we! We’ve always done our job. What’s he doing all this for? What’s the idea? What’s he playing these games for?278

Gus no longer waits dumbly, he thinks, he questions various aspects of his job. Yet, in this system only the dumb waiter, are privileged enough to survive; Gus—the dissatisfied killer—is to be eliminated from the organization. Such are the rules of the power game. Once one gives in, there can be no turning back. At the end of the comic play, comedy stops and death becomes imminent. The sudden reversal shows how ruthless the system of the unnamed organization is. The final tableau is shocking. Having just talked to the authority through the speaking tube, Ben has the orders for the new job: BEN.

… Understood. Repeat. He has arrived and will be coming in straight away. The normal method to be employed. Understood.279 … (The door right opens sharply. BEN turns, his revolver levelled at the door. GUS stumbles in. He is stripped of his jacket, waistcoat, tie, holster and revolver. He stops, body stooping, his arms at his sides. He raises his head and looks at BEN. A long silence. They stare at each other.)280

With the final twist, it turns out that Gus is the last victim.

278

Pinter, “The Dumb Waiter,” 145-146. Pinter, “The Dumb Waiter,” 148. 280 Pinter, “The Dumb Waiter,” 149. 279

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Some twenty-five years later, Pinter, in his interview with Nicholas Hern, said about The Dumb Waiter that it was quite obvious to the actors that the chap who is upstairs and is never seen is a figure of authority. Gus questions this authority and rebels against it and therefore is squashed at the end, or is about to be squashed. The political metaphor was very clear to the actors and directors of the first production in 1960.281

The political metaphor is woven into Pinter’s early plays in the form of the individual’s encounter with the power figure. Pinter’s characters, when confronted with the authoritarian force, try to conform to it, to find some common territory and make an ally. Stanley in The Birthday Party struggles to please Goldberg and McCann; Ben and Gus in The Dumb Waiter serve the power above to the best of their capacities; Lamb in The Hothouse willingly takes part in the experiment. Yet, even such submission which can be equated with prostitution of the self may not suffice for the authority figure is inhuman in his remorselessness and detachment.

The Caretaker The subtle political level that operates in these early comedies of menace is also detected in The Caretaker (1960). An old tramp, Davies, is brought by Aston to his house. The house is apparently owned by Mick, Aston’s brother. The common motif of the outsider intruding into the security of a secluded room is also present here. Aston is mentally unstable, supposedly as a result of the electronic shock treatments he received at a psychiatric hospital. Aston offers Davies kindness and friendship in his own peculiar manner but Davies abuses him. The power figure in the house is Mick, who treats Davies badly. Yet, Davies, seeing that authority is in Mick’s hands, chooses to line up with him, rather than the kind but weak Aston. Involved in the dangerous game of playing the brothers against one another, Davies prepares his own end. Apparently, the fraternal bond between Mick and Aston proves to be a strong one and Mick has Davies evicted. The political reference in the play lies in the weak subject’s (Davies) desire to find shelter under the protection of an authority figure (Mick).

281

Hern, “A Play and its Politics,” 7.

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Full submission requires the negation of identity and debasement of the individual: DAVIES. Well ... he’s a funny bloke, your brother. MICK. What? DAVIES. I was saying, he’s ... he’s a bit of a funny (MICK stares at him.) MICK. Funny? Why? DAVIES. Well ... he’s funny. ... MICK. What’s funny about him?

bloke, your brother.

(Pause.) DAVIES. Not liking work. MICK. What’s funny about DAVIES. Nothing.

that?

(Pause.) MICK. I don’t call it DAVIES. Nor me.282

funny.

The pathetic reversal in Davies, his fluctuation and his readiness to obey anything and everything that comes from Mick, the authority, make him an ally to Stanley, Ben, Gus and Lamb: when the vulnerable individual is entrapped in the grip of the power figure, he loses all freedom and sense of identity. These early plays, Pinter’s exercises in abstract terror, embody the dramatist’s vision of universal politics. Pinter’s attitude to his work seems to have undergone a considerable change in the 1980s. During the early phase of his career, the dramatist had said, I’m convinced that what happens in my plays could happen anywhere, at any time, in any place, although the events may seem unfamiliar at first glance. If you press me for a definition, I’d say that what goes on in my plays is realistic, but what I’m doing is not realism.283

Pinter’s plays in the 1980s, however, are particular responses to particular situations. What Pinter is doing in these plays is clearly realism. In One for the Road (1985) and Mountain Language (1988), Pinter uses the stage as a political arena and the dimension of propaganda is more than obvious. Such being the case, it is understandable that Pinter seemed to be

282

Pinter, “The Caretaker,” 47-48. Harold Pinter, “Writing for Myself,” in Plays Two (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), ix.

283

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contradicting his earlier comments regarding the inappropriateness of the stage for particular messages: If you’ve got something you want to say to the world, then you’d be worried that only a few thousand people might see your play. Therefore, you’d do something else. You’d become a religious teacher or a politician perhaps. But if you don’t want to give some particular message to the world, explicitly and directly, you just carry on writing and you’re quite content.284

Pinter’s earlier vision about the function of the theatre underwent a transformation in the 1980s. Pinter had warned his audiences against the kind of playwright who tells them how to feel and what to think: Beware of the writer who puts forward his concern for you to embrace, who leaves you in no doubt of his worthiness, his usefulness, his altruism, who declares that his heart is in the right place, and ensures that it can be seen in full view, a pulsating mass where his characters ought to be.285

While it is non-arguable that Pinter—in the last phase of his career— became the kind of playwright he used to stand aloof from, it should be highlighted that his thematic concerns did not change. What changed was that the subtle political vein in his work, which worked powerfully on a universal (or abstract) plane, was transformed into a specific (or concrete) one.

One for the Road One for the Road (1984) is Pinter’s attempt at awakening social consciousness about torture, which he deems to be an accepted routine in prisons worldwide. The play is a slightly different, though much more condensed version of The Hothouse. The basic difference is that The Hothouse uses metaphor to a great extent; whereas One for the Road is much more specific and direct. What lies at the heart of both plays is the relationship between the power of authority and his subjects, the victimizer and the victim. In the postscript to the play, Pinter states that the play is an outcome of his experiences in Turkey: In 1984 Arthur Miller and Harold Pinter visited Turkey on behalf of International Pen. They were invited by the Turkish Peace Association in order to witness the 284

Pinter, “Writing for Myself,” ix. Harold Pinter, “Writing for the Theater,” in Plays One (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), xi.

285

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situation in the prisons. In the interview he granted to Nicholas Hern, Pinter says that the play is his response to official torture, subscribed to by many governments, but particularly by the Turkish government: … Turkish prisons, in which there are thousands of political prisoners, really are among the worst in the world. After arrest, a political prisoner is held incommunicado for forty-five days, under martial law. Torture is systematic.286

One for the Road refers to facts that Pinter wishes his audience to know about. The grim humor that characterizes Pinter’s drama is absent in this play; he is “in deadly earnest; it is as though the clown has taken off his make-up.”287 For Pinter the situation is so important that “it’s past a joke.”288 The play concentrates on physical and psychological torture. The authority figure is Nicolas; the family under arrest has three members: Victor, the father, Gila, the mother, and Nicky, their seven-year-old son. The play opens with Nicolas at his desk in a setting not clearly specified but one that implies a police station. Nicolas has Victor brought in. Victor is a writer, an intellectual. His clothes torn, and his body bruised, Victor is allotted a few short lines in the play for he barely has the energy to talk and he knows that whatever he says is in vain. Nicolas has all the power. Reminiscent of Orwell’s Big Brother in 1984, Nicolas knows what is right and to preserve the right order he dedicates his life. He is the protector of political and religious order; his heart is in the right place: … if you don’t respect me you’re unique. Everyone else knows the voice of God speaks through me. You’re not a religious man, I take it? (Pause) You don’t believe in a guiding light? (Pause) What then? (Pause) So ... morally ... you flounder in wet shit. You know ... Like when you’ve eaten a rancid omelette.289

Nicolas, possessing all the power within those walls, not only takes immense pride in that but also justifies that for he is a man who acts 286

Hern, “A Play and its Politics,” 13. Hern, “A Play and its Politics,” 11. 288 Hern, “A Play and its Politics,” 11. 289 Harold Pinter, One for the Road (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1986), 40. 287

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legitimately for his country. He’s a patriot and to defend his country’s values, he can do anything: torture, rape, or murder. However, it is not only his blind devotion to the orders given to him but also his natural sadistic self which leads him into taking in human measures. He enjoys witnessing the fragility of his victim: What do you think this is? It’s my finger. And this is my little finger. I wave my big finger in front of your eyes. Like this. And now I do the same with my little finger. I can also use both … at the same time. Like this. I can do absolutely anything I like. Do you think I’m mad? My mother did. (Pause.) Do you think waving fingers in front of people’s eyes is silly? I can see your point. You’re a man of the highest intelligence. But would you take the same view if it was my boot—or my penis? Not my eyes. Other people’s eyes. The eyes of people who are brought to me here. They’re so vulnerable. The soul shines through them.290

Authority is practiced by a man who openly says he loves the death of others: “Death. Death. Death. As has been noted by the most respected authorities, it is beautiful. The purest, most harmonious thing there is. Sexual intercourse is nothing compared to it.”291 Preaching honesty and patriotism and talking about his wife in the utmost derogatory terms, Nicolas drives Victor to the verge of despair: “Kill me.”292 Nicolas’ encounter with the seven-year-old boy, Nicky, is ironic for the child comes forth as a more mature being than the narrow-minded Nicolas who interrogates a child for kicking his men: NICOLAS.

… You like soldiers. Good. But you spat at my soldiers and you kicked them. You attacked them. NICKY. Were they your soldiers? NICOLAS. They are your country’s soldiers. NICKY. I didn’t like those soldiers. NICOLAS. They don’t like you either, my darling.293

Nicolas’ third encounter is with Gila, who has been raped by several soldiers. Gila’s father was a patriot, one who fought for his country. According to Nicolas, Victor and Gila are debasing the memory of her father who was revered by everyone: “He didn’t think, like you shitbags. 290

Pinter, One for the Road, 33. Pinter, One for the Road, 45-46. 292 Pinter, One for the Road, 51. 293 Pinter, One for the Road, 58-59. 291

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He lived. He lived. He was iron and gold. He would die, he would die, he would die, for his country, for his God.”294 Nicolas’ treatment of his victims shows how horrible it can be to lose the privacy and integrity of body and mind. Thoroughly debased and having lost their only son, the couple might have been better off if they were dead. The last line of the play underlines the ruthless, cold, and inhuman detachment of authority: “Your son? Oh, don’t worry about him. He was a little prick.”295 The play is remorseless. Witnessing such physical and psychological degradation on the stage is too disturbing for the audience. The result Pinter wants to achieve is revolt but the play is too commonplace. Were it a memoir by a man who was tortured, a man who experienced such inhuman scorn, it would have made a greater impact with its first-hand truth and clinical observations.

Mountain Language Mountain Language (1988) is another play whose political message is clear. As a dramatic product, however, it excels in One for the Road—a play of explicit remorselessness and didacticism. Mountain Language is based on the psychological torture to which a group of hooded people are subjected in prison. Forbidden to speak their native language, they are abused by the authorities whom the dramatist approaches with some humor but basically anger. Echoes of The Hothouse are heard throughout the play. The comic elements revolve around the typical high-flown, earnest authoritarian language employed about trivial or absurd subjects: OFFICER.

Look at this woman’s hand. I think the thumb is going to come off. (To ELDERLY WOMAN) Who did this? (She stares at him.) Who did this? YOUNG WOMAN. A big dog. OFFICER. What was his name? (Pause) What was his name? (Pause) Every dog has a name! They answer to their name. They are given a name by their parents and that is their name, that is their name! Before they bite, they state their name. It’s a formal procedure. They state their name and then they bite. What was his name? If you tell me one

294 295

Pinter, One for the Road, 66. Pinter, One for the Road, 79.

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of our does bit this woman without giving his name, I will have that dog shot!296

Pinter is trying to reveal through the absurdity of the situations, created by the sharp contrast between the innocence and naturalness of the hooded people on the one hand and the dehumanizing scorn of the authorities on the other hand, his protest of the state’s law: OFFICER.

Now hear this. You are mountain people. You hear me? Your language is dead. It is forbidden. It is not permitted to speak your mountain language in this place. You cannot speak your language to your men. It’s not permitted. Do you understand? You may not speak it. It is outlawed. You may only speak the language of the capital. That is the only language permitted in this place. You will be badly punished if you attempt to speak your mountain language in this place. This is a military decree. … Your language no longer exists.297

While the issue of banning or allowing the use of the mother tongue lies at the heart of the play, the use of language by the oppressor also deserves critical attention. Ibrahim Yerebakan draws attention to the obscene and provocative use of language in the play and connects it to the radicalization of the dramatist toward the end of his career (155).298 Similar to the other political plays discussed in this chapter, vulgar and filthy words abound in Mountain Language: “Sergeant’s Voice- Who is that fucking woman? What is that fucking woman doing here? Who let that fucking woman through that fucking door?”299

Yerebakan observes that “… through the menacing and offensive tone, these words evoke the immediate notion that language in this context is the most savage instrument and the torture equipment of these authoritarian figures.”300

296

Harold Pinter, “Mountain Language,” in Plays Four (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), 393. 297 Pinter, “Mountain Language,” 395. 298 Ibrahim Yerebakan, “Explicit Language, Radical Tone: Harold Pinter’s Obscene Words Speak Louder than Action,” in Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 39, Heft 2 (Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2014), 155. 299 Pinter, “Mountain Language,” 401. 300 Yerebakan, “Explicit Language, Radical Tone: Harold Pinter’s Obscene Words Speak Louder than Action,” 162.

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The play aims to show how the minority group is oppressed to come to the point of psychological degradation and collapse. The prisoners and their relatives find safety in total passivity and retreat for they are made to understand that any contradictory statement or action results in torture. At the end of the play, the curtain falls on the prisoner’s old mother who has been subjected to the guard’s verbal assaults in a language she does not understand. Forbidden to speak in her language, she has been tortured psychologically. Now that his trembling son, with blood all over him, tells her that the regulations have changed until further notice and she can speak in her language, she cannot respond. The catatonic trance of the old woman is reminiscent of that of Stanley in The Birthday Party: attacked, perplexed, and finally defeated by the power figures, the victim is dispossessed. PRISONER.

Mother? (She does not respond. She sits still. The PRISONER’s trembling grows. He falls from the chair onto his knees, begins to gasp and shake violently. The SERGEANT walks into the room and studies the PRISONER shaking on the floor.) SERGEANT (to GUARD). Look at this. You go out of your way to give them a helping hand and they fuck it up.301

The irreconcilability between the strong and the weak, the one who has the power and the one who does not, the victimizer and the victim, the ruler and the subject underlines Pinter’s drama. Power is at the root of all menace: what it does to its holder’s psyche is a thematic point in several plays of the dramatist. Power distorts logic and it dehumanizes its holder. The desire to dominate is an animalistic instinct that often proves to be stronger than the civilized human ego. Pinter’s political sensibility as such is revealed in almost all of his early plays and certainly in the most recent ones which crystallized his previously subtle political frame of mind. The evolution in that direction has been unfortunate for Pinter’s art, now subservient to a certain political trend, has lost its reference to a mysterious universality.

The New World Order The New World Order (1991) is a brutal play about torture. A short one-act play with three characters, The New World Order takes a step further than the typical Pinteresque obliqueness regarding the identity of 301

Pinter, “Mountain Language,” 405-406.

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the two characters whose dialogue constitutes the entire play. Having watched the first performance directed by Pinter himself, theatre critic Robert Cushman reviewed the play: “A man is gagged and bound in his chair. Two guys lounge behind him, discussing in debonair fashion what they are going to do to him, never getting specific. This is the new Pinter, who has re-harnessed his great genius for smart intimidation in the cause of political protest. The New World Order lasts ten nerve-wracking minutes and gets closer to the … torture than any play I know.”302 Des and Lionel keep looking at and conversing about the blindfolded man, who sits on a chair and never utters a word throughout the play. The main topic of their conversation is what they will be doing to him shortly. The what is never specified but brutally insinuated. Neither Des and Lionel’s exact plans nor the identity of the blindfolded man is disclosed. The subtext reveals that he is there to be tortured: DES.

…He has little idea of what we might do to him, of what in fact we are about to do to him. LIONEL. Or his wife. Don’t forget his wife. He has little idea of what we’re about to do to his wife.303 The notion of the subject’s being in a position where s/he turns into a passive object vulnerable to attack did not leave Pinter. From his earliest plays through his political evolution, that concern remained as a thematic constant: LIONEL.

Who is this cunt anyway? What is he, some kind of peasant—or a lecturer in theology? DES. He’s a lecturer in fucking peasant theology.304 … …Before he came in here, he was a big shot, he never stopped shooting his mouth off, he never stopped questioning received ideas. Now— because he’s apprehensive about what’s about to happen to him—he’s stopped all that, he’s got nothing more to say, he’s more or less called it a day. I mean once—not too long ago—this man was a man of conviction, wasn’t he, a man of principle. Now he’s just a prick. LIONEL. Or a cunt.305 302

Robert Cushman, “Review of New World Order by Harold Pinter.” Independent on Sunday, July 21, 1991. 303 Harold Pinter, “The New World Order,” Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 2nd expanded ed. (Chatham, Kent: Mackays of Chatham, PLC, 2005), 272-273. 304 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 273.

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The interrogators/torturers Des and Lionel address their victim as both cunt and prick—vulgar words referring literally to female and male genitals respectively and figuratively to a despicable individual. Des says “the terms are mutually contradictory. You’d lose face in any linguistic discussion, take my tip.”306 However, as Stephen Gregory posits, the terms “may be contradictory, but both terms apply to the prisoner who, although male, is now vulnerable to any thrust of his tormentors’ power, passively open to any violation they may inflict on him.”307 The establishment’s policies are so deeply ingrained in the mindset of Des and Lionel that the play ends on a powerful note with their ecstatic expression of loyalty: (Lionel puts his hand over his face and sobs.) you crying about? it. I love it. I love it. … I feel so pure. DES. Well, you’re right. You are right to feel pure. You know why? LIONEL. Why? DES. Because you’re keeping the world clean for democracy. (They look into each other’s eyes.) I am going to shake you by the hand. (DES shakes LIONEL’s hand. He then gestures to the man in the chair with his thumb.) And so will he … (He looks at his watch.) … in about thirty-five minutes.”308 DES. What are LIONEL. I love

Gregory argues that “the opposition’s policies are conceived here not only as a political threat but as an affront to the establishment’s representatives’ whole sense of self-worth.”309 Des and Lionel are overcome with joy as they confirm their responsibility for keeping the world clean for democracy. The inference is that they are champions of American missionary policies of bringing democracy to the world. As it 305

Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 276. Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 275. 307 Stephen Gregory, “Ariel Dorfman and Harold Pinter: Politics of the Periphery and Theatre of the Metropolis.” Comparative Drama, Vol.30 No: 3 (Fall 1996): 332. 308 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 276-278. 309 Gregory, “Ariel Dorfman and Harold Pinter: Politics of the Periphery and Theatre of the Metropolis,” 383. 306

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has already been pointed out, this hint about the identity of the torturers leads Pinter’s political drama away from the universal level to a new localized plane.

Party Time Written in 1991, the same year as The New World Order, Party Time is a sneering and cynical political play and the two plays lend themselves quite conveniently to a double bill. They are on the beat as they illustrate the brutality and self-centered bias of the establishment’s supporters. Both plays are chilling and terrifying in their depiction of inhumanity. The setting is a posh flat; Gavin, the flat’s owner, hosts an elegant cocktail party. Belonging to the stylish privileged bourgeoisie, the guests talk about a new country club in extravagant terms: it has a great pool and bar, exceptional food and service, and lovely girls. All in all, the play starts with the depiction of a paradise-like place. Everyone seems happy. Adjectives such as “beautiful”, “wonderful”, and “lovely” fly in the air. However, not all is well. When an old woman, Dame Melissa, arrives at the party, what is taking place outside of the house is revealed: MELISSA. What on earth’s going on out there? It’s like the Black Death. TERRY. What is? MELISSA. The town’s dead. There’s nobody on the streets, there’s not a soul

in sight, apart from some…soldiers. My driver had to stop at a…you know…what do you call it? … a roadblock. We had to say who we were … it really was a trifle… GAVIN. Oh, there’s just been a little …you know…310

The roadblock and the necessity to present identity cards to be allowed to pass imply the presence of a repressive regime. The party-goers belong to the privileged elite class. While host Gavin underestimates the happenings outside, Dusty—Terry’s young wife—says “I keep hearing all these things. I don’t know what to believe,” to which Terry responds, “You don’t have to believe anything. You just have to shut up and mind your own business, how many times do I have to tell you? You come to a lovely party like this, all you have to do is shut up and enjoy the hospitality and mind your own fucking business. How many more times do I have to tell you? You keep hearing all these things spread by pricks about pricks. What’s it got to do with you?”311 310

Harold Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 2nd expanded ed. (Chatham, Kent: Mackays of Chatham, PLC, 2005), 286. 311 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 287-288.

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Terry’s language demonstrates not only the widespread misogynistic stance, which will be accentuated later on in the play but also the unconcern and indifference to whatever is happening in the country. Terry chides his wife, who asks “Does anyone know what’s happened to my brother Jimmy?”312 Being a woman, she is not allowed to think or have an agenda or question what she has been led to believe. Terry’s denial that Dusty can ever have any agenda shows that women are expected to subordinate to their husbands. Women are to be controlled and silenced: GAVIN. So odd, the number of men who can’t control their wives. TERRY. What? GAVIN. It’s the root of so many ills, you know. Uncontrollable wives.313

When Terry threatens his wife Dusty, who cannot forget her brother Jimmy’s disappearance, saying “you’re all going to die together, you and all your lot”, he reveals his desire to suppress all political dissidents.314 The bourgeoisie’s narcissistic male members exude a demeaning and condescending attitude. Stephen Watt argues that “the ruthless extinction of political opponents is paralleled by an equally oppressive subjugation of women and their reinscription in the limited roles of wives and mothers.”315 The apolitical materialism of the members of the club (the club may be interpreted as a metaphor for the upper class in Britain in the Thatcher era) manifests superficiality, complacency, and indifference to the conditions of the country. All that matters for the people of this idyllic world is “elegance, style, grace, taste.”316 Likewise, Terry articulates what they value: “I am referring to the kind of light, the kind of paint, the kind of music, the club offers. I’m talking about a truly warm and harmonious environment. You won’t find voices raised in our club. People don’t do vulgar and sordid and offensive things. And if they do, we kick them in the balls and chuck them down the stairs with no trouble at all.”317 The sentiment in Terry’s speech is enhanced by Melissa’s monologue that raises the level of elation at the party and earns applause on all fronts: “But 312

Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 296. Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 297. 314 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 302. 315 Stephen Watt, “Misogyny, Postmodern Impurity, and Pinter’s Political Turn,” Staging the Rage: The Web of Misogyny in Modern Drama, ed. Katherine H. Burkman and Judith Roof (London: Associated University Presses, 1998), 87. 316 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 299. 317 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 310. 313

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our club, our club—is a club which is activated, which is inspired by a moral sense, a moral awareness, a set of moral values which is—I have to say—unshakeable, rigorous, fundamental, constant.”318 In contrast to the idyllic life offered at the club, “quite smashing”319 in host Gavin’s words, a dark world of state violence and oppression is implied through the presence of Jimmy’s ghostly presence on the stage: JIMMY.

I had a name. It was Jimmy. People called me Jimmy. That was my name.

… Sometimes a door bangs, I hear voices, then it stops. Everything stops. It all stops. It all closes. It closes down. It shuts. It all shots. It shuts down. It shuts. I see nothing at any time anymore. I sit sucking the dark. It’s what I have. The dark is in my mouth and I suck it. It’s the only thing I have. It’s mine. It’s my own. I suck it.320

While other versions of Jimmy—the victimized dissident—may be found in the other plays discussed in this chapter, reflections of the ecstatic club members may be seen in those plays, as well. The effervescence of the party-goers regarding the beauty of their exquisite club and what it imparts to them is reminiscent of the torturer Lionel’s tears of joy at the belief in his purity and cleanliness in The New World Order. In Party Time, the central metaphor of the club serves the same function as the valorized concept of the nation and the establishment in One for the Road, Mountain Language, and The New World Order. Yet, all of these political plays foreground the attempts to barbarically eradicate dissent for the sake of the preservation of values upheld by the power-holding group. As Keith Peacock postulates, Pinter’s “political plays reflect no political ideology, nor are they detached political analyses. Instead, through a sequence of powerful, economical, and effective images, they are intended to provoke the audience into sharing the dramatist’s undisguised moral revulsion.”321

318

Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 311. Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 313. 320 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 313-314. 321 Keith D. Peacock, Harold Pinter and the New British Theatre (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1997), 142. 319

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Celebration Pinter’s last play, Celebration (1999) finds a place in this chapter on account of its socio-political dimension. Initially performed in 2000 as part of a double bill with Pinter’s first play—The Room—, Celebration is a feast for the trained Pinter readers /audience in that it embodies some typically Pinteresque elements such as linguistic maneuvers, use of memory, trope of violence, and subtext. The setting is an upper-scale London restaurant. There are three married couples—two at one table and the other at another table. The two couples at the first table are two brothers and two sisters: Lambert and Julie are celebrating their wedding anniversary with Lambert’s brother Matt and Julie’s sister Prue. At the second table are seated Russell and his wife Suki. As is expected in Pinter’s plays, appearances are misleading and all six guests unearth the ghosts of their pasts in their conversations. Lambert and Matt are nouveau-rich businessmen whose discourse reveals their coarseness, lack of refinement and eloquence, as well as ignorance. Particularly Lambert’s vulgar address to his wife is striking. The trained Pinter audience reads the subtext: LAMBERT. I’ve got a loyal wife where? PRUE. Here! At this table. LAMBERT. I’ve got one under the table,

take my tip. (He looks under the table.) Christ. She’s really loyal under the table. Always has been. You wouldn’t believe it.322

While the whore/wife image is clearly reminiscent of Ruth in The Birthday Party, there are subtler precursors in earlier plays – such as Rose in The Room. The couple at the second table articulates the word whore openly: RUSSELL. You’re a whore. SUKI. A whore in the wind. RUSSELL. With the wind blowing SUKI. That’s right.323

up your skirt.

Martin Esslin argues that Celebration “presents a microcosm of postThatcherite Britain, a society dominated by greed and dumbed-down 322 323

Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 446. Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 449-450.

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educational and intellectual standards.”324 The posh restaurant serves expensive food and drinks to customers who pay a fortune owing to not the food but the feeling of belonging there: LAMBERT. …What did I order? JULIE. Who cares? LAMBERT. Who cares? I bloody PRUE. Osso Bucco. LAMBERT. Osso what? PRUE. Bucco. MATT. It’s an old Italian dish. LAMBERT. Well I knew Osso

care.

was Italian but I know bugger all about Bucco. MATT. I didn’t know arsehole was Italian.325

The level of their cultural illiteracy is emphasized further when Richard, the maître d’hotel asks them if they have been to a play: MATT. No. The ballet. RICHARD. Oh the ballet? What was it? LAMBERT. That’s a fucking good question. MATT. It’s unanswerable. RICHARD. Good, was it? LAMBERT. Unbelievable. JULIE. What ballet? MATT. None of them could reach the top notes. RICHARD. Good dinner? MATT. Fantastic. LAMBERT. Top notch. Gold plated.326 (456)

Could they?

As to the second couple, they cannot remember the name of the opera they watched before coming to the restaurant: SUKI.

Well… there was a lot going on. A lot of singing. A great deal, as a matter of fact. They never stopped. Did they?327 (464)

324

Martin Esslin, “Harold Pinter: From Moonlight to Celebration,” in The Pinter Review Collected Essays 1999 and 2000, ed. Gillen, Francis and Steven H. Gale (Tampa: The University of Tampa Press, 2000), 29. 325 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 440-441. 326 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 455-456. 327 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 464.

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Undoubtedly, the play is a satire of the newly rich social class of Britain in the 1990s. Its political dimension stems from the fact that it specifies the socio-cultural milieu it depicts and the coarseness it presents to the attributes of that class. In that respect, it bears similarities to the depiction of the club members in Party Time. The posh restaurant is another version of the club and the patrons are like the club members. Robert Gordon posits that “the cultural meaning of the restaurant is that it is a kind of temple which exists to valorize the gross materialism of contemporary culture through its style or class.”328 The frequent use of the adjectives lovely and happy attests to the mood that emanates from the setting: SUKI.

Everyone is so happy in your restaurant. I mean women and men. You make people so happy. RICHARD. Well, we do like to feel that it’s a happy restaurant. RUSSELL. It’s a happy restaurant. For example, look at me. I’m basically a disordered personality, some people would describe me as a psychopath. … But when I’m sitting in this restaurant, I suddenly find I have no psychopathic tendencies at all. I don’t feel like killing everyone in sight, I don’t feel like putting a bomb under everyone’s arse. I feel something quite different, I have a sense of equilibrium, of harmony, I love my fellow diners. Now this is very unusual for me. Normally I feel—as I’ve just said—absolute malice and hatred towards everyone within spitting distance—but here I feel love. How do you explain it? SUKI. It’s the ambiance. RICHARD. Yes, I think ambiance is that intangible thing that cannot be defined.329 (474-475)

Represented as possessing some kind of a narcotizing effect, the restaurant is similar to the club in Party Time in that it gives diners “sensory pleasures and the comfort of exclusive privilege as gratifications designed to dull their naked fear and aggression. In reality, the restaurant celebrates the replacement of a feudal system of class privilege by the power of money.”330 However, as the restaurant is managed according to rigid discipline and authoritarian order, the inference is that possibly as a 328

Robert Gordon, “Celebration in Performance: The Drama of Environment,” in The Pinter Review Collected Essays 1999 and 2000, ed. Gillen, Francis and Steven H. Gale (Tampa: The University of Tampa Press, 2000), 67. 329 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 474-475. 330 Gordon, “Celebration in Performance: The Drama of Environment,” 68.

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metaphor of Britain, its bright package is maintained by expelling nonconformists. Lambert declares that “…this is the best and most expensive restaurant in the whole of Europe—because he [Richard, the maître d’hotel] insists upon proper standards, he insists that standards are maintained with the utmost rigor, you get me? That standards are maintained up to the highest standards, up to the very highest fucking standards—.”331 The tautology in Lambert’s speech, typically Pinteresque, does not convey much meaning except connoting that he unwillingly conforms to the rules set by the restaurant. The posh restaurant hosts well-dressed guests who eat Cordon-bleu dishes and drink the most expensive wine but swear to one another freely—men and women alike. The repressed violence finds an outlet in their words as they desire to hurt each other deliberately. Pinteresque violence is at work here; the characters do not punch but deal blows with words. Words are the most powerful weapons in Pinter’s drama. Suki admits to her husband, who confessed his adultery with a secretary—a scrubber—, that she was a promiscuous secretary in the past and she has been “behind a few filing cabinets”332: SUKI.

… sometimes I could hardly walk from one filing cabinet to another I was so excited, I was so plump and wobbly, it was terrible, men simply couldn’t keep their hands off me, their demands were outrageous, but coming back to more important things, they’re right to believe in you, why shouldn’t they believe in you?”333

The subtext reads further than Suki’s past; she may be instrumental in Russell’s climbing up the ladder professionally. When Lambert sees Suki in the restaurant, he frankly says it out loud that he “fucked her when she was eighteen.”334 Suki sees him as well, and she is invited by Lambert to join the party of four. What ensues is a parody of comedy of manners among the group of six. Suki asks Lambert, “Do you still love flowers?”, to which Julie responds: “He adores flowers. The other day I saw him emptying a piss pot into a bowl of lilies.”335 The vulgar talk and insults of the patrons are witnessed by the serving crew at the restaurant. Gordon remarks that “the waiters were treated cavalierly as servants whose services were being bought for the evening by the diners; 331

Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 460. Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 444. 333 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 445. 334 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 486. 335 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 490. 332

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this behavior was later followed by action which insisted on their sexualization as erotic playthings for use by their customers. Gauche behavior and glamorous clothes emphasized the reductive value-system in which everyone on stage has value only as a sex object.”336 Julie and Prue treat Richard, the maître d’hotel, as if he were a prostitute: PRUE.

Can I thank you? Can I thank you personally? I’d like to thank you myself, in my own way. RICHARD. Well thank you. PRUE. No no, I’d really like to thank you in a very personal way. JULIE. She’d like to give you her personal thanks. PRUE. Will you let me kiss you? I’d like to kiss you on the mouth? JULIE. That’s funny. I’d like to kiss him on the mouth too. (She stands and goes to him.) Because I’ve been maligned, I’ve been misrepresented. I never said I didn’t like your sauce. I love your sauce. PRUE. We can’t both kiss him on the mouth at the same time. LAMBERT. You could tickle his arse with a feather.337

This is a world in which love has become obsolete; Lambert says, “I’m talking about love, mate. You know, real fucking love, walking along the banks of a river holding hands.”338 Love belongs to a nostalgic past, like tradition, class, and literature. To illustrate, Matt sings a song: Ain’t she neat? Ain’t she neat? As she is walking up the street. She’s got a lovely bubbly pair of tits And a soft leather seat.339

Matt thinks the erotic song is a traditional folk song that has got “tradition and class.”340 The shallow and unrefined characters do not seem to have any interests except material goods and sex. Their ignorance emerges at several points in the play; an example is their unawareness of Freud’s Oedipus complex, which has comedic effect:

336

Gordon, “Celebration in Performance: The Drama of Environment,” 69. Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 458-459. 338 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 472. 339 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 447. 340 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 448. 337

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All mothers-in-law are like that. They love their sons. They love their boys. They don’t want their sons to be fucked by other girls. Isn’t that right? PRUE. Absolutely. All mothers want their sons to be fucked by themselves. JULIE. By their mothers. PRUE. All mothers— LAMBERT. All mothers want to be fucked by their mothers. MATT. Or by themselves. PRUE. No, you’ve got it the wrong way round. LAMBERT. How’s that? MATT. All mothers want to be fucked by their sons.341

The waiter is the most enigmatic character in the play. Saying “Do you mind if I interject?”342, he approaches the tables three times and delivers long speeches about his grandfather’s familiarity with English and American literary masters, Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Hollywood film stars. Nostalgia for the artistic and literary treasure of the past—in a naïve and confused fashion, though—emanates from his speeches.343 However mysterious he may be, he definitely belongs to a class different from that of the posh restaurant’s patrons. At one point, he tells Suki and Russell that “This place is like a womb to me. I prefer to stay in my womb. I strongly prefer that to being born.”344 The womb image insinuates an unstained state of being and so is the young waiter. Hence, he stands apart from the banker Russell and the strategy consultant brothers—Matt and Lambert. When everyone leaves, the waiter stands alone and gives his soliloquy embodying images of a cliff, a telescope, a boat, and the sea that glistens and finishes off at an abstract plane of reference: “My grandfather introduced me to 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.”345 It is the subtle melancholy of this soliloquy and the incomplete ending that makes the play mysterious as is expected of the dramatist.

341

Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 452-453. Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 466. 343 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 467. 344 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 469. 345 Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 508. 342

TO CONCLUDE: PINTER PRECISELY…

Before writing his first overtly political play, One for the Road (1984), Pinter wrote a very short dramatic sketch entitled Precisely (1983). The sketch that has two characters—Stephen, who does all the talking, and Roger, who approves of everything Stephen says—is composed of a single dialogue, which, with its pauses and tautologies, is typically Pinteresque: STEPHEN.

Time and again. Twenty million. That’s what we’ve said. Time and time again. It’s a figure supported by facts. We’ve done our homework. Twenty million is a fact. When these people say thirty, I’ll tell you exactly what they’re doing—they’re distorting the facts. ROGER. Scandolus. STEPHEN. Quite. I mean, how the hell do they know? ROGER. Quite. STEPHEN. We’ve done the thinking. ROGER. Quite. STEPHEN. That’s what we’re paid for. ROGER. Paid a bloody lot too. STEPHEN. Exactly. Good money for good brains.346 (215-216)

The cloud of mystery that hangs over all of Pinter’s plays in varying degrees reaches its zenith in this sketch. What may the characters be talking about when they give numbers in millions? The only italicized words in the text come from the extract quoted above: know and thinking. The inference is that Stephen and Roger have done the thinking; so, they have the facts and they know it is twenty million. Besides, as Stephen says, “… the citizens of this country are behind us. They’re ready to go with us on the twenty million basis. They’re perfectly happy! And what are faced with from these bastards? A deliberate attempt to subvert and undermine their security. And their faith.”347 The references to the citizens, their happiness, security, and faith—of which Stephen considers himself to be a guard—harbor seeds that will be planted in the subsequent political plays. 346 347

Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 215-216. Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 218-219.

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To Conclude: Pinter Precisely…

The dramatist’s masterstroke comes when the reader realizes the millions at stake are of dead bodies: STEPHEN. … It’s twenty million. Dead. ROGER. You mean precisely? STEPHEN. I mean dead. Precisely.

(Pause.) I want you to accept that figure. (Pause.) Accept the figure. (They stare at each other.) ROGER. Twenty million dead, precisely? STEPHEN. Precisely.348

Precisely! The shock effect of the ending is immeasurable. Coupling the figure of twenty million dead with the adverb precisely hosts a load of meaning for the trained Pinter reader who knows all too well that nothing can be known precisely in the dramatist’s world. The who, where, when, and why of the act of killing twenty million people is unknown. After all, Pinter’s drama poses unanswered and unanswerable questions. In his speech on receiving the David Cohen British Literature Prize in 1995, Pinter accepted the adjectives attributed to his works by scholars as truisms: “enigmatic, taciturn, terse, prickly, explosive, and forbidding.”349 (XII). Indeed, these qualities constitute the basis of his dramatic writing that spanned almost half a century. Pinter’s characters are elusive because the quintessence of his plays is that no one can be fully known or possessed in a world governed by power games. Opening one’s heart and confiding in someone is risky in Pinter’s world of unnamed dangers. Hence, people disguise their real selves by keeping silent or lying. With barriers on all fronts, Pinter’s characters do not desire to communicate; so, theirs is a world of non-communication, which Pinter is a master of. Indeed, a distinctive feature of Harold Pinter’s drama is to create a world where people talk without conversing. This is achieved by several Pinteresque methods. Firstly, Pinter’s characters know how to use language without really communicating. Pinter admits that this is another form of silence. All kinds of verbal games are played to avoid 348 349

Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, 219-220. Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays 4, xii.

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literal silence and replace it with its more intricate version. Besides, the characters talk not to each other but past each other. Consequently, conversations may become a string of twin monologues or soliloquies. When there is no genuine communication, neither space nor time can be shared, which leads to unease and anxiety. Pinter’s language has a multi-layered nature, which gives birth to the subtext as the essential component of the plays. It is not the plot but the characters that are important as the dramatist is obsessed with memory, space, and territory. Even in plotless situations depicted by the dramatist, there is a subtext of deep unhappiness. Pinter’s characters are enveloped by their pasts, which may affect their present deeply by offering a retreat or a traumatic source. Reading Pinter is a unique experience of scraping the surface and drilling deep to encounter sometimes oblique darkness, sometimes more overt horror. Be it in a domestic, institutional, or state context, characters inhabit a fearful world where their privacy and dignity are in danger. Everyone should watch their backs as oppression is unavoidable in a world ruled by power games. Hence, Pinter’s dramatic world is filled with anxious souls shackled by their vulnerabilities, pasts, or traumas.

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