Harold Pinter is best known as a writer of absurdist, black comedy plays. He was also a poet, but he mostly focused on play writing during his career in performance. Pinter also was an actor and performed in a number of his own plays and TV productions such as 'The Birthday Party'. Later in his life, we wrote less plays, but instead engaged deeply within international politics. Pinter had a very close association with absurdist play write Samuel Beckett. Beckett was actually extremely anti-social and had few friends. However Pinter able form a close relationship with Beckett despite Beckets anti-social nature. Pinter considered Beckett a master and that he himself did not deserve to placed alongside Beckett as a play write. What makes Pinter standout his work outside of theatre and the unique style of his plays. Pinter had a great deal of humility, he created plays based on his own imperfections and made mistakes. For example, when he was younger, we had a long term affairs two different women. Pinter was also married at the time and the affairs led to the breakdown his marriage, and possibly led to his ex wives death. The subsequent breakdown his his marriage caused by the affairs became the key source material for his play 'The Betrayal'.
He is renowned within British acting circle, with many stars such as Jeremy Irons, Ian Holm or Julie Walters performing Pinter plays early in their careers. Even current generation actors such as Tom Hiddleston, have performed in the Pinter play 'Betrayal Broadway.
Pinter's plays were very unique, especially at the time the plays were originally written. The distinction of his plays came to form it's own term of 'Pinteresque', which not only applies to his plays but any play that attempts to replicate his style. Typical elements of a Pinter plays are that they are based around natural characters in normal, everyday locations such as cafe's, factories, B and B's, bus stops or parks, but this doesn't always have to be the case. 'New World Order' is an example of bringing to light, darker, more secretive elements of society. I'm not sure what he meant specifically the 'New World Order', did he mean, like a New World Order such as that believed conspiracy theorists today. They believe it is represented by secretive organisations such as the Freemasons, Bohemian Grove or the Bilderberg. Did he mean, the Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower brought to light during his term as President of the USA.? Did it mean the Communists, or Western Governments? A New World of Pro Communist (Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Angola, etc.) and Pro West countries, a New World Order. The play representing the Machiavellian acts of British Government. Other plays such as 'The Applicant' also posses some form of torture by what appears to be a department within British Government. With Pinter, it could be any of them, such is the flexibility and simplicity of his plays. Does it even have to mean anything?
The plays also highlighted issues in,particular, racism. In the plays, there are racist characters who may call various ethnic groups by their skin colour. They may say something in regards to those 'blacks', which we now consider in the 21st century, extremely racist., It was normal and acceptable for time. Others were anti immigration may for example, be upset seeing a Peruvian cross the road. This is the fickle of society. We are discriminating against against our own, the everyday person on the street, when we really need to focused on the engineers of the issue, the governments, the NWO's.
This is truly what Pinter's plays represent, bringing to light what is hidden (subtext?), Pinter does directly raise awareness by telling you what his happening, he shows the world to you. It is reality itself that is absurd. For example, war is absurd, especially as at anytime, a natural threat (e.g. a virus) may exist, as and when the universe decides. Pinter was very familiar with war having lived through WW2 as a child.
When he is bringing to light, or to life, the characters he has imagined, he is showing us how pathetic we can be. That if we are not directly involved in government conspiracies, we are still equally complicit because we allow atrocities to be committed in other countries by our own nations soldiers. We sit around complaining about trivial things such as 'some bloke having a sandwich board on his back', yet we do not raise our voices when our countries back 'authoritarian' governments or terrorist groups. If for example, I spend every day of my life, following the same routine, going to the same cafe, eating the same food, having the same trivial, meaningless conversation and not making any attempt to improve my situation, or the world around me, when such atrocities are occurring, it's absurd. This is especially more potent, when you are aware of the world issues that Pinter was involved with. Originally, I thought he was trying to give voice to people who are unseen, or unheard, but when I listened to Pinter's speeches and interviews, he was drawing attention to the absurdity of our society and western government policies. When we are in arms about Russia invading another country, how can we do that when our own governments do the same, if not worse, and order our troops, potentially our family members, into a distant war. Is it OK, when we are the aggressors? The terrorists? Is OK, that we support extreme and/or fanatical governments in power, as long as they are pro west? aka China and Saudi Arabia. Is it OK that we can carry on with our petty lives when our country is committing terrible acts? Can we claim to be perfect? People like to talk, but they rarely talk about what's their mind or key issues. From this perspective, Pinter's plays make sense. The characters talk a lot, they are more than happy to raise their voices in public, but never for anything worth saying.
Pinteresque
The two most classic examples of Pinteresque are the 'Pinter pause' and the use of subtext.
Pinter knew the true power of the pause, not just in plays, but in life. He was involved in politics and joined in conversations with high level government officials. He witnessed in flesh and blood how pauses were used by statesmen and the media influencers. In performance, he essentially created 'the pause'. There may have been pauses used by other play writes, but never anyone who made it an essential part of the play.
In real life, a pause can be used to convey a message without speaking words. If the speaker is pausing, their message may be significant. That the words are difficult to say, because they are meaningful, truthful, but they do not want to say them. When we notice this pause, we are instantly aware that they have something powerful to say and that we must give them time and listen. We are aware of the feelings of the speaker, even if they are not speaking. It is the pauses, the silences that add depth to the words.
There are other times where a pauses occur naturally. They may be used after a message is conveyed in order to give the listener to process and reflect upon the words. During conversation, a pauses are used when a person is thinking of what to say, or what they are trying to recall information.
When acting, if I use pauses I am able to achieve different effects, either to create suspense, or to display subtext. I have found that it gives me as an actor, some time to reflect whilst performing. Its my moment to be with myself, my thoughts, or with my characters thoughts and feelings. It gives time to process what has been said and to allow a natural reaction to occur. Conversations, particular deeper and meaningful conversations, have pauses or silences as we are thinking or reflecting. Its in these moments we are with ourselves, but many are incapable handling their thoughts and feel the need to talk just to ease anxiety. Its irrelevant what they say, they may just talk about everything they did that day. "I got up, I had cup of tea and bacon sandwich. Oh, then I had shower and got dressed. Then I looked out the window and it was raining! So, I put tele on and watched breakfast TV. I watched this and this and this.....". In that sense, the words are both meaningful meaningless, they just passing through life. The shallowness of their conversations, reveals who they are.
London
Due to Pinter's association, many of his plays are set in London and based on character he has seen on public. His plays may be based on characters he saw in a cafe in Hammersmith, He plays were mostly situational, where 2 or more conflicting characters would be grouped in situations where they wouldn't normally associate. Pinter would watch and observe the world around. He may over hear conversations between people and try to figure them out. He would only have limited information to work and his imagination would fill the gaps and allows to characters evolve into a story.
Universal Plays
Pinter's plays are flexible and are considered 'universal'. The characters, time, era, backstory are vague and non specific. Radio, stage or TV/Film. This is mostly to allow the actor creative use of their own imagination during each production. No two versions are ever the same. The characters will always be from the unique perspective from the actors. The plays vision will always be unique to those of the director and producer. They may decide to set the play in alternative time frames, perhaps the present or future, not specifically the time the plays were written. Therefore, the plays writing style keeps the the play fresh and within the times. THe issues raised in the plays are still relevent. The issues include racism, equality, war, hypocrisy and society in general.
When his plays, Pinter did not have character names in mind. The characters might be based on real people, but might not know their names. Characters would be named A, B and C. As before the play is written, he doesn't what their names will be. The names come naturally overtime, they are not essential. In fact, such as in the play ' That's your trouble', still uses character names A and B. The reason I believe Pinter did not use names, is because they are insignificant people. The only reason names are used is generally to question someone, to call them out. Hey (insert name here), how are you?. Characters may have a single name, such as their first name or surname, but not full name. I this characters are not saying the name directly, then essentially, the characters do not require names. I also use of unnamed characters shows that those characters are almost unessential, or merely background players in our world. They are no one. They are some random person street complaining about something meaningless. The use of letters as names also not allowed names progress but allowed characters to change with the development of the play. For example, a character that starts as a male, can become a female if they are unnamed. If I give a male name, I develop a male character. A character with no name, is developed as pure character and not based around gender.
Nobility
Unlike many writers, who receive awards based on their as work as entertainment, Pinter received the Nobel Prize for Literature. He did even consider himself a great writer and massively admired writers such as Samuel Becket. However, Pinter was able to use his influence, knowledge, awareness and charisma, to help persecuted people in war afflicted nations. He very outspoken in regards to the coups in countries such as Nicaragua In this country, they originally had their own elected government. However, the Americans supported a terrorist group known as the Contra's, who then became de facto leaders of the country. The Contra's were extremely brutal in their tactics, killing 1000s of people. However, they were PRO America. They allowed American industries to setup shop in their in countries, in order exploit resources. The Americans did not (and still don't) care who is power in a country as long as they trade with them. At no time are the US and UK governments genuinely concerned with the welfare of citizens of other countries (probably not their own either), as long as that country as something of value . T.
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