Janet CollinsHarold Pinter – His Life
December 26th 2008 11:54
Sadly another great playwright has passed away. Harold Pinter, a renowned playwright has passed away after a long illness at 78. During his life, Pinter wrote 30 plays and more than 20 screenplays and his plays have been performed in schools and acting academies repeadedly.
Pinter wrote plays such as “The Birthday Party”, “The Caretaker”, “Betrayal” and “The Homecoming”/ His screenplay adaptions included “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” which starred Merryl Streep and “The Last Tycoon”, the story of Aristotle Onassis.
Pinter initially embarked on an acting career and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art but his real fame came in the art of his writing. As a playwright Pinter gained much recognition even though he had also acted in and directed many movies and plays.
Anyone who has studied drama knows Harold Pinter. His plays were powerful and many of them focussed on the powerful and the powerless of people in society.
Pinter was also very politically active. He was publicly opposed to the Vietnam War and even after he received the Nobel Prize for literature in 2005 was not reluctant to speak out about the invasion of Iraq, accusing the US of abusing its power internationally to drive a war while camouflaging it as something that was in everyone’s interest.
The one thing about his plays is that they won’t die with him.
Image courtesy of The Seattle Times
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Comment by colocountry
My love of theatre wasn't shaped by Harold Pinter but as I studied theatre as a means of expressing an idea, I began to appreciate his significant contribution to our modern understanding of theatre. He was the master of the pregnant pause that was loaded with menace or accusative venom! Contemporary theatre often flirts with Pinters conventions but somehow seems to retreat to less confrontary ground...perhaps that realisation is his greatest accolade. Pinter pushed buttons and allowed his characters to provide answers. Those who dismiss him as a weird existentialist, miss those very real trappings of the suburb and metropolitan soul.
Col
Comment by Janet Collins
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Yes, the silences in his plays were where he was strongest.
Comment by colocountry
Where are the lovers of the 'boards'/ Perhaps Christmas claims the regular contributors to your blog. What a shame. One wou;ld hope that there are some who can recognise that Pinter holds a significant place in the history of public performance that started with Aeschelus and is alive and throbbing still!
Col
Comment by Janet Collins
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Thanks again for commenting. I think it is more the reaility that Brittany Spears and others are given more acclaim than someone like Pinter. Shame.
Thanks again for visitingl
Comment by Norm
Consumption Malfunction
Equal and Opposite
Arses and Elbows
Footy Power
Comment by Janet Collins
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It sure is.