Harold Pinter

Dramatist, scriptwriter, short story writer, novelist, poet, director, and actor, Harold Pinter has earned universal praise for his distinctive style and imagination. In this, the most recent of four volumes, Pinter's work echoes many of his earlier themes and techniques-struggles for power and an ambience of menace-while finding fresh subject matter and means to express his changing dramatic vision. This volume contains three of Pinter's most

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Harold Pinter has long been acknowledged as one of the most influential playwrights in contemporary theatre; his arresting and original works have left a lasting imprint on the development of the stage and screen while delighting audiences around the world. This, the first of four volumes, contains his first five plays, including The Birthday Party (1958), his first full-length drama; as well as two short stories—"The Black and White"

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Two years after their affair has ended, Emma and Jerry -- her husband's best friend -- meet and reflect on their illicit relationship.

"In The Birthday Party, a musician escapes to a dilapidated boarding house, where he falls victim to the shadowy, ritualized violence of two men who have followed him from his sinister past. In The Room, a derelict boarding house again becomes the scene of a visitation from the past when a blind man suddenly arrives to deliver a mysterious message." --

The Caretaker was Harold Pinter's first successful play, first staged in 1960 in London. The play is a subtle exploration of madness, power, and the inertia at the core of many people's lives. But because The Caretaker is such a subtle piece of theatre, it might be worth recapping the plot of the play (if we can call it a 'plot' as such) before proceeding to an analysis of its themes. The dumb waiter: Two hit-men, Ben and Gus, are waiting in a basement...

A night out is the story of a young man who tries to break his ties with his mother ; Night school is a drama of interlocking subterfuge ; the Revue sketches are portraits of ordinary people.

A Kind of Alaska: A woman awakes after twenty nine years in a coma induced by sleeping sickness. 1 man, 2 women, 1 interior. Victoria Station: Humorous exchange between a lost taxi driver and a dispatcher. 2 men, 1 setting. Family Voices: A radio play. Unrelated voices of a mother, father, and son reflect the complexity of familial relationships. 2 men, 1 woman, 1 setting.

"A black comedy set in a government-run mental institution, The Hothouse revolves around a sinister murder plot hatched against a backdrop of corruption, sexual favors, and hopeless bureaucratic ineptitude. Beneath the surface comedy there are frightening implications concerning a bureaucracy ostensibly dedicated to humanitarian concerns, but where people are referred to by numbers and forgotten as easily as troublesome figures on a balance sheet....

First presented by the Royal Court Theatre in London in September of 1996, Ashes to Ashes is a triumph of power and concision. In the living room of a pleasant house in a university town outside of London, Devlin, threatened by his wife Rebecca's recollections of an abusive ex-lover, questions her relentlessly in his need for a single truth. In her seamless blending of what she knows of violence with the wider violence of the world, Rebecca reveals...