Harold Pinter had recently moved into a ve-story 1820 Nash house

facing Regents Park in London. The view from the oor-through

top oor where he has installed his ofce overlooks a duck pond
and a long stretch of wooded parkland; his desk faces this view,
and in late October 1966, when the interview took place, the
changing leaves and the hazy London sun constantly distracted
him as he thought over questions or began to give answers. He
speaks in a deep, theater-trained voice that comes rather surprisingly
from him, and indeed is the most remarkable thing about him
physically. When speaking he almost always tends to excessive
qualication of any statement, as if coming to a nal denition of
things were obviously impossible. One gets the impressionas
one does with many of the characters in his playsof a man so
deeply involved with what hes thinking that roughing it into
speech is a painful necessity.
He was not working at any writing projects when the
interview took place, and questions about his involuntary idleness
(many questions came back to it without meaning to) were
particularly uncomfortable for him. His own work is alternatively
a source of mystery, amusement, joy, and anger to him; in looking
THE ART OF THEATER
NO.
3
HAROLD PINTER
2 HAROLD PI NTER
it over he often discovered possibilities and ambiguities that he had
not noticed or had forgotten. One felt that if only he would rip out
his telephone and hang black curtains across the wide windows he
would be much happier, though he insists that the great boredom
one has with oneself is unrelated to his environment or
his obligations.
When he wrote his rst plays, in 1957, he was homeless,
constantly on tour as an actor with a repertory stage company,
playing all sorts of parts in obscure seaside resorts and provincial
cities. His wife, the actress Vivien Merchant, toured with him, but
when she became pregnant in 1958 it was necessary for them to
nd a home, and they took a basement room in Londons shabby
Notting Hill Gate section, in a building where Mr. Pinter worked
as a caretaker to pay his rent. When their son was born they
borrowed enough money to move to a less shabby district in
Chiswick, but both had to return to full-time acting when Mr.
Pinters rst full-length play, The Birthday Party, was a full-scale
op in 1958. The production of The Caretaker in 1960 produced
enough money for a move to the middle-class district of Kew, and
then, thinking he could live on his writings, Mr. Pinter moved his
family to a bowfronted Regency house in the south-coast seaside
town of Worthing. But the two-hour drive to London became
imperative too often, and so they moved once again, to a rented
at in Kensington, until Mr. Pinters lucrative lm scripts made it
possible for them to buy the Regents Park house. Though it is not
yet completely renovated, the size and comfort of it are impressive,
as is Mr. Pinters ofce, with a separate room nearby for his
secretary and a small bar equally nearby for the beer and Scotch
that he drinks steadily during the day, whether working or not.
Bookshelves line one-half the area, and a velvet chaise longue faces
the small rear garden. On the walls are a series of Feliks Topolski
sketches of London theater scenes; a poster of the Montevideo
production of El Cuidador; a small nancial balance sheet indicating
that his rst West End production, The Birthday Party, earned two
hundred sixty pounds in its disastrous weeks run; a Picasso
2
THE PARI S REVI EW 3
drawing; and his citation from when he was named to the Order
of the British Empire last spring. The year after the Beatles,
he emphasizes.
Lawrence M. Bensky, 1966
I NTERVI EWER
When did you start writing plays, and why?
HAROLD PI NTER
My rst play was The Room, written when I was twenty-seven.
A friend of mine called Henry Woolf was a student in the drama
department at Bristol University at the time when it was the only
drama department in the country. He had the opportunity to direct
a play, and as he was my oldest friend he knew Id been writing,
and he knew I had an idea for a play, though I hadnt written any
of it. I was acting in rep at the time, and he told me he had to have
the play the next week to meet his schedule. I said this was
ridiculous; he might get it in six months. And then I wrote it in
four days.
I NTERVI EWER
Has writing always been so easy for you?
PI NTER
Well, I had been writing for years, hundreds of poems and
short pieces of prose. About a dozen had been published in little
magazines. I wrote a novel as well; its not good enough to be
published, really, and never has been. After I wrote The Room,
which I didnt see performed for a few weeks, I started to work
immediately on The Birthday Party.
4 HAROLD PI NTER
I NTERVI EWER
What led you to do that so quickly?
PI NTER
It was the process of writing a play that had started me going.
Then I went to see The Room, which was a remarkable experience.
Since Id never written a play before, Id of course never seen one
of mine performed, never had an audience sitting there. The only
people whod ever seen what Id written had been a few friends
and my wife. So to sit in the audiencewell, I wanted to piss very
badly throughout the whole thing, and at the end I dashed out
behind the bicycle shed.
I NTERVI EWER
What other effect did contact with an audience have on you?
PI NTER
I was very encouraged by the response of that university
audience, though no matter what the response had been I would
have written The Birthday Party, I know that. Watching rst
nights, though Ive seen quite a few by now, is never any better. Its
a nerve-racking experience. Its not a question of whether the play
goes well or badly. Its not the audience reaction, its my reaction.
Im rather hostile toward audiencesI dont much care for large
bodies of people collected together. Everyone knows that
audiences vary enormously; its a mistake to care too much about
them. The thing one should be concerned with is whether the
performance has expressed what one set out to express in writing
the play. It sometimes does.
I NTERVI EWER
Do you think that without the impetus provided by your
friend at Bristol you would have gotten down to writing plays?
4
THE PARI S REVI EW 5
PI NTER
Yes, I think I was going to write The Room. I just wrote it a
bit quicker under the circumstances; he just triggered something
off. The Birthday Party had also been in my mind for a long time.
It was sparked off from a very distinct situation in digs when I was
on tour. In fact, the other day a friend of mine gave me a letter
I wrote to him in nineteen-fty-something, Christ knows when it
was. This is what it says: I have lthy insane digs, a great bulging
scrag of a woman with breasts rolling at her belly, an obscene
household, cats, dogs, lth, tea strainers, mess, oh bullocks, talk,
chat rubbish shit scratch dung poison, infantility, decient order in
the upper fretwork, fucking roll on. Now the thing about this is
that was The Birthday PartyI was in those digs, and this woman
was Meg in the play, and there was a fellow staying there in
Eastbourne, on the coast. The whole thing remained with me, and
three years later I wrote the play.
I NTERVI EWER
Why wasnt there a character representing you in the play?
PI NTER
I hadI havenothing to say about myself, directly. I wouldnt
know where to begin. Particularly since I often look at myself in
the mirror and say, Who the hells that?
I NTERVI EWER
And you dont think being represented as a character on stage
would help you nd out?
PI NTER
No.
I NTERVI EWER
Have your plays usually been drawn from situations youve
been in? The Caretaker, for example.
6 HAROLD PI NTER
PI NTER
Id met a few, quite a few, trampsyou know, just in the
normal course of events, and I think there was one particular one
. . . I didnt know him very well, he did most of the talking when
I saw him. I bumped into him a few times, and about a year or so
afterward he sparked this thing off.
I NTERVI EWER
Had it occurred to you to act in The Room?
PI NTER
No, nothe acting was a separate activity altogether. Though
I wrote The Room, The Birthday Party, and The Dumb Waiter in
1957, I was acting all the time in a repertory company, doing all
kinds of jobs, traveling to Bournemouth and Torquay and
Birmingham. I nished The Birthday Party while I was touring in
some kind of farce, I dont remember the name.
I NTERVI EWER
As an actor, do you nd yourself with a compelling sense of
how roles in your plays should be performed?
PI NTER
Quite often I have a compelling sense of how a role should be
played. And Im provedequally as oftenquite wrong.
I NTERVI EWER
Do you see yourself in each role as you write? And does your
acting help you as a playwright?
PI NTER
I read them all aloud to myself while writing. But I dont see
myself in each roleI couldnt play most of them. My acting doesnt
impede my playwriting because of these limitations. For example,
6
THE PARI S REVI EW 7
Id like to write a playIve frequently thought of thisentirely
about women.
I NTERVI EWER
Your wife, Vivien Merchant, frequently appears in your plays.
Do you write parts for her?
PI NTER
No. Ive never written any part for any actor, and the same
applies to my wife. I just think shes a very good actress and a very
interesting actress to work with, and I want her in my plays.
I NTERVI EWER
Acting was your profession when you rst started to write
plays?
PI NTER
Oh, yes, it was all I ever did. I didnt go to university. I left
school at sixteenI was fed up and restless. The only thing that
interested me at school was English language and literature, but I
didnt have Latin and so couldnt go on to university. So I went to
a few drama schools, not studying seriously; I was mostly in love
at the time and tied up with that.
I NTERVI EWER
Were the drama schools of any use to you as a playwright?
PI NTER
None whatsoever. It was just living.
I NTERVI EWER
Did you go to a lot of plays in your youth?
PI NTER
No, very few. The only person I really liked to see was Donald

8 HAROLD PI NTER
Wolt, in a Shakespeare company at the time. I admired him
tremendously; his Lear is still the best Ive ever seen. And then
I was reading, for years, a great deal of modern literature,
mostly novels.
I NTERVI EWER
No playwrightsBrecht, Pirandello . . . ?
PI NTER
Oh, certainly not, not for years. I read Hemingway,
Dostoyevsky, Joyce, and Henry Miller at a very early age, and
Kafka. Id read Becketts novels, too, but Id never heard of Ionesco
until after Id written the rst few plays.
I NTERVI EWER
Do you think these writers had any inuence on your writing?
PI NTER
Ive been inuenced personally by everyone Ive ever read
and I read all the timebut none of these writers particularly
inuenced my writing. Beckett and Kafka stayed with me the
mostI think Beckett is the best prose writer living. My world is
still bound up by other writersthats one of the best things in it.
I NTERVI EWER
Has music inuenced your writing, do you think?
PI NTER
I dont know how music can inuence writing; but it has been
very important for me, both jazz and classical music. I feel a sense
of music continually in writing, which is a different matter from
having been inuenced by it. Boulez and Webern are now com-
posers I listen to a great deal.
8
Manuscript page for The Homecoming
10 HAROLD PI NTER
I NTERVI EWER
Do you get impatient with the limitations of writing for
the theater?
PI NTER
No. Its quite different; the theaters much the most difcult
kind of writing for me, the most naked kind, youre so entirely
restricted. Ive done some lm work, but for some reason or other
I havent found it very easy to satisfy myself on an original idea for
a lm. Tea Party, which I did for television, is actually a lm,
cinematic, I wrote it like that. Television and lms are simpler than
the theaterif you get tired of a scene you just drop it and go on
to another one. (Im exaggerating, of course.) What is so different
about the stage is that youre just there, stuckthere are your
characters stuck on the stage, youve got to live with them and deal
with them. Im not a very inventive writer in the sense of using the
technical devices other playwrights dolook at Brecht! I cant use
the stage the way he does, I just havent got that kind of imagination,
so I nd myself stuck with these characters who are either sitting
or standing, and theyve either got to walk out of a door, or come
in through a door, and thats about all they can do.
I NTERVI EWER
And talk.
PI NTER
Or keep silent.
I NTERVI EWER
After The Room, what effect did the production of your next
plays have on your writing?
PI NTER
The Birthday Party was put on at the Lyric, Hammersmith in
London. It went on a little tour of Oxford and Cambridge rst,
10
THE PARI S REVI EW 11
and was very successful. When it came to London it was com-
pletely massacred by the criticsabsolutely slaughtered. Ive never
really known why, nor am I particularly interested. It ran a week.
Ive framed the statement of the box-ofce takings: two hundred
sixty pounds, including a rst night of one hundred forty pounds
and the Thursday matinee of two pounds, nine shillingsthere
were six people there. I was completely new to writing for the pro-
fessional theater, and it was rather a shock when it happened. But
I went on writingthe BBC were very helpful. I wrote A Slight
Ache on commission from them. In 1960 The Dumb Waiter was
produced, and then The Caretaker. The only really bad experience
Ive had was The Birthday Party; I was so green and gauchenot
that Im rosy and condent now, but comparatively . . . Anyway,
for things like stage design I didnt know how to cope, and I didnt
know how to talk to the director.
I NTERVI EWER
What was the effect of this adversity on you? How was it
different from unfavorable criticism of your acting, which surely
youd had before?
PI NTER
It was a great shock, and I was very depressed for about
forty-eight hours. It was my wife, actually, who said just that to
me: Youve had bad notices before, et cetera. Theres no
question but that her common sense and practical help got me over
that depression, and Ive never felt anything like that again.
I NTERVI EWER
Youve directed several of your plays. Will you continue to do so?
PI NTER
No. Ive come to think its a mistake. I work much as I write,
just moving from one thing to another to see whats going to
happen next. One tries to get the thing . . . true. But I rarely get it.

12 HAROLD PI NTER
I think Im more useful as the author closely involved with a play:
as a director I think I tend to inhibit the actors, because however
objective I am about the text and try not to insist that this is whats
meant, I think there is an obligation on the actors too heavy to bear.
I NTERVI EWER
Since you are an actor, do actors in your plays ever approach
you and ask you to change lines or aspects of their roles?
PI NTER
Sometimes, quite rarely, lines are changed when were working
together. I dont at all believe in the anarchic theater of so-called
creative actorsthe actors can do that in someone elses plays.
Which wouldnt, however, at all affect their ability to play in mine.
I NTERVI EWER
Which of your plays did you rst direct?
PI NTER
I codirected The Collection with Peter Hall. And then I directed
The Lover and The Dwarfs on the same bill at the Arts. The Lover
didnt stand much of a chance because it was my decision, regretted
by everyoneexcept meto do The Dwarfs, which is apparently
the most intractable, impossible piece of work. Apparently
ninety-nine people out of a hundred feel its a waste of time, and
the audience hated it.
I NTERVI EWER
It seems the densest of your plays in the sense that theres quite
a bit of talk and very little action. Did this represent an experiment
for you?
PI NTER
No. The fact is that The Dwarfs came from my unpublished
12
THE PARI S REVI EW 13
novel, which was written a long time ago. I took a great deal from
it, particularly the kind of state of mind that the characters were in.
I NTERVI EWER
So this circumstance of composition is not likely to be repeated?
PI NTER
No. I should add that even though it is, as you say, more
dense, it had great value, great interest for me. From my point of
view, the general delirium and states of mind and reactions and
relationships in the playalthough terribly sparseare clear to
me. I know all the things that arent said, and the way the charac-
ters actually look at each other, and what they mean by looking at
each other. Its a play about betrayal and distrust. It does seem very
confusing and obviously it cant be successful. But it was good for
me to do.
I NTERVI EWER
Is there more than one way to direct your plays successfully?
PI NTER
Oh, yes, but always around the same central truth of the play
if thats distorted, then its bad. The main difference in interpretation
comes from the actors. The director can certainly be responsible
for a disaster, toothe rst performance of The Caretaker in
Germany was heavy and posturized. Theres no blueprint for any
play, and several have been done entirely successfully without me
helping in the production at all.
I NTERVI EWER
When you are working on one, what is the key to a good
writer-director relationship?
PI NTER
What is absolutely essential is avoiding all defensiveness
14 HAROLD PI NTER
between author and director. Its a matter of mutual trust and
openness. If that isnt there, its just a waste of time.
I NTERVI EWER
Peter Hall, who has directed many of your plays, says that
they rely on precise verbal form and rhythm, and when you write
pause it means something other than silence, and three dots
are different from a full stop. Is his sensitivity to this kind of
writing responsible for your working well together?
PI NTER
Yes, it is, very much so. I do pay great attention to those points
you just mentioned. Hall once held a dot and pause rehearsal for
the actors in The Homecoming. Although it sounds bloody
pretentious, it was apparently very valuable.
I NTERVI EWER
Do you outline plays before you start to write them?
PI NTER
Not at all. I dont know what kind of characters my plays will
have until they . . . well, until they are. Until they indicate to me
what they are. I dont conceptualize in any way. Once Ive got the
clues I follow themthats my job, really, to follow the clues.
I NTERVI EWER
What do you mean by clues? Can you remember how one of your
plays developed in your mindor was it a line-by-line progression?
PI NTER
Of course I cant remember exactly how a given play
developed in my mind. I think what happens is that I write in a
very high state of excitement and frustration. I follow what I see
on the paper in front of meone sentence after another. That
doesnt mean I dont have a dim, possible overall ideathe image
14
THE PARI S REVI EW 15
that starts off doesnt just engender what happens immediately, it
engenders the possibility of an overall happening, which carries me
through. Ive got an idea of what might happensometimes Im
absolutely right, but on many occasions Ive been proved wrong by
what does actually happen. Sometimes Im going along and I nd
myself writing C. comes in when I didnt know that he was
going to come in; he had to come in at that point, thats all.
I NTERVI EWER
In The Homecoming, Sam, a character who hasnt been very
active for a while, suddenly cries out and collapses several minutes
from the end of the play. Is this an example of what you mean? It
seems abrupt.
PI NTER
It suddenly seemed to me right. It just came. I knew hed have
to say something at one time in this section and this is what
happened, thats what he said.
I NTERVI EWER
Might characters therefore develop beyond your control of
them, changing your ideaeven if its a vague ideaof what the
plays about?
PI NTER
Im ultimately holding the ropes, so they never get too far
away.
I NTERVI EWER
Do you sense when you should bring down the curtain, or do
you work the text consciously toward a moment youve already
determined?
PI NTER
Its pure instinct. The curtain comes down when the rhythm

16 HAROLD PI NTER
seems rightwhen the action calls for a nish. Im very fond of
curtain lines, of doing them properly.
I NTERVI EWER
Do you feel your plays are therefore structurally successful?
That youre able to communicate this instinct for rhythm to the
play?
PI NTER
No, not really, and thats my main concern, to get the structure
right. I always write three drafts, but you have to leave it eventually.
There comes a point when you say, Thats it, I cant do anything
more. The only play that gets remotely near to a structural entity
which satises me is The Homecoming. The Birthday Party and
The Caretaker have too much writing. I want to iron it down,
eliminate things. Too many words irritate me sometimes, but I
cant help them, they just seem to come outout of the fellows
mouth. I dont really examine my works too much, but Im aware
that quite often in what I write, some fellow at some point says an
awful lot.
I NTERVI EWER
Most people would agree that the strength in your plays lies in
just this verbal aspect, the patterns and force of character you can
get from it. Do you get these words from people youve heard
talkingdo you eavesdrop?
PI NTER
I spend no time listening in that sense. Occasionally I hear
something, as we all do, walking about. But the words come as Im
writing the characters, not before.
I NTERVI EWER
Why do you think the conversations in your plays are
so effective?
16
THE PARI S REVI EW 17
PI NTER
I dont know. I think possibly its because people fall back on
anything they can lay their hands on verbally to keep away from
the danger of knowing, and of being known.
I NTERVI EWER
What areas in writing plays give you the most trouble?
PI NTER
Theyre all so inextricably interrelated I couldnt possibly judge.
I NTERVI EWER
Several years ago, Encounter had an extensive series of
quotations from people in the arts about the advisability of
Britains joining the Common Market. Your statement was the
shortest anyone made: I have no interest in the matter and do not
care what happens. Does this sum up your feeling about politics,
or current affairs?
PI NTER
Not really. Though thats exactly what I feel about the
Common MarketI just dont care a damn about the Common
Market. But it isnt quite true to say that Im in any way indifferent
to current affairs. Im in the normal state of being very confused
uncertain, irritated, and indignant in turns, sometimes indifferent.
Generally, I try to get on with what I can do and leave it at that. I
dont think Ive got any kind of social function thats of any value,
and politically theres no question of my getting involved because
the issues are by no means simpleto be a politician you have to
be able to present a simple picture even if you dont see things
that way.
I NTERVI EWER
Has it ever occurred to you to express political opinions
through your characters?

18 HAROLD PI NTER
PI NTER
No. Ultimately, politics do bore me, though I recognize they
are responsible for a good deal of suffering. I distrust ideological
statements of any kind.
I NTERVI EWER
But do you think that the picture of personal threat that is
sometimes presented on your stage is troubling in a larger sense, a
political sense, or doesnt this have any relevance?
PI NTER
I dont feel myself threatened by any political body or activity
at all. I like living in England. I dont care about political structures
they dont alarm me, but they cause a great deal of suffering to
millions of people.
Ill tell you what I really think about politicians. The other
night I watched some politicians on television talking about
Vietnam. I wanted very much to burst through the screen with a
amethrower and burn their eyes out and their balls off and then
inquire from them how they would assess this action from a
political point of view.
I NTERVI EWER
Would you ever use this anger in a politically oriented play?
PI NTER
I have occasionally out of irritation thought about writing a
play with a satirical point. I once did, actually, a play that no one
knows about. A full-length play written after The Caretaker.
Wrote the whole damn thing in three drafts. It was called The
Hothouse and was about an institution in which patients were
kept: all that was presented was the hierarchy, the people who ran
the institution; one never knew what happened to the patients or
what they were there for or who they were. It was heavily
satirical, and it was quite useless. I never began to like any of the
THE PARI S REVI EW 19
characters; they really didnt live at all. So I discarded the play at
once. The characters were so purely cardboard. I was intentionally
for the only time, I thinktrying to make a point, an explicit
point, that these were nasty people and I disapproved of them. And
therefore they didnt begin to live. Whereas in other plays of mine
every single character, even a bastard like Goldberg in The
Birthday Party, I care for.
I NTERVI EWER
You often speak of your characters as living beings. Do they
become so after youve written a play? While youre writing it?
PI NTER
Both.
I NTERVI EWER
As real as people you know?
PI NTER
No, but different. I had a terrible dream, after Id written The
Caretaker, about the two brothers. My house burned down in the
dream, and I tried to nd out who was responsible. I was led
through all sorts of alleys and cafs and eventually I arrived at an
inner room somewhere and there were the two brothers from the
play. And I said, So you burned down my house. They said, Dont
be too worried about it, and I said, Ive got everything in there,
everything, you dont realize what youve done, and they said, Its
all right, well compensate you for it, well look after you all
rightthe younger brother was talkingand thereupon I wrote
them out a check for fty quid . . . I gave them a check for fty
quid!
I NTERVI EWER
Do you have a particular interest in psychology?

20 HAROLD PI NTER
PI NTER
No.
I NTERVI EWER
None at all? Did you have some purpose in mind in writing the
speech where the older brother describes his troubles in a mental
hospital at the end of Act II in The Caretaker?
PI NTER
Well, I had a purpose in the sense that Aston suddenly opened
his mouth. My purpose was to let him go on talking until he was
nished and then . . . bring the curtain down. I had no ax to grind
there. And the one thing that people have missed is that it isnt
necessary to conclude that everything Aston says about his
experiences in the mental hospital is true.
I NTERVI EWER
Theres a sense of terror and a threat of violence in most of
your plays. Do you see the world as an essentially violent place?
PI NTER
The world is a pretty violent place, its as simple as that, so any
violence in the plays comes out quite naturally. It seems to me an
essential and inevitable factor.
I think what youre talking about began in The Dumb Waiter,
which from my point of view is a relatively simple piece of work.
The violence is really only an expression of the question of
dominance and subservience, which is possibly a repeated theme in
my plays. I wrote a short story a long time ago called The
Examination, and my ideas of violence carried on from there.
That short story dealt very explicitly with two people in one room
having a battle of an unspecied nature, in which the question was
one of who was dominant at what point and how they were going
to be dominant and what tools they would use to achieve
dominance and how they would try to undermine the other
20
THE PARI S REVI EW 21
persons dominance. A threat is constantly there: its got to do with
this question of being in the uppermost position, or attempting to
be. Thats something of what attracted me to do the screenplay of
The Servant, which was someone elses story, you know. I wouldnt
call this violence so much as a battle for positions; its a very
common, everyday thing.
I NTERVI EWER
Do these ideas of everyday battles, or of violence, come from
any experiences youve had yourself?
PI NTER
Everyone encounters violence in some way or other. It so
happens I did encounter it in quite an extreme form after the war,
in the East End, when the Fascists were coming back to life in
England. I got into quite a few ghts down there. If you looked
remotely like a Jew you might be in trouble. Also, I went to a
Jewish club, by an old railway arch, and there were quite a lot of
people often waiting with broken milk bottles in a particular alley
we used to walk through. There were one or two ways of getting
out of itone was a purely physical way, of course, but you couldnt
do anything about the milk bottleswe didnt have any milk bottles.
The best way was to talk to them, you know, sort of Are you all
right? Yes, Im all right. Well, thats all right then, isnt it?
And all the time keep walking toward the lights of the main road.
Another thing: we were often taken for communists. If you
went by, or happened to be passing, a Fascist street meeting and
looked in any way antagonisticthis was in Ridley Road market,
near Dalston Junctiontheyd interpret your very being, especially
if you had books under your arms, as evidence of your being a
Communist. There was a good deal of violence there, in those days.
I NTERVI EWER
Did this lead you toward some kind of pacism?

22 HAROLD PI NTER
PI NTER
I was fteen when the war ended. There was never any question
of my going when I was called up for military service three years
later: I couldnt see any point in it at all. I refused to go. So I was
taken in a police car to the medical examination. Then I had two
tribunals and two trials. I could have gone to prisonI took my
toothbrush to the trialsbut it so happened that the magistrate
was slightly sympathetic, so I was ned instead, thirty pounds in
all. Perhaps Ill be called up again in the next war, but I wont go.
I NTERVI EWER
Robert Brustein has said of modern drama, The rebel dramatist
becomes an evangelist proselytizing for his faith. Do you see
yourself in that role?
PI NTER
I dont know what hes talking about. I dont know for what
faith I could possibly be proselytizing.
I NTERVI EWER
The theater is a very competitive business. Are you, as a writer,
conscious of competing against other playwrights?
PI NTER
Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living. Im
never conscious of any competition going on here.
I NTERVI EWER
Do you read things written about you?
PI NTER
Yes. Most of the time I dont know what theyre talking about;
I dont really read them all the way through. Or I read it and it
goesif you asked me what had been said, I would have very
little idea. But there are exceptions, mainly nonprofessional critics.
I NTERVI EWER
How much are you aware of an audience when you write?
PI NTER
Not very much. But Im aware that this is a public medium.
I dont want to bore the audience, I want to keep them glued to
what happens. So I try to write as exactly as possible. I would try
to do that anyway, audience or no audience.
I NTERVI EWER
There is a storymentioned by Brustein in The Theater of
Revoltthat Ionesco once left a performance of Genets The
Blacks because he felt he was being attacked, and the actors were
enjoying it. Would you ever hope for a similar reaction in your
audience? Would you react this way yourself?
PI NTER
Ive had that reactionits happened to me recently here in
London, when I went to see US, the Royal Shakespeare Companys
anti-Vietnam-War production. There was a kind of attackI dont
like being subjected to propaganda, and I detest soapboxes. I want
to present things clearly in my own plays, and sometimes this does
make an audience very uncomfortable, but theres no question
about causing offense for its own sake.
I NTERVI EWER
Do you therefore feel the play failed to achieve its purpose
inspiring opposition to the war?
PI NTER
Certainly. The chasm between the reality of the war in
Vietnam and the image of what US presented on the stage was so
enormous as to be quite preposterous. If it was meant to lecture or
shock the audience I think it was most presumptuous. Its impossible
THE PARI S REVI EW 23
to make a major theatrical statement about such a matter when
television and the press have made everything so clear.
I NTERVI EWER
Do you consciously make crisis situations humorous? Often
an audience at your plays nds its laughter turning against itself as
it realizes what the situation in the play actually is.
PI NTER
Yes, thats very true, yes. Im rarely consciously writing humor,
but sometimes I nd myself laughing at some particular point that
has suddenly struck me as being funny. I agree that more often
than not the speech only seems to be funnythe man in question
is actually ghting a battle for his life.
I NTERVI EWER
There are sexual undertones in many of these crisis situations,
arent there? How do you see the use of sex in the theater today?
PI NTER
I do object to one thing to do with sex: this scheme afoot on
the part of many liberal-minded persons to open up obscene lan-
guage to general commerce. It should be the dark secret language
of the underworld. There are very few wordsyou shouldnt kill
them by overuse. I have used such words once or twice in my
plays, but I couldnt get them through the Lord Chamberlain.
Theyre great, wonderful words, but must be used very sparingly.
The pure publicity of freedom of language fatigues me, because its
a demonstration rather than something said.
I NTERVI EWER
Do you think youve inspired any imitations? Have you
ever seen anything in a lm or theater that struck you as,
well, Pinteresque?
24 HAROLD PI NTER
PI NTER
That word! These damn words and that word Pinteresque
particularlyI dont know what theyre bloody well talking
about! I think its a great burden for me to carry, and for other
writers to carry. Oh, very occasionally Ive thought listening to
something, Hello, that rings a bell. But it goes no further than that.
I really do think that writers write on . . . just write, and I nd it
difcult to believe Im any kind of inuence on other writers. Ive
seen very little evidence of it, anyway; other people seem to see
more evidence of it than I do.
I NTERVI EWER
The critics?
PI NTER
Its a great mistake to pay any attention to them. I think,
you see, that this is an age of such overblown publicity and
overemphatic pinning down. Im a very good example of a writer
who can write, but Im not as good as all that. Im just a writer;
and I think that Ive been overblown tremendously because theres
a dearth of really ne writing, and people tend to make too much
of a meal. All you can do is try to write as well as you can.
I NTERVI EWER
Do you think your plays will be performed fty years from
now? Is universality a quality you consciously strive for?
PI NTER
I have no idea whether my plays will be performed in fty
years, and its of no moment to me. Im pleased when what I write
makes sense in South America or Yugoslaviaits gratifying. But
I certainly dont strive for universalityIve got enough to strive
for just writing a bloody play!
THE PARI S REVI EW 25
I NTERVI EWER
Do you think the success youve known has changed
your writing?
PI NTER
No, but it did become more difcult. I think Ive gone beyond
something now. When I wrote the rst three plays in 1957 I wrote
them from the point of view of writing them; the whole world of
putting on plays was quite remoteI knew they could never be
done in the reps I was acting in, and the West End and London
were somewhere on the other side of the moon. So I wrote these
plays completely unself-consciously. Theres no question that over
the years its become more difcult to preserve the kind of freedom
thats essential to writing, but when I do write, its there. For a
while it became more difcult to avoid the searchlights and all
that. And it took me ve years to write a stage play, The
Homecoming, after The Caretaker. I did a lot of things in the
meantime, but writing a stage play, which is what I really wanted
to do, I couldnt. Then I wrote The Homecoming, for good or bad,
and I felt much better. But now Im back in the same boatI want
to write a play, it buzzes all the time in me, and I cant put pen to
paper. Something people dont realize is the great boredom one has
with oneself, and just to see those words come down again on
paper, I think: Oh Christ, everything I do seems to be predictable,
unsatisfactory, and hopeless. It keeps me awake. Distractions dont
matter to meif I had something to write I would write it. Dont
ask me why I want to keep on with plays at all!
I NTERVI EWER
Do you think youd ever use freer techniques as a way of
starting writing again?
PI NTER
I can enjoy them in other peoples playsI thought the
Marat/Sade was a damn good evening, and other very different
26 HAROLD PI NTER
plays like The Caucasian Chalk Circle Ive also enjoyed. But Id
never use such stage techniques myself.
I NTERVI EWER
Does this make you feel behind the times in any way?
PI NTER
I am a very traditional playwrightfor instance I insist on
having a curtain in all my plays. I write curtain lines for that
reason! And even when directors like Peter Hall or Claude Regy in
Paris want to do away with them, I insist they stay. For me
everything has to do with shape, structure, and overall unity. All
this jamboree in happenings and eight-hour movies is great fun for
the people concerned, Im sure.
I NTERVI EWER
Shouldnt they be having fun?
PI NTER
If theyre all having fun Im delighted, but count me out
completely, I wouldnt stay more than ve minutes. The trouble is
I nd it all so noisy, and I like quiet things. There seems to be such
a jazz and jaggedness in so much modern art, and a great deal of
it is inferior to its models: Joyce contains so much of Burroughs,
for example, in his experimental techniques, though Burroughs is
a ne writer on his own. This doesnt mean I dont regard myself
as a contemporary writer: I mean, Im here.

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