Nobel-winning playwright Harold Pinter dead at 78
LONDON (Reuters) ñ Harold Pinter, the British playwright and Nobel laureate famous for brooding portrayals of domestic life and his barbed politics, died aged 78 on Christmas Eve after battling cancer, media reported on Thursday.
Pinter, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 2005, was a vocal opponent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, likening President George W. Bush’s administration to the Nazis and calling former British Prime Minister Tony Blair a “mass murderer.”
His plays, including “The Caretaker” and “The Homecoming,” were regarded as among the finest of the last half century and enjoyed a recent renaissance as modern audiences tapped into his dark studies of tedious lives balancing on the edge of chaos.
Pinter’s second wife, Lady Antonia Fraser, told the Guardian newspaper he was “a great.”
“It was a privilege to live with him for over 33 years. He will never be forgotten,” she said.
Pinter’s work influenced a generation of British dramatists, defined the “kitchen sink” drama and introduced a new word to the English language. “Pinteresque” perfectly describes taught silences peppered with half-stated insights.
His plays exuded tension, were spiced with erotic fantasies and were full of obsession, jealousy and hatred. Critics dubbed Pinter’s chilling masterpieces “the theater of insecurity.”
But the son of a working-class Jewish tailor never helped audiences to unravel the meaning of his plays, telling them: “There are no hard distinctions between what is real and unreal.”
MARITAL SCANDAL
From 1958 to 1978 a flurry of Pinter plays changed the face of British theater. But then silence fell for 15 years until the London production of his next full-length play, “Moonlight.”
He became the subject of marital scandal in 1980 when his actress wife Vivien Merchant, his long-time muse, divorced him because of an affair with Lady Fraser, a renowned author and daughter of anti-pornography campaigner Lord Longford.
Pinter married Fraser later that year but Merchant, star of many Pinter plays, died in 1982, a victim of alcoholism.
In later life Pinter turned to political activism, campaigning for human rights, nuclear disarmament and speaking out against Western foreign policy.
“The crimes of the U.S. throughout the world have been systematic, constant, clinical, remorseless and fully documented but nobody talks about them,” he said.
Pinter also carved out a distinguished career as a screenwriter with hits such as “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” and “The Servant.”
But, back in 1958, Pinter’s first full-length play — “The Birthday Party” — was almost his last.
Critics derided him, the play folded after a week and the budding playwright trying to support a wife and young baby contemplated quitting.
Influential critic Harold Hobson rescued him, saying “Mr Pinter, on the evidence of this work, possesses the most original, disturbing and arresting theatrical talent in London.”
Less than two years after his first play flopped, Pinter’s second play “The Caretaker” opened in London’s West End and established his reputation as a major dramatist.
Categories